Why Focus on Questioning?

I have added a new component to GATE. Each morning we watch a video or view a website and then write 5 questions. Students need to develop curiosity and the skills of questioning to be a 21st century learner. This blog post is a good summary of why this change is good for students.Cultivating Curiosity by Deliberately Teaching Students How to Ask Questions

Emily finished her Innovation project. She chose to study dogs and learned about three breeds. Unfortunately she lost one of her note fact sheets. Emily included two breeds on her poster about Dalmations and Rottweillers. She really enjoyed learning about the history of the breeds.

Students have been working on developing SMART goals for Innovation hour. This students did a great job on narrowing down "work on my drawing" and has developed specific ways to reach his goal. His idea to use tutorials from the web to help him with layout and design show matruity.

Interviewing Skills

In GATE today, the students interviewed adults about overcoming setbacks. Savanna interviewed Mr. AJ. She learned that he was in the Air Force and one day he had to run a mile in under 6 minutes. He couldn't do it. It took him more than six minutes. He kept going because he wanted to make his family proud. He learned that hard work pays off.
Savanna learned that you have to ask good questions, care about who you are interviewing and be serious. You have to make them comfortable so they will be interviewed. Savanna thought it was hard to interview someone she didn't already know.

Save the Animals

Jack has been working on a website to raise money for animals affected by natural disasters. This is the video he will add to his website.

Leadership Unit

 We began our Fifth grade leadership unit by making a concept web to show what we already know. Next we listed all the qualities of a leader and sorted them into categories.

Lastly we developed generaliztion about leaders. Our generalizations focused on the traits and characteristics of leaders. We also read generalizations developed by specialists. We will explore these generalizations in future lessons.

Innovation Hour

Students are planning their projects for Innovation hour. There are some great projects being developed.


Many students are interested in creating multiplayer video games using Sploder.