Sunday Evening in the Gentle Rain

I am enjoying the gentle rain today. I am sorry I didn’t post last week. As most of my students know, my friend Cherry is very sick and I have been spending a lot of time with her in the hospital and in the nursing home. Not making excuses, just explaining. Thanks for all my kids who have been praying for her and her family. You are very much appreciated.
Monday is a NET retreat for 6th, 7th and 8th grades in Dubina. This is a fantastic day for the kids. Lat year was amazing. Don’t forget to bring your lunch!
On Tuesday, it will be back to work! 6th graders are starting on Unit D-the Human Body. We will be making a skeleton and learning about the nervous system in the book and on the internet.
5th Grade is finishing up the last chapter of the Life Science Unit. They had a review on Thursday and will review some more with some fun activities on Tuesday. Wednesday is the test and Thursday/Friday will be a Unit A review but it is not a test.
8th grade have begun the Earth and are working on the smallest forms of matter – atoms. We will do the ELectron Dance this week as well as working on forms of matter and having a Chapter 5 review on Friday.
The 7th grade will make a study fold on the different types of algae as well as learning about fungi, lichens, slimemolds, liverworts and mosses. Fun stuff, huh? They will get to taste at least two forms of fungi on Thursday.
All this is dependent on working around the Veteran’s Day program of course so things may have to be pushed back one day.

What a Gorgeous Day

Seriously, my kind of weather. I love the cool wind and the beautiful sunshine.
For the upcoming week – 6th grade is going to work on biomes and habitats. We will do some searching on the internet as well as in the book. They have a test review over Chapter 4 on Thursday and a test on Friday. This is the end of the Life Science Unit so we have a two-day until review and move onto to Unit D – the Human Body.
5th Grade will be doing some serious singing next week. They have songs to learn about ecosystems, biomes, the water cycle and decomposers. We will also do some graphic organizers on food webs.
8th Grade finished their first unit this week and will move onto unit 2. The rest of the year will really focus on the Earth and geology. They will sing about geology, watch a movie about the properties of matter. It is short science week for them and 7th grade since we will be going to Rachel’s Challenge on Friday afternoon.
7th grade will enter the fabulous world of sarcodines, ciliates, flagellates and sporozoans this week! Basically, microscopic organisms. They have a chapter 6 test review on Wednesday and a test on Thursday.

Fabulous Fall Friday!

We finally got our cool weather back! It was so nice to sit in church with the windows open and the breeze passing through. Thanks again to all the students yesterday for helping the day run so smoothly even with all the visitors and changes. Let’s talk about next week:
Remember that Thursday is Report Card Day. Teachers will be in classrooms from 1:00 until 5:00 for you to meet with about your child’s report card. If you don’t make it to the conferences, the report card will be sent home on Friday. I will be here until 4:15 only because of volleyball. It is an away game. Please feel free to e-mail or call me to schedule a specific conference time, otherwise, I’ll see when I see you!
The 6th grade continue to work on organism interactions and will sing about the food chain. We will talk about biomes all over the world and do some research on the internet.
The 5th grade will finish chapter 3 on Monday, have a test review on Tuesday and have their test on Wednesday. As promised, I have re-written the test to contain the same information in a different format. They we will start on ecosystems and watch the Magic School Bus go to the Rainforest.
8th grade will review on Monday for the Chapter 4 test on Tuesday. They will have a unit review both Wednesday and Friday.
7th grade also have a chapter review on Monday for a chapter 5 test on Tuesday. They will sing about Protozoa on Wenesday and make protzoan art on Friday.
That’s it for the week! I think it is easier for me to post about the upcoming week on the Friday before and let everyone know ahead of time about the week ahead.
Please feel free to add comments to the blog!!

Father’s Funeral

I have to write quickly to say that all of the students here are doing such a good job remembering to bring their lunch, being polite to visitors and carrying onwith their work even though today is a little different. I’m so proud of them all!

It’s Monday!

and I’m posting!! It’s going to be a busy week with two volleyball games and a football game as well as the upcoming special funeral.
6th graders will watch an IMAX film this week on adaptive behaviors in animals as they travel for food and breeding. They will have a test review on Thursday and a test on Friday for Chapter 3.
The 5th grade are working on adaptations. They will make a study fold, learn all about a shark’s adaptations on an Internet Scavenger Hunt and see a video about animals adapting to urban scrawl. No tests for them this week.
8th grade is off to the Moon! They will be making a phases flip book, researching on the internet and doing an experiment with rocket science. Rememeber to bring a plastic bottle of any size or shape by Friday please!
7th grade have a testing week. They have a chapter test today on Chapter 4. We reviewed on Friday. They also have a Unit 1 Test on Tuesday and Wednesday. I like to give them two days since it a longer test than the chapter ones. Then they will be singing about viruses and bacteria on Thursday and Friday.
Sorry if the grades being out of order irritates you – I write by reading off my lesson plans and that is the order of my classes!

Problems with the Blog

I apologize about going so long without a post. I have been having a hard time logging onto the website but I think it is going to be okay now. That said, the 6th graders have been working hard at adaptations and today played a game on Discovery.com to see if they could help a species adapt and survive over a million years. I think most got a least one survival winner in! They also wrote fantastic short stories on fossils and how they came to be a fossil.
The 5th graders spent the morning reviewing and correcting a test. I have been doing A LOT of thinking about these tests and I come to the conclusion that I will be re-writing the tests from the book from now on. There are too many questions that have one little word that changes the whole context or questions that say all of these statements are true except, etc. I just want to know my students are absorbing the information. And I know they are because they are doing GREAT on daily assignments and verbally then the tests are just too badly written to be an accurate gauge of what they learned, in my opinion.
7th graders have been designing their own classification system as we have studied binomial nomenclature the past few days. They will be hanging in the hallway for all to see – the classifications systems, not the 7th graders that is!
And the 8th grade have finished a chapter on the Sun and the Solar System. Now we are beginning to work on the Earth. Since the whole year is Earth Science, this first chapter is really kind of an overview and putting Earth in it’s place in relation the the Solar System and Sun.
I promise to do better and get back to daily posting!!! Please feel free to comment or email me! Thanks!!

Another Friday!

I can’t believe it is Friday again. The Bishop is here today and he is such a lovely man. I enjoy his visits. The kids have worked so hard all week long on the ITBS tests. I am so proud of them. I miss my 5th Graders! Today is the first day I have seen them all week. Since we have been working on reproduction in flowers, we watched Magic School Bus In a Beehive today. The 6th Graders played with genetics today and we made punnet squares. We used foam beads and made dominant and recessive genetic matches. The 8th graders have worked on the Solar System all week. They learned the Sun is really just an average star but so important to us in an Internet Scavenger Hunt. We also did a scale model solar system outside (in the drizzle) as well as learning about the planets in the Rock-N-Learn program. The 7th graders have worked hard on a study fold, a gallery walk and cell diagrams all week. They will be rewarded to day when they get to make an edible cell model out of huge sugar cookie, frosting cytoplasm and candy organelles. Have a great weekend everyone!!

I Can’t Believe It’s Friday!

and I have not posted at all this week! We’ve had a busy week – the first full week in a while since both of the two previous weeks were short by one day each. The classes are doing fine and working hard as obvious by their test grades. We have had some songs, some computer activities as well as drawing and coloring. I will try to do better next week about the daily posts. In the meantime, Alfredo the spider is adjusting well to our classroom and things are going great.

Monday Again!

Where did the weekend go? We had a fun start to the week, I think. The sixth grade practiced the Mitosis Square Dance since we had a short class for the Magazine Drive presentation. 5th grade had their first turn to play Eggspert for test review for tomorrow’s test. I hope you all are studying! The 7th grade learned about atoms, molecules and chemical changes as opposed to physical ones. The 8th grade had a Gallery Walk where they read and post information on differrent sections of the text on posters on the wall. They did a great job on Star Groups – quite impressed with their knowledge and abilities.

We Have a New Mascot!

We were at the volleyball game and some of the girls came running in the gym, very excited, because they found a new spider! The husband bravely helped capture it and it is already installed in its new home in the classroom. His name is to be Alfredo – following the pasta theme here.
Sixth grade took their first test today and I am happy to say they did quite well. Fifth grade watched the Magic School Bus Get Planted. Lots of good stuff in that movie, with a detailed description of photosynthesis. Seventh and Eighth grades both did the Reporters and Experts activity with their new chapters. Half the class becomes reporters and write questions over a certain number of textbook pages. The other half gather together to become experts on the same pages. Then they team up, one reporter to one expert to go over the information. If we have time, they switch positions. A really fun way to go over a couple of pages in the book. The activity is another great Sharon Bowman idea.
Preventing Death By Lecture! – Terrific Tips For Turning Listeners Into Learners