ClubSmith 2018/2019
This final post comes on a day that had me feeling a little down. At home I found myself sorting through the boxes of treasures and trinkets that students had given me over the years. My home office is cluttered with the boxes and boxes of books that I brought home and also boxes of the beautiful gifts students shared with me over the years. I can't part with any of them as they bring a smile to my face and a thought of that particular child. Smiling I recall this student and his gentle spirit or that beautiful child and her bold outlook on life.
Suddenly I had a profound sense of sadness knowing that this fall, I won't be meeting a new group of 5th graders. As I began to go through the boxes of things I carted out of my classroom on the Saturday after the last day of school, I stumbled upon a small gift wrapped in tissue paper. It wasn't much larger than a Hershey's kiss. Green ribbon was tied to hide the gift until the receiver could gently pull upon it to reveal the treasure . This small gift had been overlooked in the cleaning up and clearing out. On the Friday of the final day of school, later in the evening after an exhausting clean out of my room, I opened the gifts I'd received that day, some brought me to tears and others I ate then and there (thank you for the chocolates). I put cards to the side reminding myself to write a note of thanks to the collective group. Two and a half weeks later, the beautiful key chain photographed above, was unwrapped and immediately cherished, giver unknown and perhaps that how it should be. So many of you gave me gifts during my teaching days. Often those gifts were simply words, thoughts and your presence.
The key chain will remain in my hand and heart in the years to come. I am encouraged by the message and will continue to collect my thoughts about public education and push myself to write and share those thoughts with the world. For as Robin said it , "No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world."
We are in our last weeks of school. Our end of year includes several activities that will be scheduled in the coming days including a field trip, field day and the annual walk to the river to cast out our kindness rocks. We look forward to the Milestone Learning Celebration/Book Launch. We are working now to finalize the date and the place (sadly, the auditorium at Thornton Academy will not be available this year). Stay tuned.
Snow Tubing is rescheduled for Thursday, March 7, 2019. Looks like weather on Monday may have caused issues. Parent conference forms will be sent home next week. Please select three times that will work and I will do my best to schedule a time that you preferred.
Slice of lIfe Challenge is on for the month of March - Check out the student pages (and the teacher pages if you are interested). Enjoy the wonder of the written word. Oh and if you are posting and need instructions see the home page the tab right next to this for the Slice of Life Challenge. Whatever you do don't forget to hit publish when you are done. And only write on your page. There will not be commenting on another's post. You can read and then pay tribute to another writer in your next post.
Please use this survey to help Lauren, Sophia and Addie gather information about Home Economics for their research based essay.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScb-_Q5UI0RywNUsSbUmINAzxPtXDm3ddEXdGbyMSMUVV1-tA/viewform
Happy New Year 2019
This is going to be an amazing year. As we learn more in the coming months, we will begin the end of our elementary school education and in June we will find ourselves as published authors and middle school students. We will focus on learning the skills that will help us be the most successful student we can be. That said, home learning will be more individualized. If a student for example wants to master cursive or memorize facts, that will be the focus of the learning at home. We will begin the new year reflecting on 2018 and setting goals for 2019. Please see our writing page for home/school learning that will help guide the process.
December Update: We have been enjoying our Ecomuve science unit, our neighborhood walks in the fashion of National Geographic reporter, Paul Salopek and our mastery of multi-digit division. In additional to all this, we've been reading fiction and non-fiction and also writing up a storm. We will have a celebration of learning on December 21. Students will read their essays and we will enjoy healthy snacks as we say goodbye to 2018 and welcome 2019!
Week of November 26-30
Wow , here we are in the last week of November. How did that happen?
Week of November 5-9, 2018
We are cruising through our units of study in multiplication and have begun new units in writing and reading. We are looking at non-fiction and beginning to look at articles that journalists write and what information they include. Social Studies is going well - students are creating neighborhood maps and writing stories about where they live. Science continues to be focused on scientific method and soon we will begin Ecomuve. Conferences will begin next week and we will look forward to that time when students can share what they have learned.
Week of October 29- Nov 1
Woo Hoo The Sox have won the World Series! We had a lot of tired Sox fans in school today. We have begun Module 2 in math and are quickly learning the thinking around multi-digit multiplication. Why we use place holders and what the term standard algorithm means.
This week we will wrap up our book clubs with some students going the extra distance and getting a third book read in this unit. Student will continue to read every night. Next week we will begin a non fiction unit of study in reading and writing will focus on journalism. Thank goodness we have Paul Salopek to follow an incredible journalist for sure. We began our conversations with classrooms around the world in Social Studies. We are going to finish our Universe unit in Mystery Science this week and again look at the Scientific Method. It's a busy time with a lot of learning going on.
I've added a link here to a google form that will allow you to choose a time for parent conference. Please take a moment to schedule your time. Please use the little arrow next to the words conference choices to access the drop down menu that offers times and choices. Thanks in advance.
Week Oct 22-Oct 26
Today we began our social studies unit connecting with classrooms globally. Check out our social studies page. We will also finish our unit of study on the Universe in the coming week in science and then we will be moving onto our unit of study called Ecomuve. You can find out information about that here. https://ecolearn.gse.harvard.edu/ecoMUVE/overview.php
Week October 15-19
Book clubs are launched and we will be looking at finishing two books with our club before our unit is over. Some students will have the opportunity to read three books with their club. We will be hosting a publishing party on Thursday with students celebrating their finished draft of their personal narrative. Word Study should launch this week in book clubs as well.
Division is the word of the week. We are reviewing the how to's - later in the week, we will be putting our math skills to the test as we
Week Oct 9-12 - We have a short week - we will be launching book clubs by Friday. We have heard back that all parents support 30 minutes of reading at home. Additionally we are wrapping up our narrative writing unit. As I have learned from the students work and the early assessments - all our readers and writers at a different places. Our book clubs and word study groups will work on skills at appropriate levels of mastery and then we will move up levels as we tackle more complex reading/writing.
We've been reviewing our math facts using online programs such as Moby Max and we set up Khan Academy accounts to help students travel back to hit any skills that might be worth reviewing. Some students will be learning new concepts via Khan lessons after we have our daily Eureka lesson.
Science/Social Studies - We are studying the solar system, constellations and learning about orbits and rotations. Also the plants are thriving! In Social Studies we are learning how to use thinking routines to guide our inquiry as we learn about new cultures and current events.
Week October 1-5
Please know that the Walk-a-thon has been postponed until Wednesday.
Also, check the home learning page for an update regarding nightly reading/writing/math practice.
Week 9/24-9/28
Update 9/27/18
The Walkathon has been postponed until Monday, October 1, 2018.
Update 9/25/18 - Our class color for the walkathon (0n Friday) is black and due to the close vote, a variation of blue and black will be welcome as well. Update re: home learning. Tonight the writing is optional. Reading is encouraged and logging pages done will help me determine pages read at home. I will be updating my thoughts on assigning home learning this year in the next few days. I've been collecting data to inform my decision. At this point for various reasons less than half of the class is able to complete nightly assignments. Stay tuned.
Walk a thon is Friday and wear our class color day. We will vote and decide on Tuesday. Stay tuned. I will update this. We are working on establishing reading and writing each night Monday -Thursday. All students will be logging # of pages read this week along with nightly writing.
Week of 9/17 to 9/21
This week we will begin to set routines for the coming year. Home Learning will be Monday-Thursday evenings. The focus this week is to establish a nightly reading and writing routine. In the coming weeks, I will also be sending home a link to Moby Max, an online resource to help students who have yet to master math facts. If access to a computer is a challenge, I can also send home flash cards for nightly practice.
I'm thoughtfully thinking more and more about the notion of homework (yes, I used that word). I've linked an article here that is giving me a lot to consider. I may in the coming weeks decide to encourage independent reading nightly. This article seems to support that idea.
Week of 9/10 to 9/14
This week will include a band demo to introduce students to the instruments and give all students an opportunity to consider joining band. Additionally, we will have the NWEA math assessment on the 13th.