week of May 30----the newsletter is the first page of this week's homework packet.  Go to Homework, then (at the bottom of the page) find the attached document for this week. 

week of May 23----please open the homework packet to see this week's newsletter.  Go to homework, then find this week's date.  You can open this "pdf" to see the news and each day's assignment.  I apologize profusely for this hassle.  

week of May 16----there is not a newsletter this week.

week of May 9---Please see this week's HW packet for the newsletter.  Go to Homework, then press view or download when you see week of 5-9-11.

week of May 2---please see this week's hw packet for the newsletter.  Go to Homework, then press view when you see week of 5-2-11.

week of March 28, 2011  I didn't send home a newsletter this week.

week of March 21, 2011    

There is a newsletter this week. It's on the first page of the homework packet. If your youngster does not have his or her hw packet available, please visit the homework page of this website, find this week's packet attached to the bottom, and select view. Thanks,  Mr. Arthur 

 

WEEK OF MARCH 14, 2011

I did not send out a newsletter this week. 

week of March 7, 2011

Newsletter is the first page of the hw packet.  Please see the hw page of this website.  By the way, I goofed up the dates on this week's hw packet, and figured out too late----all the copies had already been made.  Ugh!

week of Feb. 14, 2011  There is a newsletter this week.  It is attached to the front of the HW packet.  Go to the Homework page, and download the packet for this week. 

week of Feb. 7, 2011

The actual newsletter is the first page of the homework packet.  You can go to the Homework page of this newsletter and "download" this week's word document.  

WEEK OF JANUARY 31 2011:

Dear parents and students:  The actual newsletter is scanned on the homework packet for this week.  Go to the homework page, press "download" for this week's homework, and it is the first page.

Please note:  I made an error on the BOOK REPORT DATE.  Your third book report, about a Newberry Award Winner or Honor Book, is due before February 28.  I am so sorry for the confusion.  

WEEK OF January 10, 2010 1:

Dear Parents & Students,

There are moments when I step back in awe at how much more the 5^th graders know than I did when I was a whippersnapper:  they seem, sometimes, like this super-race of children and uber-midgets with their stunning computer skills, advanced math, and sophisticated choices in books.  

 

Nevertheless, there are certain tests I don’t want to rush.  The unit 5 math test over converting fractions is sort of a bedrock foundation and it’s been my experience that taking our time pays off later.  The students are technically almost done with the chapter----it involves renaming fractions with different denominators as well as in decimal, percent, mixed-number, and improper fraction forms.  The operations that go along with fractions depend on understanding very clearly that we re-name numbers in various situations.  Please help your youngster understand the following concepts;  asking him or her to “teach” you the concept can be an effective way to figure out where misunderstandings and errors are happening.

 

Mixed Numbers are a mixture of whole number and fraction:  1 ½; 13 4/5; 100 3/16

 

Improper Fractions are those in which the numerators are bigger than their denominators: 3/2; 69/5; 1603/16

 

Fractions are often represented in decimal form:  we can count on certain ones coming up often enough that it’s useful to memorize those (see the back of this sheet).  If you don’t have the fraction/decimal equivalent memorized, just divide the top by the bottom.

 

Turning a decimal into a fraction involves writing the number over 10, 100, 1000….For example, .34 is 34/100;  .8 is 8/10.  Each of these can be reduced:  the former can become 17/50 and the latter can become 4/5.

 

Our chapter 5 test will be on Wednesday, January 19 (next week). 

 

--Sincerely, Mr. Arthur

 

 

week of January 3, 2010

Dear Parents and Students,

Remember, your 2nd book report is due NEXT FRIDAY the 14th.  You're to choose some nonfiction book that has a science connection.  This category is very wide----almost everything, from animals to sports to inventions to many biographies---has some relationship to science.    Please remember, you are writing a review of the book you read, not doing a report on a topic that requires you to read several books and articles.  All the details of what I am looking for are on the book report section of this website.

Sincerely,  Gary Arthur

Week of December 13:

Dear Parents & Students,

HOLIDAY PARTY This Friday, the 17^th, we will be having a classroom party.   The students may have some “structured downtime” to eat, play a game, make a craft or a picture, and visit with their classmates.  Our party was originally scheduled to begin at 2:00.  Evidently, I had forgotten that there is a school-wide holiday sing-along then.  We will start our actual party at 1:00.  It’s so helpful to have donations of snacks, craft supplies, paper products, games, and help.  Mrs. Taliancich, Seth’s mom, is our room parent and is organizing the details.  You can contact her or me if you are able and willing to contribute anything.  Please remember, I truly prefer that students and families do not purchase gifts for me.  I greatly appreciate the generous and thoughtful culture of this community.  As a salaried employee, accepting presents is slightly awkward, and I am really absolutely okay with handmade cards or friendly greetings or nothing special.  

SCHOOLWORK  Clearly, with the conference week schedule and then the snow days followed by Thanksgiving, it is more important to keep a serious focus on lessons or we spend too much time reviewing what we tried to cover during the short weeks.  Please help your child by talking to him or her about the enormous importance of trying to exercise self control and patience.   Here are some of the specific learning objectives we are going to focus on this week:

READING---learning the meanings of at least 5 words (distort/distortion; isolate/isolation; lament/lamentation; redundant; contradiction) as well as continuing to work on individual goals in reading, such as pushing ourselves to write high-quality journal entries, to read more, to visualize the author’s words in our minds, and to make connections between the author’s words and our own lives.  Also, the students are officially receiving their January 15^th book report assignment.

MATH---we are in unit 5, which is about renaming fractions in various ways:  mixed number-improper fraction (ex: 1½ =3/2);  equivalent fractions (ex: 4/5=16/20); percentages and decimals (ex: ½=.5=50%). 

HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY---reading about, writing about, and discussing the various ways  Native Americans lived before the European explorers began arriving in the “New World.”   

Sincerely, Mr. Arthur

Dec. 5, 2010

Please see the newsletter that is scanned as part of this week's HW packet.  Click on the Homework section and you can download it as a microsoft word paper.

conference schedule

Wednesday, December 1                  

 

7:30-Katie                                      

8:00-Kayden                                   

8:30-Molly

9:00-Daniella

10:00-Henry

10:30-Brennan

2:00-Jared

3:00-Leslie

 

(I have a meeting off campus at 4:00)

 

Thursday, December 2

 

7:30-Rachel

8:00-Will

8:30-Carlos

9:00-Rashon

9:30-Rebecca

11:00-Craig

11:30-Ruby

2:00-Torin 

(I will be staying until 4:30)

week of 11-29-10

Dear Parents & Students,

It will be fun to hear all your snow day stories this week.  I had my own adventure Monday afternoon, when I had to abandon my 21-year-old Mazda on a side street and walk the remaining seven miles of the way home in the blizzard.  I kept thinking of all those brave explorers who set out to find new lands.  Having grown up near Cleveland, Ohio, which gets outrageous winter weather and heavy snow, I used to feel a little bit snobbish about silly Seattle-area drivers and their snow-phobias.  It was humbling! 

 

This week is the bizarre conference schedule week.  Please make sure to understand that Monday’s  homework is due Tuesday.  But our class’s policy is “If we had school today, and if there’s school tomorrow, we have homework tonight.”  This technically renders the week homework-less.  Technically, we are homework hoboes this week.  

 

Because there is no school for students on Wednesday or Thursday, the homework that would be due on those days is optional.  That means, if you do it----really do it, not just slap something messy together----you’ll earn bonus points for yourself for the 2^nd trimester report card.  You will also earn points for your team.  I hope you will consider pushing yourselves to do a little extra work during your days off!

Finally, we were supposed to take the unit 4 math test last Wednesday.  I will, instead, be giving you the test this Friday.   You could review all the lesson 4 pages in your workbook or look over last week’s newsletter for a study guide.  (Last week’s newsletter is on the HW page of our class website.)              -Sincerely, Mr. Arthur

SEE BELOW (week of 11-22-10) FOR CONFERENCE SCHEDULE...

week of 11-22-10  This week's newsletter is scanned as part of the HW packet.  Please visit the homework page of this website and open the packet for this week.  Thanks for reading our website!

week of 11-8 You can view this week's hastily-written newsletter, which is basically a repeat of information, by opening this week's HW packet.

week of 11-1  You can view the newsletter, which is mostly about the upcoming unit three math test, by opening this week's HW packet.

WEEK OF 10-25

 

Dear Parents & Students,

HALLOWEEN INFORMATION: We’ll have our class party on Friday afternoon from 2:05 until dismissal.   Students are not allowed to wear costumes to school, but they can bring something to change into.  Whatever they bring cannot be terrifying, violent-looking, or unsuitable for the very sensitive.  Thus, please refrain from gory monsters or weapon-toting action heroes, makeup-intensive stuff, or too much paraphernalia.  We’ll have food and drinks, a few activities, and some decorations.  Many thanks to those of you have volunteered time, food, and paper products.  I apologize in advance for any rowdiness resulting from this strange but fun American tradition.  At least it’s on Friday afternoon.

GLOBAL READING CHALLENGE aka BATTLE OF THE BOOKS  We love to see kids reading books that challenge them.  One incentive program is the King County Library’s global reading challenge, in which teams of students read the same books and compete to answer comprehension questions.  Getting kids to read a lot, reaping all the benefits that result from being literate and thoughtful, is the ultimate goal.  Participation is optional, but we are definitely promoting this program as a fun way for all 4^th and 5^th graders to push themselves to read outstanding kids’ books. Students will have access to the books in our classroom and our school library, and of course they can obtain the titles from the public library as well.  If you would like to donate books to our classroom library, please let me know.  Our students are great readers who are always striving to have great books in their hands. We have worked hard as a school to replace a heavy emphasis on skill sheets and whole-class reading lessons with a more meaningful and intellectually stimulating literacy program.  One of the most important aspects of this involves students spending lots of time finishing books that are at an appropriate level of difficulty for them, regardless of their chronological ages.   

HOMEWORK INFORMATION:  I hope your fifth grader’s homework is typically not all-consuming.  If I am doing this right, your child is generally able to complete the work independently while developing some skills at getting down to work, completing the assignments nightly, and staying relatively organized.  He or she should be able to complete the assignments in 30 – 50 minutes most nights, including at least 20 minutes of reading.  Let me know how it is going in general----I have access to lots of alternative activities, such as easier-or-harder levels of math, and am willing to prepare those sorts of things if I have enough advance notice.  For some students the homework papers that come with Everyday Math are almost too Mickey Mouse, and it’s appropriate to do something a little more stimulating.  I also don’t want to overburden students with a lot of stuff just to keep them busy.  (I believe most of the classwork is generally challenging, and I am impressed overall by how much the students know about fractions, decimals, and percents. We are always looking for ways to meet students at the appropriate levels of difficulty.)  It’s certainly my intent to balance our need to cover a lot of serious content with fun, upbeat, and engaging opportunities to be successful.  Especially for students who aren’t on fire with enthusiasm for math,

MATH THIS WEEK and NEXT:  We’ve begun the 3^rd unit of Everyday Math, which is all about geometry.  There are 11 lessons in this chapter.  We’ll have our test on Thursday, November 4^th.  Throughout this unit the students will be learning these specific concepts:

how to measure angles with a protractor

how to name and classify angles----naming them with points and letters; classifying them as right, acute, obtuse, reflex, and straight

how to classify specific types of triangles----isosceles, right, equilateral, and scalene

use properties (or attributes) of certain shapes to figure out how many degrees are in other shapes----for example, the three angles in an equilateral triangle are each 60 degrees;  the corners of rectangles are 90 degrees;  the difference between those two is 30 degrees

week of 10-17-10

The actual newsletter is available on the homework packet.  You can download a scan from the homework page of this website.

week of 10-10-10

The actual newsletter is available on the homework packet.  You can download a scan from the homework page of this website.

Highlights from this week's:   we will have a Halloween party on Oct. 29 and the unit 2 math test is on this Thursday.

The book report is due this Friday!

week of 10/4/10

There is not a newsletter this week.  

week of 9/27/10

 

Dear Parents & Students, 

I acknowledge that good, salt-of-the-earth, American-dream sorts of people disagree about politics, religion, and pets in the house----lots of things.  As your youngster’s teacher, I want to stay out of that fray!  If the kids learn their lessons, get along, and have some positive memories and habits at the end of the year, that’s plenty.  Like you, I want them to be competent at all the challenges of middle school.  Ready academically and socially, reasonably organized, and self-confident.

One scourge and menace of these times is home work.   Some people feel there isn’t enough; others,  too much.  What is a middle of the road person supposed to do?

 Dipping my toe into this fray---I think the amount of time it takes to complete homework assignments should be minimal:  enough to develop good habits and practice what we’re working on, but not so much that there’s little balance left in life.  A rule of thumb we’ve been taught says “take the child’s grade level times ten.”  The result is the average number of minutes homework should take.  Please know that although I do assign homework,  I am very serious that I don’t believe it (homework) is the magic secret to a good education.  Your children already have fine minds, and they work hard in school all day.  The homework part of the day is important, but so is having a life.   Thus, 50 minutes, including reading for at least 20 minutes, leaves  a half hour for the math practice and writing.  I don’t know that going past the hour mark is really doing anyone much good---it’s okay with me to call it your child’s best effort if he or she tried.  Ask your youngster to turn in as far as he or she got, indicating where they got stuck, and we’ll work on that.   I keep records and work with students who aren’t being productive.

All of my students have about 35 minutes a day of writing instruction in the morning-----a lesson that has a main point, some examples of it in action, an opportunity to practice that objective with small groups, and some time to get started.  Many students get a very good start on their writing assignment during their class time.    I instruct them to take this assignment home and to edit it, add to it (maybe they can squeeze some description into a section that is begging for it) or sometimes subtract from it (cross out the rambling irrelevant sentence, or tighten-up the syntax where it sounds un-conversational.)  This is a good opportunity to see if a particular word has been overused and could be replaced with just the right synonym.  That sort of thing.    

In short, the writing homework needn’t dominate the late afternoon.  I am very flexible and willing to accept reasonable effort, realizing that some students may have taken risks that  made the day’s essay miss the mark.  I hope my feedback on their assignments is specific

enough to help steer their next assignments toward improvement.   As Ever,  Gary Arthur

 

 

 

This week's newsletter is attached to the homework packet.  You can download it by going to Homework, then choose the document at the bottom of the page called HW Week of 9-27-10.  

TO MAKE A COPY OF THE FIELD TRIP TO OCEANS AFLOAT PERMISSION SLIP----CLICK ON THE DOCUMENT AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE.

week of 9/20/10

I did not send a newsletter home this week.  The homework packet is available to download on the Homework page of this website. 

week of 9/13/10

NOTE:  some of the examples 

Dear Students and Parents,

 

Picture-taking is this Thursday morning.  There is a brochure in your massive weekly pack of paperwork.

 

Our annual curriculum night is this Thursday at 6:00.  I hope to see you again or to meet you if we haven’t had the chance yet.  You may sign up for parent-teacher conferences there, if you want to be a go-getter, or you can wait until we get closer to the beginning of December. 

 

Finally, our first math test will be this Friday.  Students should understand these concepts to do well: 

 

1.     Prime numbers have two factors:  one and the number itself

 

Ex:    1x2     1x3    1*5  1*7    1*11   1*13    1*17     1*19                            

        1x23    1x29   1*31         

 

2.    Composite numbers have more than just two factors:

 

Ex:   1   2  3  4  6  8  12  24                                1        

3        5         15

 

3.    Square numbers have a factor times a factor;  we can make a completely square array if we bothered to take the time. 

Ex:  4= 2*2    9=3*3   16= 4*4   25= 5*5

4.   How to tell if a number is divisible by 2, 3, 5

If the last digit is even, the number is divisible by 2. 

Ex:  502; 36; and 20 can be split into 2 groups with none left over.

 

If the sum of the digits is divisible by 3, the original number is divisible by 3.

Ex: 105; 45; 36; and 12 can be divided into 3 groups with none left over.

 

If the number ends in 5 or 0, the original number is divisible by 5. 

Ex: 100, 55, and 25 can be divided into 5 groups with none left over.

 

5.    How to identify the prime factors of a number---any number has basic prime numbers as factors.  One way to find the basic factors is with a prime factor tree like these:  [sorry these didn't copy onto the website----if you need the pictures, look on the hw packet]

 

6.    How to name a number from the hundredths to the hundred-thousands place

Ex:     351, 287.49 is three hundred fifty one thousand, two hundred eighty-seven and forty-nine hundredths

 

7.     How to arrange two factors to make a product in a rectangular array.

Ex:  3*7=21             . . . . . . .

                          . . . . . . .

                          . . . . . . .

 

------Sincerely, Mr. Arthur

week of 9/6/10

                    Dear Parents and Students, 

 

        Last week I asked you to read over my basic expectations regarding our various responsibilities.  I sure appreciate your having taken the time to do that because being on the same page is really the only way to make this partnership work. This week, I am asking you hold a similar, structured conversation with your child.  Below are the 10 specific classroom norms your youngsters and I agreed upon.   Please don’t burden yourself with all ten---would you make sure to discuss at least the top three?  Hold a short discussion together referring to at least 1-3. As you and your child go over those items, please take turns checking each other’s reading comprehension.  If I have left something unclear, it’s important to the whole class’s success that you let me know your concern.  It might help to tell your child to try to restate each point in his or her own words, to begin with something like The main point of this is… or The class is agreeing to this because… The actual wording isn’t as important knowing that your child has the main idea.

1.      Bullying isn’t tolerated----you are expected to report bullying you become aware of to an adult. It is not acceptable to be aware of bullying and to turn the other way.  Our definition of bullying includes using foul or abusive language, taunting, threatening, drawing unkind pictures representing individuals, writing unkind portrayals about individuals, menacing or trying to intimidate, and excluding someone from group types of activities.

 

2.      Each student is in charge of his or her own behavior:  others don’t “make you” laugh or interrupt repeatedly; everyone is expected to use manners; children who are having trouble controlling impulses will work with caring adults like teachers and parents to develop that ability.  A minor infraction now and then is not the same as a chronic problem.  In our class, Mr. Arthur will discreetly ask students who are interrupting or not cooperating to use the take-a-break table in order to bring the problem under control.  In cases where this isn’t enough, the teacher’s responsible to inform the parents and principal to help create and monitor a plan to solve the problem.

 

3.      We’re each expected to have our own basic supplies and be ready with them when we are starting activities.  When you start running out, ask your parents or teacher so you will have what you need. When the teacher’s counting down to give the class instructions, you are ready by zero and have gotten your supplies.  Whenever students share supplies, the owner has the right to get them back intact.  Students who lose or damage others’ property are expected to make amends.

4.      You have HW every day that there is school except on Fridays or the last week of classes in June; you will get a homework packet on the first day of the week, and each assignment is labeled with the due date. Mr. Arthur will post the homework packet on the class website as well. Some students will have different math and writing homework based on his conversations with their parents or arrangements they made outside of class. All students are responsible for maintaining a spelling list and a reading log for homework----these are individual and won’t all be the same.  Every morning, completed HW goes in that day’s tray on the counter.  If you couldn’t complete yours, you should make arrangements: you could ask a parent to sign a note or send an email excusing you from the assignment.  If you simply lost or forgot your HW and you’re already at school, please write a note explaining that and put it in the tray where your  HW should be.  It is your HW, and it should be done in your handwriting or typed in your own words.  We’ll grade math HW together in class the day it is due, and the teacher will check, though not necessarily carefully grade, writing and reading HW each day.  It is Mr. Arthur’s responsibility to let you and your parents know if turning papers in on time or with enough attention to quality is becoming a problem, and we will have to come up with a plan to help you take care of your responsibilities so you’re on track for middle school.  In general, your teacher will grade class work and just look over and record HW without carefully grading it. 

 

 

5.       You should have a place for each subject’s paperwork in your desk----reading, writing, math, science, history/geography, and spelling.  Some students keep a separate folder, some keep a binder; others may have an accordion file with separate sections.  It’s not acceptable to shove papers into your desk or to keep everything in very messy folders.  Mr. Arthur will help you with this if it’s a problem for you. You should clean your desk periodically so your area stays uncluttered.  It is necessary to fit all supplies and papers inside the desk, not on the desk, and to keep the top washed off.  Finally, food needs to be kept in the lunch bin or the backpack so we don’t have a problem with insects or rodents coming into the portable. 

 

 

6.       During times when you may be finished with your class work, it is not acceptable to sit around and do nothing.  There are various options that are okay depending on what we are doing in class at the time:  I expect you to check the board where I write instructions or ask what you are supposed to do if it isn’t clear.  Wasting time or bothering others is unacceptable because it is not respectful of our need to keep the focus on learning.  People may be working on different things or at different paces, and it’s necessary to have a calm classroom with minimal distractions.

 

7.      Treat the computers at school carefully----you may keep documents in your own folder on the server.  It is okay to bring documents back and forth using a flash drive or a CD, or Mr. Arthur can email documents to your home for you to use.  Do NOT use computer time to change the background, theme, desktop wallpaper, or this sort of thing because these actions often result in a problem that takes a lot of unnecessary time to figure out.  On the other hand, if there is a random computer problem that occurred while you were using it, you are not in trouble, but please let your teacher know.  When printing, use reasonable judgment so we don’t waste lots of paper and ink.  Finally on this subject, you are expected to use the internet with care----the school computers are for school activities, not for playing lots of games, hunting for pictures of celebrities, and that sort of thing.  Students who aren’t using the computers properly will lose their privileges until a reasonable plan to correct the problem is in place.   

 

8.      Students are expected to use the restrooms at recess, though you may leave with permission and a pass.  If it is suspected that someone is not using this privilege responsibly----for example, they are taking a very long time, or distracting students and teachers in other classes----Mr. Arthur will suspend this student’s privilege until there is a mutual understanding of how to make the behavior change.

 

9.      Morning Routine:  School technically begins at the 8:25 bell.  It is important to me that children wait until then to enter the classroom.  It is expected that you wait in the line up area, visit calmly with friends, and follow the playground supervisor’s instructions.  When you enter the room, you have to take care of lunches and homework.  In order for me to efficiently deal with the attendance program,  it is important to me that you are quietly in your seat by the 8:30 bell.

 

10.   Indoor Environmental Quality:  Because the classroom belongs to all of us, it is everyone’s responsibility to keep it clean and safe.  Our custodians are not maids, and this means we take responsibility for keeping the desks, shelves, and floor as clean every day.  To stave off viruses and bacteria, we will clean math and science manipulatives, desk tops, door handles, the phone, the computer keyboards and mice.  Tissues are for stifling sneezes and coughs, and they go into the trash after use.  We will use safe, unscented products for cleaning desks and hands, and any water bottles and snacks need to be contained.   Please don’t bring scented markers, so-called air fresheners, perfumes, body sprays, or creams that everyone else has to smell.  It is okay to have a small bottle of hand sanitizer and a water bottle with a cover as long as you use it discreetly.

 

8/31/10

I sent a paper copy of this home with students today.  You can also find a "scan" of the newsletter is on the HW section of this website.  

Dear Parents & Students,

Like you probably do, I feel excited and nervous:  will this be a great year?  Will it be fun and productive?  Will I (student, parent, or teacher) learn new things in a way that makes me feel positive? My priority is to get to know each of you and your families in these beginning days, and to set a tone for a joyful, challenging- but-not-overwhelming year of learning.  You’ll learn new facts, grow ideas that change based on new discoveries, improve your organizational skills, and build great memories.   Some of you already know each other very well, and some of you are new to the community, but most of you are new to me.  There’s a lot of adjustment in the first weeks back!   Setting up our school routines is the first order of business so that how we use our time together meets everyone’s needs.  We’ll structure our days around the academic subjects and agree on how we will conduct ourselves as we learn and get work done.  We need to agree on some basic expectations and practice them in the context of a school day.  It’s important to me that you, students and parents, spend some time outside of school----maybe ten or fifteen minutes----discussing the concepts below. 

FIVE SCHOOL-AND-HOME EXPECTATIONS Please read this section together, and during your discussion, try to put the ideas into your own words; ask each other questions to verify what you understand and let me know what I may need to explain differently.   You might start by reading each section then saying  To me this means…or This teacher thinks… or even I disagree with the part that says…What’s important to me is that you took some time to understand my expectations from each of us and to ask for clarification if I have been too vague.

1.      RELENTLESSNESS:  Relentless people stick to projects even when things are difficult or seem uninteresting.  I expect myself to be relentless when trying to help students----I don’t permit myself to give up in frustration. Instead, I re-try, ask for help, take a break and make a plan for how I might do the task differently later, or find out another way to approach the situation.  I expect students to be relentless at completing assignments with their best effort.  Sometimes this requires both sides of the partnership, school and home, to make adjustments or to talk about what is really important in the work.  However, it is extremely important to agree that we don’t give up on learning.  We might adjust to make a project harder, easier, less time-consuming, or  more detailed based on what is reasonable for an individual, but we will not tolerate poor effort or slacking off to kill time.  In cases where that appears to be happening, it is appropriate to have a conversation to plan a change and to spend the time it takes to get the job done right.

2.      HUMOR AND DIGNITY:  Humor involves laughing and having fun. Learning is supposed to be fun a lot of the time; it is reasonable to expect to learn in an environment where you feel safe, as if your opinion matters, and in which you want to give your best effort because people are counting on you.  I want you to have fun, and I want you to understand that everyone in the class, even the people you may not like the best, have the same right to a pleasant, relaxed environment.  It is kind to make our classroom a fun place as long as we are not taking away someone’s dignity or wasting their time with silliness that interrupts their learning.  I value humor very much, and want each student to enjoy class because it helps us all learn.  In cases where humor crosses the line and becomes hurtful or wasteful, we’ll discuss consequences and to make things right.  I pledge to treat you each with the dignity I would expect you to show me or my family, even when I am annoyed or not feeling my best.  If I make an error, I expect you to tell me respectfully and give me a chance to make things right by apologizing or making a better plan.  It goes both ways---the part I really want to emphasize is that we all have a responsibility to each other.  No matter how mad or impatient you or I feel, we share our disagreements respectfully here.  

3.      ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS:  We are all counting on each other---I will always do my best to keep track of materials and time so we can move ahead in our important work.  Sometimes we all misplace a paper, forget to do part of a task, or misunderstand what was expected of us. Sometimes, too, through no fault of our own, we get held up:  a computer  won’t cooperate, or you have a terrible night’s sleep, or the assignment seems cheesy.  I am sure you can think of many examples.  I understand this, and I believe you do too.  When things go wrong, people apologize and adjust their plans.  However, there are some routines I expect you to know right away so we’re all ready together----it’s not acceptable to make everyone wait for one person who is unprepared time and again.  This week we will practice the routines in class.  Next week I will send a newsletter with a very specific list of the classroom norms.  Like you are doing with this assignment now, I will ask that you (student and parent) read those together and discuss them next week.

4.       COMMUNICATION:  Each student has a classroom mailbox; clean yours out every Monday (or whatever the first day of the school week is on a weird schedule week.)  It will have your new homework packet for that week and any school paperwork, graded papers, etc.  Occasionally, I have to send home papers that are time-sensitive, so students need to make sure to tell parents about those. Some families create a special box or area for school papers, others do backpack sweeps together. You should think ahead about how papers will be managed; sadly, there are a lot more than seem necessary. Class work essays stay at school in a portfolio that you’ll take home as we finish units of study; your reading journal will remain at school until it’s full and you begin a new one.  Math papers will go home weekly, and your math workbook will go home when it’s done.  I will send newsletters at least once a month. 

5.      BALANCE: We must remember to be reasonable and flexible---I don’t expect anyone to be perfect, and I hope you feel the same way towards our school.  We will hold ourselves to very high standards without forgetting that people need downtime, exercise, and family time.  Thus, I think it is reasonable and healthy for a 5^th grader to have spent all day working hard in school and about 50 minutes on homework M-Th.  If that is becoming a problem----too easy, too hard, too many things schedules----I will be happy to work with parents on adjusting the plan to one that is a good fit for your youngster and your family.    ------Sincerely, Mr. Arthur

 8/14/10

Dear Prospective Parents and Students:

Obviously, as of today, if you're reading this in late summer, you are wondering who your teacher and classmates are.  You have no way of knowing yet unless you have hacked into the top secret school district bunker or have a spy on the inside.  So the following information is speculative and possibly not relevant to you.  I am getting a headstart now because I can.  I don't expect many people will care about this yet.  In fact, I advise you to get a life and go back to enjoying your summer right now.

If you are interested, though, you can "download" the 8/30/10 newsletter from the attachments below.  I think it is ready to publish, but I will probably tinker with it more before school begins.  If you spot an error or anything really stupid-sounding, I hope you will let me know so I can make adjustments.  

If you are wondering about supplies and things, please know there is an official 5th grade supply list that includes stuff from all the 5th grade teachers at IVE.  In general, though, I just want you to have the regular basic things.  I am not overly particular or specific.  Don't go spending a small fortune to outfit yourself for fifth grade.

NECESSARY TO HAVE

a backpack or something durable to carry things to and from school

enough pencils so you aren't always borrowing someone else's

a handheld sharpener

safe scissors

some white glue, NOT super glue or gorilla glue, please

a pack of crayons, colored pencils, or both

enough durable folders to have room for papers in science, math, writing, reading, and hist.

a composition book, spiral notebook, or folder with the tabs for holding paper inside