Wednesday 12.21.16

We worked very impressively today. Much progress was made on National History Day projects.  We will have a grand presentation of projects on Thursday (changed from previous notice of Wednesday) January 5th in the library. Parents will be welcome to the event. Students will display their projects as if at the National History Day event in Montpelier. Students will offer questions and compliments to each project. Ms. Lamb will fill out the judging form.  I may do some negotiating with Mr. Meadows regarding the times, so I will get back to you on that....but sometime between 8 and 10 am.

Book groups wrapped up today. We will meet one last time on Tuesday after vacation to finish our theme journal entry.  We begin nonfiction reading groups on January 10th.

Homework tonight:
Work on your project in some way or form. I will be watching a video and writing up some of my sections.

Read your self chosen novel

Have a wonderful vacation!

Monday/Tuesday 12.19&20

Hello,
I forgot to post this yesterday.

This week our major focus is to work on our National History Day Project (Taking a Stand in History). Since science is between topics right now, we have sacrificed our science time for working on projects, with one small exception. On Wednesday we will have another rocket launch after la and math.

Yesterday we learned how to make boxes and bullets for our project. Here is an outline and Ms. Lamb's example (not 100% done, but you get the idea.)

Outline
Example

Many students got their trifold yesterday and began thinking out what goes on it. I strongly advise to use paper and tape for your drafts. If you are like me, you will change your mind A LOT.

Homework:
No math yesterday (test and no skill sheet this week)
(Also, no word study this week)
READ - especially book club books which are to be finished by Wednesday

Choose your own homework regarding your NHD project  - read, outline, watch videos

Try to squeeze in 10 minutes of edutyping (at least) this week for homework.

Today,
Also no math homework - same LA as yesterday
Choose your own project work
READ

Thursday 12.15.16

Today we worked on organizing our notes into categories.

Organizing your research

1. Background - who? what? when? where? etc.
2. Stand - describe it, why was it needed? how did it happen? how was the person (if there is a person) instrumental?
3. What were the long time effects? What happened because of the stand?

Tomorrow we will write flash drafts in class. This means students get three pieces of paper (or make three pages on google docs) and just write the information they know for each subtopic. More research can be done, but this will make clear what they need to find out. Also, it will get to writing in our own voice.

Next week we begin working with our trifolds. Each student only gets one so measure twice and cut once. We will also learn how to patch and cover over - great life skills.

Mr. Meadows is finishing a science unit this week, so we can work on trifolds all afternoon Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

We are taking Thursday as a celebration day. The BRMS fun committee has organized a concert in the morning where the band and chorus will show their "stuff." The last hour of the day will be "minute to win it" contests in the gym.

The time back at class will be spent watching the BFG movie.

Homework tonight:

Math: Skill sheet (maybe more...not sure yet.)

LA: word hunt for word study, make sure day 1,2,3 and 4 are done by tomorrow

continue research ready to flash draft in class tomorrow

READ for 20 minutes - book club book or your own choice. Come as close as you can to finishing the book by next Tuesday.

Wednesday 12.14.16

Today was late start day. That always throws us into a tizzy. We got a lot accomplished however.  In LA we did some reading and word study and then finished our reading posts on seesaw.  One group had no internet on Friday, so they were behind.  All are caught up now. If not, please finish at home.

In afternoon class, book clubs met and read journal entries about villains. Then we finished our seesaw.com post and continued with our NHD research.

Homework:

Math Skill sheet due Friday

Science - answer question about friction inertia and gravity get a sled down the hill

LA: continue reading two printed articles - be ready to show ten notes tomorrow

Read novel 20 minutes

Tuesday 12.13.16

I hope you had a happy snow day.

Today we had to catch up a bit due to our unexpected "day off."  We started our new word study and sentences are assigned for homework so we can be caught up by tomorrow.

We found a PRINTED HARD COPIES of articles for our research. We made folders with our names and stapled and put our names on articles. These are coming home tonight for continued reading and note taking.

Our book clubs met today. Many students are finishing book club books. Groups may choose a second book tomorrow.

Tonight's homework:

Math: Skill sheet - due Friday

LA: Read and take 5 notes from an article in your folder.  Complete word study sentences. Work for an honest 20 minutes on both and you can finish tomorrow in class.

Reading: Read novel 20 minutes ( book club book?)

Tomorrow is LATE START.

Thursday 12.8.16

Today we had a lesson from Ms. Lamb on note taking. Everyone needs to have a text source (preferably a book) and Ms. Lamb will search one down and buy it if necessary.

She showed a page from her book on Nelson Mandela that she felt related to the stand that he took. The paragraph talked about his father being a chief and naming him Rolihlahla which meant tree shaker or trouble maker. This shows that from the start he was raised to stand up to wrongs.

My notes look like this:

Rolihlahla - tree shaker/trouble maker

father chief in S. Africa

Notice my thinking entry and my jotted notes in note form

Ms. Lamb will check in on notes again on Monday expected to see bulleted or separate notes on sticky notes.

Students also finished through day 4 of word study.

Homework
Math: skill sheet due tomorrow

LA: continue working on your notes - work for 20 minutes
Read 20 minutes. Be sure you are on goal for tomorrow with pages read for book club book.

Wednesday 12.7.16

Homework tonight:
Math: note - quiz tomorrow - these pages will help you, 19, 20, 21 - finish work from class
Skill sheet due Friday

LA: Continue notes - Ms. Lamb expects to see note form tomorrow 15-20 notes. Change paragraphs into notes

Read for 20 minutes - book club book or your own choice

Great work done today. Much research moving, a little cursive, reading clubs met, journal entries were finished and read, word study completed through day 3.

See you tomorrow!

Tuesday 12-6-16

Ms. Lamb was absent today but the kids did an excellent job with our guest teacher.

Homework tonight:

LA:
2 pages of notes for their History Day report should be completed
Read for 20 minutes
Completed 1 page of writing for the book group projects

Math:
Skill Sheet (due Friday)
Math Quiz likely this Thursday

Science:
We will be launching our final rockets today!  Students have been learning about rockets for several weeks.  We reversed engineered the first round of rockets to learn which designs went the farthest and worked to develop scientifically based reasons for why they may have performed the best.  Kids have had a terrific time designing and building their rockets.

Wish us luck tomorrow!

Monday 12.5.16

Well, I got to work at 9:20 today after leaving my house in Burlington at 6:40. So, the day went up from there.

Ms. Nicolle very aptly ran LA this morning until I got here. Everyone continued reading, working on their seesaw post and researching for National History Day.

In the afternoon, we got our new word study packets for the week. Today we did sort one. Ms. Lamb introduced us to cursive review packets OR learn cursive packets. This is low stakes...let's see if we can at least sign our names and read cursive. We will work on this about 10 minutes a day until Christmas vacation.

Tonight's homework:
LA: Read 20 minutes
Finish your seesaw journal entry or comment if you have computer access
Also, one lesson or 10 minutes of edutyping

Math: 19A and 19B

Ms. Lamb will be away tomorrow at a professional development day. Mrs. Turcotte should be here. Plans are to  continue with all we did today.

See you Wednesday.

Thursday/Friday

I forgot to post yesterday. Sorry.

The homework was
math: page 12 & 13 and finish skill sheet
LA: Write a journal entry telling what you know so far about your NHD topic
Read your book club book and/or free choice novel for 220 minutes

We had some read around time in LA today. We heard snippets of several excellent stories and students posted a favorite November writing on YWP so all students can see. We decided we will give the first 15 minutes of Friday LA time for volunteer readers and to share a line from the week for everyone.

We also organized our first trimester work into a folder on google drive for all writing. Ms. Lamb is assessment homework journals and google docs this weekend.

Report cards will be mailed home on Monday. Look for more description about that in this blog on Monday.

Have a great weeend.

Wednesday

Homework
Math: Skill sheet and page 9 - try it, you don't know the algorithm so try to make sense of it. Do not stress out about it.

LA: Last day of free choice creative writing OR write about a house that comes to life OR nanowrimo

Read: Read your expected pages for book club and read your free choice novel

Today we worked more on clarifying our topics for NHD.

Most of us finished our map coloring.

We clarified and completed our book club work.

Tuesday 11/29/16

Homework:
Math: Page 4 AND Skill sheet
LA: Free choice writing in journal or on computer. OR write a story where an object comes to life OR Nanowrimo

Read for 20 minutes including your expected pages for your book club.

Today we started our book club books. Our first meeting went very well. Everyone practiced reading aloud and paying attention. We all have a small reading assignment for tomorrow. I LA we will make sure our pages are read and our journal is complete. Much of book club will happen during "seminar" time. We will polish journal entries and do a bit of reading during LA.

We also worked more on choosing a great topic that we are passionate about for our National History Day projects. Tomorrow we will test our topic choice using VOLCANO.  The NHD website has many ideas and a lot of advice on topic choosing.  Ms. Lamb also has a shelf full of books that are all great ideas. Tomorrow we start searching for sources.

We are still working on our North America geography unit which we will finish next week. Today we identified major rivers, lakes and mountains and defined the area known as North America.

Monday 11.28.16

We had a great and busy day here at Team Legend.  We started with new homeroom groups. We named them Courage and Daring (to continue our alphabet Awesome, Brilliant...C...D..). Kids stay in Awesome and Brilliant groups

In LA we tested out and voted on books for our new book club books (theme - Roald Dahl-like fantasy novels). Starting tomorrow, we will meet in book groups during seminar time.

We welcomed Eva, a new classmate.

After choosing our books and filling out ballots, we did some more thinking and talking about our National History Day Projects.  We will use these sources (which will be constantly added to). We watched Jayme's documentary as a warm up. More on this tomorrow.

This afternoon, we were back in our Awesome Brilliant groups to present our hunting and gathering society slide shows. They were all great and we were a great audience.

Then we had a whole hullabaloo of cleaning and moving cubbies to our new homerooms and we wrapped up with assignments and CPR.

Here's the homework.
LA: Still on free writing month - the prompt is write a story featuring a holiday, but you can also choose to work on your novel or write anything you want.

Also, read something for 20 minutes (we get our book assignments tomorrow)

Math: New skill sheets were handed out - they are due on Friday

Wednesday/Thursdsay

I forgot to post yesterday!!! Yikes.

One group had library topic searching yesterday, the other group today. The idea is find a compelling topic for National History Day "Taking A Stand in History." The theme is a bit abstract, but we are doing a great job. Some ideas include
Mohammed Ali
Women who changed ballet dancing
Elizabeth Blackwell - women in medicine
Martin Luther King Jr.
Rosa Parks
Bob Dylan

People may change their minds a few times, but after vacation we start our non-fiction reading and writing unit.

Students finished their hunting and gathering presentations today. We will all present on Monday after vacation.

Mr. Meadows and Ms. Lamb are creating new homerooms for after vacation. This way we get to work with new and different people (at least half new and different.)

The marking period for first trimester ends tomorrow. Therefore, we are completing assessments and pre-assessments. We did star reading yesterday and star math on Tuesday. This are computerized math and reading assessments.

homework:

math skill sheet
la finish Roald Dahl inspired story OR nanowrimo OR free write
Read your novel

Vacation homework:

Read as much as you can

Happy Thanksgiving vacation.

Tuesday 11-15-16

Tuesday Night's Homework

LA:  Students are expected to write a one to two page story in the voice of Roald Dahl.  

Math:  Complete page 44 in student pages.
There is a quiz on Area and perimeter of rectangles on Thursday.

Monday 11-114-16

We continued delving into Roald Dahl today. We watched a bit more of his biography and completed our summaries for our chosen Roald Dahl novel and wrote down a theme or two. He has some recurring themes like it is wrong to kill people or animals. Kindness is a prized virtue. Hard work will be rewarded. We can see these themes in his own life.

Tonight we continue working on a chart we started in class of Roald Dahl inspired story lines using Sombody ... wanted.... but.... so

Here's the chart.

Tomorrow we will write a story in class.

In the afternoon, we continued work on our hunting and gathering societies. Here is a model from last year.

Math homework tonight is skill sheet.

Wednesday 11.9.16

Today we finished any remnants of our small moment story assessment and applied the rubric. Then we updated reading records and met with Ms. Lamb (some of us did.)

In seminar we worked more on word study and reading.

In social studies, groups met to begin planning their hunting and gathering societies.

Tonight's homework:

Math:

LA: Free choice writing - story, true, opinions, nanowrimo - your choice. Write for 10 minutes or one page or 100-150 words.

Read for 20 minutes

Monday 11.7.16

Hello,
Today we got some feedback on our previous stories using the checklist.
Ms. Lamb wrote a story before our very eyes....sort of using a story arc with events of the small moment (Charylene threw up a box of crayons in first grade) with bit by bit story on the outside and inner thinking on the inside. Then she wrote the story and we all looked at the rubric to see where she fell.

Students may have access to all of these tools and any others when they write their final small moment, true (truish) story - hopefully where they learned something (don't eat crayons).  They will have two class periods to show everything they know about story writing.

Today we read two of the final four chapters of the BFG. We finish this week for global read aloud. Students will be expected to summarize the Roald Dahl book that they read on their own using somebody, wanted, but, so, then.  We will also write some compared themes for BFG, the documentary on Roald Dahl and the chosen book read by the student. These will be assessments for the report card.

We will get back to our beloved Schlunkland projects on Wednesday.

Homework tonight:
Math: Skill sheet new for this week
LA: Plan your story for tomorrow. Use an arc.
Read your novel for 20 minutes

There is a 5/6 party on Friday November 18. Permission slip were handed out. The BRAG group runs this and asks for a $5 donation to help offset costs. Please let us know if the $5 is a hardship. Permission slips are due before Wednesday November 16.

Thursday 11.3.16

Today's homework:
Math - finish skill sheet Note: next week you will only have one night of homework time to work on this and will need to budget your time.

LA. journal prompt - write about a time when you learned something - this is practice for our assessment on Tuesday. Our report cards in writing are based on student's ability to produce a narrative as an "on demand" prompt. They will have one class (one hour) and can use the afternoon (40 minutes) to finish if needed.  I need to witness the story being typed completely in class or handwritten. It can not be done ahead of time.

I will also take into account the process pieces you wrote during class - but this assessment is where you show you can do it on your own.  I will grade it with the rubric and get it back to you in time for you to consider doing another on demand right before vacation next Thursday. (Report card marking period ends on Friday November 18th.)

Read your novel for 20 minutes

Today we met Hugo and Antonia, exchange students from Chile. It was very interesting to here how their culture, geography and climate is different than ours (and sometimes the same.) They even sang a song in Spanish for us!

Mrs. Babbitt taught us to use Culture Grams. We will use this for a mini research presentation right after vacation (when we begin informational writing.)

We also read our last chapter of the week for the BFG. Tomorrow we will do some vocabulary, summarizing and journal writing work on these chapters.

Tomorrow we also get to see the play The Paper Bag Bandit.

Wednesday 11.2.16

Tonight's homework:

LA: Nanowrimo OR your choice journal one page or 150 words OR write a story that starts or ends with

It changed everything.....

Read your novel for 20 minutes

Math: Continue work on skill sheet due Friday

Here are our NANOWRIMO contestants:

Jack, Grace, Ms. Lamb, Katie, Molly, Lila, Hailey, Jailyn, Aidan, Mady, Kurt, Tyler, ALek, Owen, Beck, and Ella

Good showing from Team Legend. We will be writing a novel this month in lieu of our daily journal writing.

Students may always substitute any creative idea for journal writing. The idea is you write one page or type 150 words in a story each day. It can also be poems, rants, essays...whatever.

In class today, Ms. Lamb taught us how to use the YWP (Young Writers Project) website for our class. We will be posting our writing. Parents can see if their child logs in at home.

Don't forget your edutyping. We may not get to it in class this week. It is easy to do this at home. Just log in at edutyping.com. Remember cesuschools is the account name. First.last user name. Password is your number.

Tuesday 11.1.16

I'm writing from afar as I am at a professional development day today. Here is what I hope went on in my absence.

Everyone started a new EXP today. The rotation went Art to Design Tech. to Guidance to Health to Art.

At 9:00, Mr. Martin and Mr. Hamilton gave a bullying prevention presentation.  The rest of the time was divided up between LA and math.

In LA, kids wrote a small moment story on the computer. Tomorrow we will post them on a site and comment to each other.

In seminar, we had reading workshop, Kids spent time reading and conferring and maybe finishing word study from last week.

The afternoon was taken up with full team bocce tournament.

Homework:
Read your novel for 20 minutes.
Finish your story if not done (from class today)
START YOUR NANOWRIMO if you are doing that (I'll post our writers tomorrow - it's on the board)
Math??

This month students who are doing Nanowrimo may skip the journal homework and do their novels instead.

Monday 10.31.16

Happy Halloween!
Tonight's homework:
Math: Crunch bars ....I'm not sure what that means...it maybe some sort of bribe request
LA: Keep you eyes open for great moment stories - you will write one in class tomorrow
Reading: Imagine a scary story  - or one about candy if you don't want to scare yourself

Have a great evening.
Remember: No candy may be out during class - including snack.

Today in class we did a lot of reading in the BFG. We also discussed and updated our posts on Seesaw.com.

Tomorrow, we write a small moment story in class. We will post these tomorrow. Ms. Lamb will show us how and where.

Tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Meadows is hosting a bocce tournament.

Thursday 10-17-16

Today's homework for LA is:
Finish your story and be ready for me to assess with the checklist tomorrow

Finish one more lesson of edutyping

Read your novel for 20 minutes and be ready to update your reading record tomorrow and hand in for my comments

We will use tomorrow's LA class to finish up any of this work. That does not mean take the night off. It means work for 20 minutes to 40  (depending on math load) and finish up tomorrow in class.

Tomorrow afternoon in Social Studies project period, we will work on our research tasks for Schlunkland.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Oh dear...seems I forgot to post yesterday.
The homework was....
20 more minutes on division worksheet
organize story ideas for tomorrow's retreat to write your story
read for 20 minutes


Tonight
Finish or continue work on your story
1 more lesson edutyping (five or more total for the year)at least before the end of the week
Finish sentences for word study and do sort 3 (resort or recopy words) by Friday

Read novel for 20 minutes

Math: correct errors from today's work

Today we had a wonderful writing retreat. Students are writing marvelous stories. This time can be fiction or true.

In social studies we all managed to decide where in Schlunkland we are living and named our tribe. Most began their research task.

Monday 10-24-16

Welcome back.

Today in LA we wrote our first thinking journal entry in reading workshop. We will continue to work on the art of thinking about our reading in journal entries. Today we made some predictions about the BFG - which was a bit tricky for those who already know the ending.  The BFG espouses peace (he's a vegetarian and lectures Sophie about how only human beans kill each other.) Will he change his ideas and murder the giants for the good of civilization?

On Wednesday we will be completing an "on demand" story in class. This means come with a story idea and write it in class. We will have use of the library for some retreat writing space.  We will do some planning for homework and in class.

In the afternoon we learned a bit more about Roald Dahl and began our ADAPT project in social studies.

Homework:
LA: Brainstorm ideas for your on demand story for Wednesday. Try out one or two or make story arcs (Somebody, wanted, but, so, then...)

Read your novel for 20 minutes

Math - 20 minutes working on Division worksheets (hand out from class)

Thursday 10-20-16

Keep up the great story writing writers. We will make time each week for students to read aloud, or share with a partner, there best story from the week.

Today we finished chapter 12 of the BFG and talked about theme. Some of the themes we pulled out were:

It is good to do good in the world.

Eating (or killing) people is wrong.

Two very unlike people can become friends.

Don't judge a being until you fully know them.

A theme can be found by thinking hard "What the author wants the reader to believe is....." Then if you take off What the author wants the reader to believe is....you often will have a theme. Just make sure it is "universal" and can apply to other books as well.

Once we had our theme and at least one piece of evidence from the story, we posted on seesaw.com. We also had a chance to reply to some other prompt pictures on Seesaw that Ms. Lamb had posted earlier.

In the afternoon we had library. Remember to keep reading - especially Roald Dahl books and books that are similar.

Tonight's homework:
Writing prompt - write a story or entry that has magic in it
Read your novel   - read as much as you can this weekend
No math

Have a great long weekend.

Wednesday 10-19-16

Tonight's homework:

LA: Write a scary story
Math: None
Read your novel for 20 minutes or more

Hello all,
Today we had a massive book sorting event! Most of our books are now organized into bins with labels for fantasy, science fiction, realistic fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction, graphic novels, picture books and more.

Tomorrow we will work out our sign out system:-)

In the afternoon, we also did some more reading. We read chapter 11 of the BFG and talked about the story elements brought forward. Story elements are plot, theme, character and setting. This chapter brought out plot elements and the theme of "eating people is wrong" or maybe killing each other is wrong? Maybe pigs even think eating pigs is wrong? At least that is the question posed by the BFG.

We began looking at a fascinating biography video from the BBC on Roald Dahl. It is based on his own autobiographies in Boy and Flying Solo. It is very interesting to make the connections between his life and his stories. Maybe Ms. Lamb should be much meaner so students will have more to write about. (Just trying to be helpful.)

Tomorrow is the last day for this week. No classes for students on Friday.

Tuesday

Homework:
LA: Writing journal - Write about two people who are very different from each other

Read your novel for 20 minutes

Monday 10-17-16

We began a new unit in language arts today READING WORKSHOP. We reignited our reading journals writing about what kind of readers we are.

For Global Read Aloud (The BFG) we looked at the practice of summarizing using Somebody Wanted But So Then as categories. We will apply this to the BFG and our own novels.

This unit will focus a bit on summarizing but much more on theme, character and comparing texts for theme.

In the afternoon we read chapter 9 and visited the nurse for hearing screenings.

Tomorrow we will have a pre-assessment in reading for using theme in two texts.

Homework tonight:

Math: Worksheet handed out from Mr. Meadows

LA: Writing journal - write to this prompt or choose your own.
Write about a character (could be you) that has to eat something really gross.

Read your novel for 20 minutes.

Thursday 10-13-16

Today we had our final buddy conferences and put finishing touches on our 2nd personal narrative. Tomorrow we celebrate with the Legend Cafe Reading Celebration. Three students have signed up to be featured readers. They will perform their pieces for the class. Everyone else will provide a printed copy and we will have a gallery walk read around where students will read as many pieces as they can and leave compliment sticky notes for the writers.

Today was library day. Mrs. Babbitt introduced us to Nanowrimo coming in November dovetailing nicely with our fiction writing and reading unit.

She also featured some non-fiction books.

We finished our second week reading of the BFG for Global Read Aloud. Tomorrow we will post on Seesaw.com to our friends in New Jersey.

Tonight's homework:
LA: Get your story up to par on all areas on the checklist
Read your novel
No math tonight

Wednesday 10-12-16

Late start days are always a little weird. Today felt pretty good, but super fast.

In LA, we took a look at The Toaster and used it for ideas to apply to our own writing. Particularly noted was the dialogue, action and use of strong verbs.

We worked so hard, everyone decided they wanted "writing retreat" time in the afternoon. We had another 36 minutes for silent writing to finish our pieces.

We have one more writing class tomorrow for finishing touches, then we print and celebrate on Friday. We will have a few students who volunteer to read their piece aloud. Everyone else will present a finished printed draft for a gallery reading. We will read as many classmate pieces as possible and leave compliment notes for each writer.

Ms. Lamb will bring juice and crackers to celebrate.

Tonight's homework:

Read
Write if you need to
No math tonigh

Tuesday 10-11-16

Tuesday -

Students are working on their 2 digit multiplication and Order of Operations in Math today.  There will be a short quiz on Wednesday.  We will then be moving on to Division.

Homework tonight:

Math:  Page 29 in the workbook pages.
LA: Complete entire draft of new personal narrative.
       Read for 20 minutes.

Monday 10-10-16

Is it Columbus Day? Is it Indigenous People's Day? Nonetheless, we are in school.

We will FINISH A PERSONAL NARRATIVE in ONE WEEK. We can do this folks. Everyone has a great story idea and today we worked on stretching out the tension and using the checklist to focus on certain parts and tasks,

In the afternoon we spent some time organizing our cubbies and slots and binders. We read alone, updated reading records and Ms. Lamb read aloud some more for the BFG.

Homework:
LA: Continue work on your personal narrative - at least ten minutes. Work on the tension or some other part.
Read your novel for 20 minutes
Math: Multiplication WOrksheet - Word problems

Wednesday Thursday 10-6,7

I forgot to post yesterday. Sorry.

On Wednesday we had a very full day. We finished our first personal narratives and celebrated with a reading to our table groups. Ms. Lamb Read aloud Eleven by Sandra Cisneros. We will use this is a mentor text for our next personal narrative.

In social studies, we presented our beautiful landforms posters which are now on the bulletin board.

On Thursday we began to mine the text of Eleven looking for ideas we could use in our personal narratives.

Tonight's homework:

No math
Finish a solid flash draft of your next personal narrative
Read your novel for 20 minutes

Tuesday 10-4-16

Ms. Lamb was away today for professional development. Mrs. Senger was in but Mrs. Parker did most of the teaching.

She was the Newsela cheerleader, introducing students to our online reading news magazine. Students read 8 articles online and take 8 quizzes. Then Newsela adjusts the reading level and students read at their level and hopefully continue to move up and get informed about the world.  Students worked during LA and some during Seminar as well. Students also made reading goals.

In social studies, Mrs. Senger guided students to finish their mini-research project posters on one landform. Some students who finished early continued with Newsela or read their Roald Dahl books.

See you tomorrow.

Homework
Finish your writing piece to read to your group tomorrow.
Come with new idea for your second complete personal narrative.
I'm not sure about math.

Monday 10.3

Happy October everyone!

Today we started Global Read Aloud The BFG. I know that several students have read it before and seen the movie, but now we are going to talk and write with our friends from New Jersey. Today's prompt was:

Week 1:  Week of October 3

Read The Witching Hour through The Cave

Students are welcome to finish at home or next class period.

In writing workshop we learned about endings. Good endings get back to the meaning of the story and wrap up. We used E.B. White's ending the Charlotte's Web as a model:

“Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”

― E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

Try to wrap up with a lesson or something you realized.

Homework tonight:
Read for 20 minutes if you can
Writing (this is over two days) Get your story to an ending point, ready to read to your table group on Wednesday. Come with a new story idea to start on Wednesday.
Finish word study by Wednesday if not done.
No math tonight

Ms, Lamb has to be away tomorrow. Mrs. Parker will be teaching about Newsela - a non-fiction reading program we are using at BRMS.  Mrs. Turcott with be subbing for Ms. Lamb.

Thursday 9-29

I am writing this with no knowledge of what went on today.  Here is what was "supposed to happen."

In LA we hopefully had a writing/reading classroom retreat. Kids wrote on their own personal narrative until they felt "finished" at this point and/or wrote their own personal writing. When they felt done with writing (or 30 minute mark) they could switch to reading.

In the afternoon  we had our regular library time followed by edutyping. If one lesson got finished, kids could read or work on their continent project if that is not done yet.

Homework:
Extra reading time again - push yourself. See if you can read for an entire half hour
Math test tomorrow. Mr. Meadows sent parents an email about this. Here is the text of it:
HI everyone, 

I wanted to let parents know that tomorrow will be our first quiz in math.  We have been studying factors and multiples for several weeks.  I worked with the class today to prepare them and I think they are on track.  They have homework to complete pages 20-21 which will be good review for the quiz.

My quizzes are pretty low key.  At this point in the year they are designed to be practice for taking quizzes and tests as much as actually assessing their skills.  Grades will consist exclusively of comments and feedback on what they are doing well, and areas they will want to work on moving forward.

Have a look tonight at their homework.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Wednesday 9-28

Sorry about the lateness of the post.....

Today in writing we learned about speeding up and slowing down. We want to slow down the interesting parts, like just when I wound up that snowball and it flew through the air and smacked the teacher upside the head...and speed up the parts like...then we got in the car and sat there for 20 minutes and talked about this and that and then finally afer a while we got to where we were going....you get the idea.

Speed up some parts and slow down the good parts.

Everyone's writing is really coming along. I am very pleased with the progress I am seeing.

Later in the day we took a look at our reading records and moved them to be stored in our LA/SS binders. Some of us had the realization that I'M NOT READING ENOUGH. HOW WILL I EVER GET SIX NOVELS FINISHED BY NOVEMBER 30th.

So, some of us vowed to read more. That is at least 1 hour a week outside of school right now and moving up to 2 hours per week starting next week. (That is 20 minutes per day four days per week.) Please catch up over the weekends.

Also, do not skimp on the quality of your books just to fit them in. Starting Monday, we are reading the BFG for Global Read Aloud and posting responses with our friends in New Jersey on Seesaw.com (yes, it can be accessed from home! Awesome  Brilliant) We will all choose another Roald Dahl book to read alone (there are so many I can't believe you have read them all. I found 34 listed at this site https://www.roalddahl.com/global/roald-dahl-titles,  There's two more you will finish in October. The goal is two per month and a variety (not all graphic novels, but some can be.)

We all made sure we had posted our greetings on the seesaw site. We also completed day 4 of our word study packets (or we tried to.) This is our practice packing using every day words like months, days, holidays and classes.

Parent conference sign ups are here: http://signup.com/go/XoiKWa
This will arrive in an email as well.

Homework today:
Read for 30 minutes (no writing today)
Math: Page 17
SS: work on your map if it's not done and you have time
Cheers.

9-27 OPEN HOUSE TONIGHT 7 to 8 for grades 5 and 6

All are welcome to join us at Open House tonight. Grades 5 & 6 have visiting EXP's and other specials from 7 to 7:30 and visiting classrooms is from 7:30 to 8:00. We hope to see you tonight.

Homework tonight:
LA Writing- continue revising and working on your story. Make sure it has an arc as we did in class - Somebody...wanted. because...but...so... (10to 15 minutes)

Read for 15 minutes.

No math tonight.

Monday 9-26

Today in writing workshop we talked about finding the meaning in our story.  Last Thursday, most of us picked a story and wrote a flash draft using everything we could think about good writing, but getting it out fast. Today, we looked at that same story and tried to find the meaning in that story. That means why are your writing this story? What is the heart of it or what you want your reader to get from it?

Ms. Lamb's story is about getting a riding lesson on her cousin's pony, but it's really about her relationship with her cousin who was sometimes mean and sometimes nice.

This is a tricky concept for kids, so we may do it again tomorrow. Kids are also thinking working on the computers is helping them and Ms. Lamb is having second thoughts about that. If kids can come with an honest second draft tomorrow (at least 150 words) she may be convinced, but if not, we will all go back to writing by hand for workshop until we get to publishing.

Tonight's homework:

LA: Complete you re-draft. Consider this

Thinking Up a Whole New Way to Tell a Story

• Tell the story differently to bring out a different important meaning or message.
• Start the story earlier or later.
• Tell the story out of order.
• Include - emphasize - the part played by different people.

Read for 15 minutes or more

Math: Page 14

Social studies: Optional - if you feel your redraft is complete, you may work on your continent project.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 9-19,20,21

Okay, I forgot to post three days in a row. My apologies. Sometimes the days get away from me. Please always feel free to email me with homework questions.

Tonight's homework:
LA: Write - your choice - if you're stuck for a topic - write about an animal - real or imagined.
Read: 15 minutes - keep trying to increase your time.
No math tonight.

Monday 9-19

Sorry I'm late on the blog today.

In LA/Writing Workshop we talked more about finding our stories to write about. Ms. Lamb read When The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant to inspire some relative stories.  We were introduced to the checklist.

In social studies, Ms. Lamb told us about our pen pals for our Global Read Aloud project for The BFG by Roald Dahl.  Students began writing introduction of themselves using google docs. Before we did this, she introduced the Digital Citizenship Matrix.

Tonight's homework:

Write in your writing journal for 10 minutes at least. Write a new story or continue working on one started earlier. Ms. Lamb will check your journal tomorrow. If you are not writing, she will be contacting parents. Perhaps you will need to continue to get signatures for a while.

Read for 12 minutes. Slowing we are increasing this amount to 20 minutes. You will be updating reading records tomorrow also.

Math and Science: Share your paper overview of curriculum with parents

Friday 9-16-16

Happy weekend.
Remember we have no regular homework on weekend. Feel free to read and write, especially if you missed some days during the week.

On Fridays we have a lot of specials. In the morning we have band and chorus. Next week is the time to give it a trial period. You can back out after three weeks with no bad effects on the concert season. We encourage everyone to be in band and chorus, but study hall is available if it's just not for you. It will be a silent independent study hall for most.

In the afternoon Brilliant had PE and Awesome had World Language. Since these are at different times, the remaining students have a project period to complete projects in social studies. Today we worked on our classroom rules and our new name.

We had seminar also, but due to a slight glitch in the PE dismissal, one class A had reading while B had math. Maybe we will switch next week.

See you Monday everyone. We are still working on getting the webpage link to work, so maybe we will be back on the regular link then.

Thursday 9-15-16

Hello World,
If all goes well, our link on the webpage is back to our blog and our blog now has links to every other page like schedule, book clubs, curriculum and upcoming assignments. Check out the links above the blog entry.

Today we worked more on our writing skill by taking our reader inside our story and sticking with the author's point of view. We also practiced telling our story main point by main point and how sometimes, that part of the story could be left out.

Today is library day. We had a mini lesson in using the library data base. Next Wednesday we will have an extended library time during LA. We will have a research lesson from Mrs. Babbitt and a reading retreat time in the library.

Our book orders came today which was very exciting as we got some new classroom books. We will begin organizing the classroom library tomorrow and start checking books out from our classroom library as well as the school library. Some kids want to know if they can still order from September. The answer is yes. I can send in order any time, and you can order online any time. See the link above for the code and website address.

Tonight's homework:

LA: Continue practicing writing inside the story - write for at least 10 more minutes.
Read: For at least 10 minutes. This will be slowly increasing to 20 in the next weeks. Try for 20 sometimes.

Math none today

Wednesday 9-14-16

We had our first late start day! Everything went well, even though we forgot to warn the kids. They were great. We start at 9:30 for morning recess (a misnomer because how can you recess from something before you start it, but....). We also had our first INDOOR morning recess because it was raining at 9:30.  All of the fifth graders had to wait in Mr. Sullivan's room. They played games and hung out.

By recess for real, we got to go outside. Hurray! It was damp, but refreshing.

We had our second Seminar today. In LA seminar we are working on reading workshop. So far everyone has started their first reading journal entry and the teachers practiced conferring with individuals while you keep reading. It worked well.

In LA/SS we glued in our Strategies for Generating Personal Narratives into our WRITING journals (aka homework journals) and put a labeled tab on it. Then we moved to finishing our landforms geography vocabulary coloring assignment. Ask you child what at atoll is, or my favorite, and archipelago.

Tonight's homework (looks a lot like last night's homework)
LA: write another entry for a true personal story OR continue working on one in progress. Write for at least 10 minutes

Read you novel for at least 10 minutes

Math - none tonight

Tuesday 9.13.16

Here's the homework:

LA Write a new story or work on an already existing true story in your writing journal. Take a look at the chart for generating stories. Work for a minimum of 10 minutes on writing.

Read a novel for 10 minutes.

Math: Finish multiplication chart if needed

We had a SUPER busy day. We started our Seminar classes today, which are split between math and reading. This meant 9 to 2:45 straight classes with no specials - only lunch and recess. We are real troopers though and got a lot done.

In writing workshop we learned about using other authors to inspire our own stories. Then we went to our chart of Strategies for Generating Personal Narratives for writing more stories.  This chart will get taped into our journals tomorrow.

In our seminar reading class, we read and started our reading journals which will stay at school for now.

Students start the day on Tuesdays with EXPloratory health, design technology, art or guidance,

Monday 9-12-16

Ms. Lamb was not at school today and is writing this blog with zero knowledge of what actually went on there today.
This was supposed to be the homework:

Finish your imagined classroom map - or work at least 10 more minutes on it. If it is done, write a description of it on paper, on the back or in your journal.
Read your novel for 10 minutes (at least - more is better)
There likely was math also

Signatures are no longer required unless there is a problem. Then some individuals may be asked to get signatures for a while.

Tomorrow I will be back.

Thursday 9.8.16

We spent a lot of the afternoon working on our School WIde Agreement which we call CARES.  CARES stands for Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy and Self-Control.  We will have a Friday all school assembly to discuss these terrific ideas as a whole school.  

Empathy and Assertion

Cooperation

Responsibility

We started with reviewing our hallway expectations. We are great hallway people. We feel very confident sending our group anywhere.

In LA we worked on dreaming the dream of our story. Imagine it as it happened and take your reader there with you.

We continue to think of new strategies for generating ideas for stories.

We visited the library today. All of us have a novel. For homework (done at school - last day) we filled out our reading records and read.

For the last ten minutes before EXP we practiced quiet time.

Homework tonight:
Read for 15 minutes
fill our reading record

get a signature (last time)

Wednesday 9.7.16

Today we started with reviewing the expectations for fire drills. We will have one today at 1:45.

Then we all got our assigned computers and logged on.

Jailyn showing a huge thrill with her new computer.

Later we all took our first online assessment, called Star Math. Later we will take another online assessment for reading called Star Reading.

Natalie and Amber working hard on their star math assessment.

We all got our computers to work! 

Today in LA we started our regular writing workshop by trying out a new writing strategy. This is called Times or Turning Points. Think of a time - first time, last time or a time you realized something. Think of as many stories as you can associated with that time. Collect your stories in a chart. Find one that excites you and write about it. Soon we will have a journal full of great story starts.

Homework:

LA: Resolutions Students received a handout (See link). In journal write a a goal for writing for this year. At home, keep in mind that everything that happens to you is the potential for a story. Come tomorrow with some more ideas for stories.

Math: None tonight

Read: Read your novel for at least ten minutes

Get a signature in your assignment book

Tuesday 9.6.16

Hi everyone,

We started today with a visit from Mrs. Fabiani, our technology wizard, and Mr. Hamilton, our principal. They reviewed the expectations for using computer hardware in our school Basically, you must take care of it. I will post the contact tomorrow.

Here is Mrs. Fabiana explaining how to take care of the computer

We began our series of assessments with writing today. Everyone sat down and wrote a story. We had some extra teachers on hand as we always will during this block called "seminar." I will talk more about that in future blog entries. Ms. Lamb is taking everyone's story home tonight. I'm in for some good reading.

Students are spread out using their writing space preferences.

We also got our shiny red assigment books today. Students wrote down homework and then did the homework. Tonight they bring home the work to show parents and get a signature. We will end this practice after this week and revisit it only with students who are struggling with remembering to do their homework.

Homework:

LA - draw in your journal a favorite place. Describe it if you have time. Label things if that helps.

Read your book

Get a parent signature

Aidan and A.J. with their new assignment books.

Today was A.J.'s birthday!! He shared some gluten free Rice Crispy Treats with us all.

See you tomorrow.

Ms.Lamb

Friday 9.2.16

Hi everyone. A great week (or half week) was had by all!  If you want to order from the book orders, I will aim to send the first order in next Friday. I can send them in anytime, and you can order online with our code: DVG7Z​.

Here is some more club information:

REVISED!  UPDATED!  IMPROVED!

SIGN UP VIA EMAIL!  Open to all students in grades 5-8.  

Please note the following clubs start this month:  

• Yearbook Club on Tuesday, September 6 in the library from 2:45-3:30pm.  We will meet on Tuesday afternoons.
• Photo Club on Wednesday, September 9.  No meetings.  Weekly prompts will be given out at lunch for those interested in taking photos.
• Yu-Gi-Oh and D & D Card Club on Wednesday, September 9 in the library from 2:45-3:30pm.  We will meeton Wednesday afternoons. 
• Breakfast Book Club on Thursday, September 8 in the library from 7:30-8:00am.  We will meet on Thursdaymornings. 
• Coloring Book Club on Friday, September 9 in the library from 2:45-3:30pm.  We will meet on Friday afternoons.

I hope you will join a club this fall.  Please email me if you are interested in any of these clubs.  Here's the link for more clubs on campus.

Happy birthday to Aidan!! We got to do the cheer again and he brought in brownies to share.

Today we worked to finish our classroom maps. We discussed what all maps have: at title, a key, labels and a compass rose. We also talked about the quality of work assignments that will be published or turned in.

In math we worked on our brains.

This morning well all crated a name of mortar for our brick and mortar bulletin board.

The Awesome went to World Language with Mrs. Swaney. The Brilliants went yesterday.

Today the Brilliants had PE but no one remember to snap a photo. The Awesomes had PE yesterday.

We do not generally have homework on Fridays. Students have a change to finish or catch up on things. Students might consider continuing to decorate their journals over the weekend.

Otherwise, have a great long weekend. See you on Tuesday.

Thursday 9.1.16

Here are some club notices from Mr. Tisdell and Mrs. Babbitt.

We will have audition workshops on 9/6 and 9/7. Auditions are 9/13. Casting will be done immediately following the auditions and rehearsal starts on 9/14.

There will be something for everyone. Iris West has written and will direct a short play.

There will be some short comedy sketches and The longer show will be a melodrama called "The Paperbag Bandit Rides Again".

BRMS Students and Staff

SIGN UP VIA EMAIL!  Open to all students in grades 5-8.  

Please note the following clubs start this month:  

• Yearbook Club on Tuesday, September 6 in the library from 2:45-3:30.  We will meet on Thursdaymornings. 
• Photo Club on Wednesday, September 9.  No meetings.  Weekly prompts will be given out at lunch for those interested in taking photos.
• Yu-Gi-Oh Card Club on Wednesday, September 9 in the library from 2:45-3:30.  We will meeton Wednesday mornings. 
• Breakfast Book Club on Thursday, September 8 in the library from 2:45-3:30.  We will meet on Thursday mornings 

I hope you'll join a club this fall.  Attached are the flyers for these clubs.  Please email me if you are interested in any of these clubs or starting a club.

Today we visited the library and came back down to the classroom to experience 10 minutes of silent reading. This will be the beginning homework expectation. We all agreed that it felt very fast. Students are encouraged to read as much as possible and we will work up to a half hour at home 4 days per week or two hours outside of class.

In math, students began making maps of the room and identifying where some important things are and labeling. This will be a very useful math skill (along with every other class we do here.)

Today's homework is to bring home your assignment sheet and share with parents. Parents are asked to sign the sheet when students have explained the day. A few students forgot that part yesterday so they will ask parents to sign for Wednesday and Thursday. Brilliant also has a sheet from World Language. Students may want to continue decorating journals at home.

Ask about: My brain and me, classroom maps, decorating journals, reading alone, library, world language, p.e., exploratories - art, design tech, guidance or health.

First Day! 8.31.16

Notice: Our page will turn into a google doc with a link to the blog. You will just click on the big orange B to get here.

We had a very great start to the school year. Below you will see some photo evidence. We learned our CPR/Homeroom Groups. 

We all learned CARES and practice some CPR greet and game.

Mr. Meadows side had a circle talk with a name game and some summer activity share. Ms. Lamb's side finished our name tags both table-top and wearing (see Hunter's great example and Beck's below.)

We had a lot of space learning and protocols to go over. We will keep that going all week and next. We have two homeroom/CPR groups, Awesome and Brilliant. We travel in those groups to core classes and Music, World Language and PE. Here is a link to the schedule which we will not be following completely for about three weeks.  SCHEDULE

Tomorrow the Awesomes have PE and Friday the Brilliants have PE.  

We started homework today. Hurray! The main objectives were start a homework folder - put in your assignment sheet (books haven't arrived yet, maybe by Monday) and book orders. Note - all other office paperwork is sent home by email to parents by other people. Check emails for this important information.

The only other homework was to write down some hopes and dreams for this year. This is on page one of our homework journals. 

The biggest part for HOME part of homework, is to bring home the folder, share with parents, get a signature on the assignment sheet and bring it all back tomorrow (folder, assignment sheet and journal.)

We had a talk about snack. Kids all ate, so everyone wants a snack. Kids can purchase snack from the cafeteria. We ask that they do this before 8:00 so we don't have kids leaving during the day. Kids will eat snack during class - we will practice this. We ask that kids not have sugar during snack as much as possible. We won't be policing, but we may ask that some things be saved for lunch if they have something else to eat. We will continue to talk about this.

Homework:

LA - on the page one of your homework journal - What are your hopes and dreams for this school year?

(Note - we completed this in class. We wrote for 5 minutes. Students made lists or wrote in pros form)

Book orders: If you like to have your very own books, please consider ordering from our scholastic book orders. If you prefer to use a credit card and order online, our code is DVG7Z. This gives our class bonus points and deals which we use to build our classroom library.

Math - none

Science - none

Social Studies - share folder with parents. Show book orders, assignment sheet (in lieu of assignment book on order) and journal.

Parent/Teacher

get a signature from a parent that you showed this 

NOTE we also put names on homework folders and homework journals - tomorrow we will decorate these to personalize. You may want to bring in pictures, photos or stickers.

Great name tag examples above and below.

Marshmallow and spaghetti towers - Cooperation!