Earning Spins!

We have “gumball” machine in our classroom!!

I was trying to think of a new classroom reward system all summer long. It hit me as I was handing over what felt like hundredth quarter to my youngest son for a gumball prize machine. I knew I wanted a gumball machine in my classroom and I just had to figure out what I would fill it with. After some chats with other teachers and the class, we came up with a pretty awesome selection of prizes that everyone would love.

When a student earns a spin, they will get a pass and a quarter to use the gumball machine. I have it filled with actual gumballs, bouncy balls, and other classroom rewards. I love seeing the surprise of the reward excite the student who earned the spin. Everyone cheers their friend on and waits to see what their prize is. I’m excited to hand out these little blue slips to the class this year! Any guesses on how many times I will have to refill this? There are about 200 capsules in here!

  • Yay! You earned a spin!
  • A sneak peek of the prizes!


*Remember Monday 9/19 is Picture Day and that there is no school on Friday 9/23! Fifth Grade is also leading the school Mass on Thursday!*

Here are some pictures from this week. Remember to take a look in our Google Drive often for more pictures! You can find the link under the Classroom Information tab on this blog!

Have a great weekend!

~Mrs. Amezquita

  • Celebrating Calla getting her braces off with blow pops and snickers
  • Yaretzi and her buddy!
  • Sophia letting her buddy draw the things they found.
  • Luke and his buddy on their scavenger hunt!
  • Owen generating story ideas!
  • Sharing their story ideas!
  • More sharing!
  • Laughing at their stories!

Musicians in the Making!

The class has been super excited for our band lessons! Mr. Kozlovsky is an amazing band instructor and I am so glad our class enjoys him as much as I do. I have seen his magic work and I promise all of that noisy practice at home will pay off!

After one of their first band classes, Mr. K told me that the class was AMAZING! He was really excited about how great they are starting off. I can’t wait to see the class progress throughout the year and am looking forward to hearing their growth at the end of the year concert. I should practice my slide whistle!

Mr. K shared a video of the class playing their first song to our class Google Drive. Check out our photo drive often for pictures of our class. I try to upload daily images! You can also find the link under “Classroom Information” on this blog.

Enjoy the video and some other pictures of recent fifth grade happenings!

Very first “song” together!
  • Celebrating Mary’s Birthday!
  • Math in comfortable places!
  • Working hard!
  • Birthday Boys!
  • … Interesting spots for reading!
  • I love the creativity and variety in our class flag art project!
  • Working on our Patriot Day Flag project!
  • MAP Testing Started! We are 3/4 done!

Our First Full Week!

Wow, what a busy week we’ve had! The class is getting used to the routine and working hard! We have busy days filled with a lot of learning and excitement.

Here are some updates:

We started our Tower of Books Challenge this week. Each student has a goal of 30 books to read this year. That breaks down to 10 books a trimester. They have certain genres they have to pick from. After reading they will write a short summary about their book. I will check at the end of each trimester that each student has read their ten books to make sure they are on track to hitting their target. We will also have book report projects at the end of each trimester. The class is excited and ready to take on the challenge… a few friends have chosen to do the 40 book challenge! I encourage you to ask your child about the books they are reading and help them discover new books! This challenge will help the class transition to the reading requirement in middle school. Fifth grade is all about doing things to help us prepare for upstairs!

A copy of the challenge checklist.

We met our preschool buddies today! The class was so excited about this and were asking me almost everyday when they would meet their buddies. We will get together with them each Friday and do different things with them. We will also be taking them to church with us the second half of the year. I love seeing the big kids be such great role models for the littles. We spent time this afternoon exploring their classroom and catching bugs on the playground. Mrs. DeGroot also treated them to popsicles! It was a great day!

We have been busy learning new things in 5th!

Using money to illustrate place value!
We started working on building our writing fluency with a volcano descriptive writing prompt! They had to write a story about the images they were seeing.

The class experienced their first “Friday song” today. I am not sure all of them enjoyed it. Good thing they have all year to learn to love it as much as I do! 😂

“Yesterday was Thursday. Today is Friday. We’re so excited! We’re so excited!“- Rebecca Black

Have a great long weekend! See you Tuesday!

~Mrs. A