November 18-22

This week in language arts we began an accordion research project to wrap up what the students had been learning throughout the quarter.  Students chose a non fiction book to read. Then they identified the main Idea, new vocabulary, facts, and an evaluation.  We will present this week and rubrics will go home Wednesday.

We also learned about primary vs secondary documents and took a quiz on non fiction text structure.

We continue to read Holes and practice making inferences, predictions, asking questions, using context clues, making connections, etc.

In social studies we are still learning about the constitution and we focused on the three branches of government. The class is working on filling out the tree with specific information on each of the branches. We are using various resources to complete the tree. In computer lab, the students also worked on icivics.org to learn more about the duties and process of each branch through an interactive game.

The students all finished and submitted their PROBES this week. Rubrics went home in Friday folders. The class worked on this for several weeks gathering resources, conducting research, conferencing, planning out the format, and then creating the final piece. This will count for most of their writing grade. Below is an example of a level four, although the third page was not necessary.

Looking ahead:

The next two weeks are short.  

We will have school November 25-27, then off for Thanksgiving.

Then December 2-4 will be our last week before track out.

Report cards will be going home on December 4th and will have a slightly different look.

December 4th will also be our Polar Express day.  Student s can wear their pajamas to school and bring a stuffed animal as well. We will have hot cocoa and a few snacks as we watch the movie in the afternoon. In the morning we will read the book and do a few other hands on activities. Please have your child bring their ticket to school (sent home in Friday folders with info on it), we have a surprise that it will be needed for.... ;)

November 12-15

I'm so glad to be back, we've had a great week getting back into the swing of things. 

Here's a synopsis of what we did this week:

In SS we are learning about the constitution and early government. We will continue learning about government until the end of the quarter. We discussed what the colonists wanted in their government and compared it to how England ruled them.

In math we learned about various angles, rotating angles, and measuring angles. We learned about acute, right, and obtuse angles as well as how to measure them with a protractor.

In reading we have been studying non fiction text structure for the past week and learning abound how non fiction texts are set up. There are four main structures we learned about.

The students used this information to analyze the structure in the books they are reading.

Working hard. We also got 4 new boxes of books that we are working hard at sorting by level.

As we look for good fit books, some students are reading books that are too hard or too easy.  We went through lexile.com and used our lexiles to find some suggested books and also looked up the lexile of the books we were already reading.

In writing students finished their PROBES this week. Here is a great example of the finished product. Rubrics will be going home next week and I will send their notebooks home with them so you can see their finished product.

I'm baaaack!

After being home with my babies the past few weeks, I'm (almost) ready to come back to my big kids. I will be returning to work November 12th. I have missed my class and stopped in a few times to see them. They all have met Vella, but you all haven't, so I wanted to share a few pictures of our sweet new girl and her big brother.

Starting next week I will be blogging weekly with classroom updates. Enjoy the long weekend!

Surprise!

We had a little surprise earlier this week and our little peanut came a few weeks earlier than expected.

Arvella Karst Simmons, "Vella", was born Tuesday, 9/17/13 at 6:18pm.

She was 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 21 inches long.

We are all doing well and getting used to our new family.  Here are a few pictures of our sweet baby girl:

Wide awake at the hospital

Big brother Alton already looking after his little sister 

Headed home from the hospital 

Our first outing to the doctor, I think purple is her color

I hope you all have a relaxing track out, I will do my best to continue weekly updates as to what is being taught in the classroom.

Report cards will be going home one week later than previously expected.  

Week 9 9/3-9/6

I am so sorry I missed last week. But here is a synopsis of this past week and a sneak peak into next week.

As we near the end of the quarter there is always time to make sure all the class work gets completed and turned in. And there is everyone's favorite....testing....

This week we took a Case 21 test in math and language arts. These are county wide tests we take at the end of each quarter.  We also took a math quiz earlier in the week and short test today.  In math we wrapped up multiplication and next week we will begin division (with the area model).  That will also be where we pick up in the second quarter.

In social studies we learned more about why/how the early settlers moved throughout the different regions in the state. We learned care and usage of iPads and worked in small groups to read various articles.  Next week we will be studying the revolutionary war.  

Second quarter the focus will be on government.  This will be integrated throughout reading and writing as the focus there is non fiction.

In reading we focused more on making inferences.  Students read several different newspapers (nc weekly) to learn about the lost colony at Roanoke. As they read the various articles, they had to for, their own theory as to what happened to the colony and write a brief essay explaining what their theory was.  They also had to use evidence from the articles to support their theory. 

Next quarter we will be learning about non fiction text features and focus on reading non fiction in class.

In writing we wrapped up conferences and finished up the narratives we started earlier in the quarter.  Students also had time to revise and edit the work they did with Mr. Peacock last week.  Some students finalized the paragraph they wrote, others used the paragraph as a starting point to create an entire story.

Next quarter we will be focused on non fiction writing and researching.

Second quarter in science students will be learning about landforms.

**No specials on Monday, Tuesday we will be in the computer lab doing a other Sri test to show growth from the first quarter.

**reminder that I am having conferences on Wednesday next week.  I will be at school the entire week, but after Friday will not be checking emails until we track back in.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Multiplication notes

Multi digit multiplication....help for parents :)

I have taken several pictures of my notes to share and explain with you.  Your child should have the same notes in their notebooks in the min lesson section.  I know this is a very different way of multiplying.  The basic premise is just that you break down all the numbers into ones, tens, and hundreds.  They are learning the process behind what you really do when you multiply (using the "shortcut" method.

Here are the different methods that get progressively more difficult as the numbers get larger:

Behavior management system

Here is a visual of what we mean when clips are moved up or down.  Each chld begins the day ready to learn and has the opportunity to stay there, move up, or move down based on their behavior.

These are the slips that go home when clips are moved up (neon) or down(white)

.

When a student moves their clip down, they will have to bring home a slip and get it signed that night. If it doesn't get brought back signed, they will move their clip down for the day.

If a child moves their clip down 3 times in one week, they will be sent to the office to do their work during part of the day.

Conferences and report cards

    Thank you to those of you that have touched base to set up appointments for conferences.  I understand that many of you have plans during that first week of track out, I do have some slots open next week before and after school.  I would like to meet with as many of you as possible over the next few weeks so we can discuss your child before I go out on leave.  As that time gets closer I will have more information to share.

    Also, remember that report cards will not be going home until October 4th and there will no longer be 3*s used i report cards.

Week 7 August 19-23

Greetings family and friends! It is hard to believe we are nearing the close of the first quarter! We had a very busy week-especially in math as we learned different strategies to multiply larger numbers.

I have one big announcement, report cards will not be going home on our track out day, September 10.  They will be going home when we track back in, the week of September 30th.  Wake county has transitioned to a new computer based grading system....

In math this week we leaned various methods of multiplying one by two digits and one by three digits. I know that these methods are VERY different than how we were taught but it really does help the grasp the concept of what we are really doing when we get to "the shortcut method".  The various strategies are basically deconstructing the problem into smaller, easier place value problems.  Here are some examples:

All the problems shown have the initial problem written down.  The first step is breaking down the larger number into ones, tens, and then hundreds.  Each of those numbers then gets multiplied by the remaining number.  So rather than 324x6, you solve (300x6) + (20x6) +(4x6).  The methods all vary after this step, but this is the main step I want the class to understand.  Then when they look at the "normal way" we were taught, they will understand when they multiply the 4x6, it is the ones place, that 2x6 really is 20x6, and the 3x6 is 300x6.  Throughout most of the week, the class understood the various methods we were working on, but some had trouble on Friday when we got into the shortcut method.

We also take notes each day on the different methods and i have been encouraging students totals home their notebooks to help them out.  Pus we do go over homework each day and answer questions the class may have had.

In reading this week we focused on character traits and adjectives. We discussed ow the two are related, searched for them in our reading, and added them to our writing.  

We read the book No David!  And used it as a jumping off point for describing character traits.

The class came up with some great traits that described David.  We also noticed that all the traits we shared were not traits that you could look at someone and know.  You had to really listen and watch the character in order to learn their character traits.

In writing we wrapped up our first narrative.  We looked at how to revise and how to edit our own papers.  They were then turned in and we had one on one conferences to share ideas and suggestions.  Then students worked on their final copies.

This coming week we will have our writer in residence, Tony Peacock, spend the week with our class teaching more about details and descriptions.  He is an amazing writer and teacher, we are very lucky to have him and you will be pleasantly surprised how he inspires the class to write!

We just started in with Social Studies and are learning about the effects the Europeans had on the early American Indians.  We are learning about background and will be jumping into a project in the lost colony of Roanoke.

I will, be holding conferences on September 11-12, so please either send in a note on your child's planner, or email me the best times for you and we can get those set up.

Have a great weekend!

Week 6 August 12-16

*reminder that Friday is early release! Students will begin dismissing at 1:15*

In math this week we continued learning about factors, multiples, products, prime numbers, and composites.  Thursday we took a quiz. Friday we began exploring different models of multiplication.  We will be moving into multiplying with larger numbers, so our exploratory lesson allowed the class to manipulate base ten pieces and break down problems into tens and ones. (Why we have spent so much time working on place value-we will be using this method to help understand multiplying with larger numbers.)

Here we looked at 15x4 and modeled it as 4 groups of 15

Which can then be broken into 4 tens and 4 groups of 5 ones

Here is how we write the different problems using "shorthand"

Here is another form showing the transition from the algorithm to base ten shorthand, then broken down into tens and ones.  The box in the upper right is what we will be working towards which is similar to making arrays.

In reading we spent the week learning about theme. We looked at Aesop's fables, some short stories, and reviewed some books we read earlier in the quarter. Students worked on identifying the theme on their own as they read independently.

In writing we continued working on drafting our pieces and worked on word study.  Through the next few weeks we will be learning different activities within word study and continue working with homophones. We will wrap up the quarter with an imaginative prompt.

In science we wrapped up our unit on earth materials and spent a few days learning about the rock cycle. This week we will begin SS, which will also be integrated into reading and writing.

Conferences! I will be holding conferences during track out.  Available openings will be September 11-12 from 9:30-3:30. If you need earlier or later conferences, let me know.

Open house PowerPoint reformatted

I have been unsuccessful in my attempts of uploading the PowerPoint from open house.  Here are pictures of the slides we talked about and went over.  Sorry for the delay, I hope this information helps.