Sunday, December 17, 2017

Week of December 18 to 22

Welcome to the last week of school for 2017!

There will be no journal prompts this week. We will only work to complete our best Character Essay about Squeaky from "Raymond's Run" and one other short story that we chose.

As always, read as much as you can and at least two hours a week outside of school reading time.

There will be math homework most days, check your assignment book.

Remember that we go bowling/pizza eating/laser tagging on Wednesday. We leave at 10 and return around 1:30.


Saturday, December 9, 2017

Week of December 11 to 15

Welcome to the weekly post

This week for homework, we will read only and create a short/half page journal entry in our READING journals. This will be checked daily in class Tuesday through Friday. 

Word study can be homework, but we will plan to have 15 minutes to start class with updating reading logs, showing journal entries and word study work.

I will leave it to Mr. Wills to post periodically about what is going on in math.  We do have math homework most nights that is recorded in our assignment books at the end of each day.

We have no homework on Fridays to allow for make ups on reading, word study or journals.

We will have occasional deadlines for writing and socials studies projects, so that may appear in the weekly update.

We are continuing our reading of Making Thirteen Colonies, The History of US, by Joy Hakim. This will be the basic background for our Colonization Unit which will begin in January. This will include reading, writing, and National History Day Project. We will be creating a website this year under the national theme which is "Conflict and Compromise."  There was a lot of that during the colonial period, so we will have not trouble finding suitable topics. (Any student with a yen for a different topic is encouraged to do so and perhaps join Mrs. Babbitt's NHD club in the library.)

HOMEWORK:
DAILY READ and post a journal entry of your choosing about your daily reading in your READING JOURNAL. Prompt ideas
What is a big problem
What is the main character like
Who is the antagonist and what do they want
What theme is emerging


Changing to one post per week

I have been having trouble keeping up here and I noticed that no one is complaining. This leads me to think no one is reading this blog.

Therefore I will post once per week, on Sunday or Monday. If there is an urgent need for you to see something, I will make a group email.

Cate

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Tuesday 12-5-17

Hello all,
My apologies for being blog negligent. I have no good excuse. I want to let you know two things.

1) We put report cards in the mail yesterday (probably went out today.) Maybe that is why I kept forgetting to blog. If you see any errors or do not understand something, please email us right away.

2) We have planned a celebration field trip to Spare Time in Colchester on Wednesday December 20th. We will have two hours of bowling, a pizza lunch and a game of lazer tag. The cost is $16 per student. PLEASE let us know if you need help covering the cost. Send a note or email. Permission slips went home today. Please send in the signed slip and $16 as soon as you can.

Homework:
LA - no journals this week - focus on word study completion - tomorrow have sort 1, sentences, sort 2 and word hunt - entire packet due Thursday

Read for 30 minutes

Math: there was a worksheet packet - it may have been percents - I'm a little foggy.


We began a new writing unit today - literary essays. Today we wrote an entire essay in class about the 3rd little pig. Tomorrow we will look at some models and try a new draft using persuasive language and evidence.

In social studies we started thinking about our next video letter to our pen pals in Sardinia. This time, the focus will be geography - the sites and activities of Vermont.

We also continue our study of colonization.

Friday, November 17, 2017

Friday 11-17-17

Here is a link to a slide show of our fantasy celebration


Have a great vacation everyone and happy Thanksgiving.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Thursday 11-16-17

I was out yesterday. I had a stellar report from Mrs. Waite. Considering we had much to do, that was a great report.

Today we finished our last Fantasy reading workshop. Tomorrow we celebrate. Students are encouraged to dress up as a fantasy character from on of the books they have read during the unit and give a one minute book talk on why we should read that story.

Homework tonight:

Journal: Vacation
Read for 30 minutes
Math: Skill sheet
Other: Party permission and $5
costume
finish post card from class today

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Tuesday 11-14-17

Friday we are having a fantasy celebration to end our unit. Students are encouraged to dress as any character from a fantasy book they have read during the unit. They will then give a one minute book talk to get us interested in reading the book.

Homework:
Math 3.1 ACE 1-8 (I think)
Journal Prompt: Thanksgiving
Read for 30 minutes
Permission for party and $5 if you are going (It's this Friday)