Christmas Pageant Practice!

Since we are so deeply engrossed in pageant practice, now is a good time to work on the Drug Abuse and Alcohol Awareness posters for the annual contest. So that is what all 4 grades will be doing when we are in the classroom and each grade also has a Drug Awareness Booklet to work on while we are at practice, at home, whenever they can. The booklet is not due until we come back from Christmas break – January 11th. Drug and Alcohol posters will be due before Christmas break but we should be able to get them done in class. I asked all classes to bring a white posterboard but only a very few students have brought them. I bought a bunch this weekend and students can buy a posterboard from me for a quarter. I hope this sounds far, it will cover the cost of my buying 25 posterboards.

Welcome Back!

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! This week is the beginning of the infamous pageant practice marathon!! Some work will go with us to practice, some will stay in class – it is the time to be flexible!
6th graders will be finishing up Chapter 1 of the Human Body unit with a review on Thursday and test on Friday. We will be talking about nerve cells and the endocrine system this week.
5th graders will learn about oxygen and cell wastes this week. We will also be singing about our cleansing kidneys and the digestive system later this week. 5th graders will not have any tests.
7th and 8th graders will stop whatever they are doing in their respective classes to focus on Drug Awareness. They will both receive drug awareness booklets to read and work on while at pageant practice, in class or at home as well as working on a rough draft and final product for the Drug and Alcohol Awareness Poster contests. I will assign a due date for the drug booklets later this week.
That’s it – I am looking forward to seeing everyone in the morning!

November 16 – November 20th

The 6th grade are working on their brains this week. They will do an internet scavenger hunt and then focus on senses. They will be doing a lot of writing – poetry and sentences that are all about their senses. They will also be watching their own eyes expand and contract to see.
The 5th grade is finishing up Unit A on Monday and we will then be skipping to Unit D on the human body. They will do an introductory activity that is a pretest on what they already know and then we will be talking and singing about respiration. Finally, Miss Frizzle will be flexing her muscles on Friday to show them how the muscles, heart and lungs work together in times of exertion.
The 8th grade will be working on minerals after a review on Monday and a test on Tuesday. They will learn all about their properties and write a short report on their birthstones.
The 7th grade is finishing non-vascular plants with a review on Tuesday and a test on Wednesday. They will be moving on to the next type of plants – vascular plants. They will be singing alot about plants at the end of the week.

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!!