December 14-18

I'm going to make the blog this week short and sweet. We've made it through 2009. By the time our class reconvenes, it will be the new year. We're going to hit the ground running. We'll start a new story, we'll continue with our spelling groups, we'll start our sound unit in science and we'll march forward in math. December's math was a lot of review, but January starts again with the new material.

With that, I'll give you our picture for this week. On Friday, we took the time to learn about some of the different holidays around the world: Christmas, Advent, Yule Time, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa. We even had some expert input on how the holidays are celebrated south of the equator, where there is no snow in December. Ending with the picture, I'd just like to wish everyone a Happy Holidays! Whichever holiday it is you celebrate, celebrate it twice for me!

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. -Hamilton Wright Mabie

Just make sure you

Love the giver more than the gift. -Brigham Young

November 30 - December 11

So, I really meant to write a blog for last week, but before I knew it the weekend was over, and the week was flying by, so I'm here now, writing for two weeks. With that in mind, I'll go ahead and post two different pictures because over the course of the two weeks, there were a couple of really fun projects we did. The first comes from the previous week. In science we've been learning about light. One particular lesson, we learned about the colors of light and how a prism can separate white light into all the colors of the spectrum. So we made ourselves a prism and hung them in the window of the school for all to see.

The second pictures derives from our story this week. We learned about the ancient Greeks and Romans. With that, we learned that our modern alphabet comes from the alphabet of the ancient Greek. We took the Greek alphabet aligned side by side with our alphabet and made ourselves nametags written in Greek. The picture below is just a sampling of how well they turned out.

The past now behind us, we look to the future. Only one week left until the Holiday break! I can't believe that 2009 is almost past! We have a busy week ahead of us this week. A couple of school wide items, Tuesday we're having the Geography bee. We have two students that have made it into the semi-final tie breaker on Monday to see who all will compete on Tuesday. We also have our school choir performing for us on Tuesday afternoon.

In class this week, we will be reading our story, "The Skill of Pericles". Accompanying that in language we will divulge ourselves a little deeper into adjectives as we learn about proper and demonstrative adjectives. We will also be writing our second story in the adventures of our Flat Stanleys. This week we will be writing about our Stanleys visit to the Great Saltaire. I'm hoping that they will have returned from Australia by the time we get back from break, so we can write about our adventures down under, and then send them somewhere for their newest adventure!

Math this week will be a review of the measurements of circles through the books, "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi" and "Planetary Circles". We will also be reviewing for and taking our November benchmark test this week.

In science, we will be finishing up our unit on light. We have a visit from an optometrist on Monday, a video on Tuesday, a review day Wednesday, and then the quiz on Thursday. When we return from break, we will beginning our unit on sound!

I would just like to take this moment to throw out a HUGE thanks to all of the parents who volunteer their time. I would like to share my upmost gratitude to those who have come in and shared their special talents with us. A special thanks this week to Justin Holt, who will be the optomestrist who comes in on Monday and shares his expertise as to how light works with the human eye. Also to Gina Mills, who comes in once a month during our PE time to share with the students her expertise in Yoga.

I think I'll send home a note on this as well, but I know all of you parents have special talents such as these. If you have a talent you'd be willing to share with the class, feel free to let me know via e-mail (apratt@syracuseartsacademy.org) or through a note to class. If you let me know what your talent is, I will do my best to find a place we can tie it into the curriculum.

Thanks, thanks, thanks again for everything you all have done and will do!

Volunteers don't get paid. Not because they're worthless, but because they're priceless. ~Sherry Anderson

November 16 - 24

And it's here! Thanksgiving break is upon us. Before I head home to celebrate the holiday, I'll make a quick update here. Below is our picture for this week. It comes from our field trip down to the channel 4 station for Good Things Utah. It was short and sweet, but I think they got a great deal out of the tour of the production studio and watching the live taping.

Just a quick look at the week to come. We're not going to have a full on spelling list this week because on Monday we are going to be retaking the placement test for possible group rearrangement. So the students can enjoy a week of break as I grade those tests and reset the groups. Math will keep chugging along as we talk about proportions, circle graphs and probability. For science we'll be doing a bit of wrap-up for the heat unit. After that we will begin our light unit. Our story this week takes us back to ancient Egypt as it talks about the Pharaohs, Pyramids, the Sphinx, and all other aspects of that time and place.

Keeping it short and sweet this week I'd just like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and let you know that one of the things that will be in my mind and heart during this thankful holiday will be your students. I truly could not have asked for a better class to begin my career with. They're fantastic and so are you parents! Thank you all for everything you do!

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

November 9 - 13

I finally feel, at last, that I've gotten back on top of my game. Entirely up-to-date grades for second term are now posted online at http://www.classactiongradebook.com/, and I'm back on top of my planning in advance, where I really like to be. Our picture this week is the finished products of the plaster mask making activity we did. We took some time this week, pulled out the acrylic paints, and went to town. The masks turned out fantastic! Now here's a game for you... can you figure out which one is your students?

Just a reminder, we are still selling DVDs and 8x10 Photos of our play, The Turkeys Go On Strike. They are $5 a piece. If you'd like a copy of either one, or both, just send in the money with a note telling me which it is you'd like.

This coming week should be just about as normal as a week gets. Our story this week is going to teach us a bit about Ancient China. During math, we are going to be learning about circles, including the fabulous number π, which is used to find the circumference and area of the circles. Who knew that 3.14152965358979323846... (and so on) could be such a magical number! For writing this week, we will be focusing on the three different points of view: first person, third person limited, and third person omniscent. This week we also finish up our science unit on heat. After a few fun demonstrations next week, we will begin our unit on light once we return from break.

Ah yes! Break. I'm sure your students, as well as you, are counting down to our first real break of the school year! Gobble, gobble! Thanksgiving Day is coming and so is the break associated with it. We do not have school November 25, and then we maintain that freedom through the weekend, returning fresh on November 30. Only 7 school days to go!

In homage of our masks, I felt that ending with a quote about taking off our "masks" would be appropriate:

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else." - Judy Garland

October 26 - November 6

At long last, I'm hoping things have settled down. Reports cards went out on Monday and our long awaited play was performed Thursday. Having that pass lifted what seemed like the world off of my shoulders. I can't express in words though how proud I am of your kids. The hooting, hollering, and cheering of the audience during the curtain call of our performance told me that those kids had achieved what we'd been working all term for. Being backstage running the sound, it was hard for me to tell exactly how the performce looked from the outsiders point of view. That same night, though, I watched the DVD I made of the performance, and I tell you what, I was almost in tears watching the show. I am so proud of them for how well they performed the show. Our picture this week is certainly a great tribute to them for how hard they worked on the performance:

I should be sending home a note on Monday offering sales of an 8x10 of the picture above and a DVD copy of the play. Both will be $5. Any profits I happen to make off of it will be turned around and put right back into the classroom. Again, I applaud your children! They put on a great show.

The second term is now off and running. With the play behind us, we will be starting our new art elective rotation on Monday. Our class will be with Mrs. Dezember for the Movement and Music rotation. In her class, on top of the different movement exercises she does with them, they will also be the choir for the second term production. They've got one more term of performance to come, so be prepared for yet another great performance come end of term.

With the end of term 1, we finished out Science unit on microorganisms. With the start of the new term, we began our new unit on Heat. This week we will be taking a closer look at the different types of heat sharing: conduction, convection and radiaton.

All in all, things are still going strong. One fantastic term behind us, but still three more to go!

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." - Scott Adams

October 12 - 23

It's been a pretty crazy busy couple of weeks here at the SAA and I don't think it's going to settle down until after the term ends this coming week. Hopefully, the craziness ends than at least. Just because it's crazy, doesn't mean it hasn't been good or fun, though. Our picture for the week (or two weeks, I guess), is of Stanley, or Staci, or Shirley, etc. We finished Flat Stanley in a matter of two read alouds. With that, we created our own Stanley's. I took them over the weekend, last weekend, down to the south side of the Great Salt Lake by the Great Saltaire. Below is the picture I took with them there.

Accompanied by a note written from each of the students to my friend, the Stanleys are currently in route to Australia, where she will snap some photos of our Stanleys, write us a note, and send it all back so the Stanleys can continue on their journey.

There is a lot of up and coming news. Firstly, with the end of the term coming Wednesday, first term reading minutes ended over the weekend. The tracking calendars are due Monday.

We have a pretty good sized project coming up this Thursday that we could use some volunteers for. I will be sending a note home with more details Monday, so keep an eye out for it, but in short, as a sixth grade, we are going to be making plaster masks. As I said, more details will come home Monday night, but we could use some volunteers if you're looking for hours.

Our class play is coming along great. I get more excited for it as we go! The actual performance will be during school on Thursday, November 5th at 2:30. Parents are invited, so feel free to come and support your children. They've worked hard and I think it will be great performance. Please be ready to help your child come up with the correct color of clothing for their costumes. We will be discussing exactly what we will be doing this week. They should be able to tell you by Tuesday what they might need, if it's not creatable here in class.

On a final note, we have been having problems in the Junior High half of the school (5-8 grades) with kids adhering to the uniform policy. I know I have been pretty relaxed on it, but as a whole, the school is wanting us to crack down, so please make sure your child is in proper uniform when they leave home. If you need to review it, the dress code policy is addressed on the school's website. (http://www.syracuseartsacademy.org/Dress_Code.html) Students out of dress code will have a friendly reminder sent home with them at the end of the day that you the parent must sign so we know that we are all on the same page.

As a whole, besides being busy, busy, busy - the class and I are learning and growing side by side. With each day, we all get a little older and a little wiser, as it should be for the rest of our lives!

"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." - Abraham Lincoln

October 5 - 8

Term 1 Parent Teacher Conferences are behind us and I feel pretty good having now met the parents of all of my students. These conferences were really good for all of us, helping us get parents, teacher and students all onto the same page. The conferences went really well and I feel that we are now readier than ever to finish out the last month of the first term.

This last week at a glance might seem pretty dry after how exciting it started out. One of the parents of one of our classmates is a Yoga Instructor and has agreed to come in once a month during our P.E. time to teach the class. Below is a picture of the class in action.

I was really unsure exactly how the class would take to doing Yoga, but I was pleasantly surprised with the overwhelmingly positive response from them. Having come so accepted, we are going to continue our once a month schedule.

With the conferences done, and some extra time in the classroom without the kids on Friday, I feel like I'm all caught up. I have grades all up to date except for a few papers I have out with parents to be corrected. (Which by the way, thank you for all the support.) This coming week we will be spending a bit of time making sure that all of the students have their work in. My goal is to hopefully have a class without any missing asaignments by Friday. This will, however, depend on how well the students work with me, so let's hope for the best!

This previous week, we dipped into a different culture reading a passage out of our Basal Reader from Number the Stars. This week we will be reading an exerpt from Summer of the Swans. They are both great pieces of literature. In math this week, we will be focusing on geometric relations as we look into area and perimeter and how the two relate with each other.

After two short weeks on the same list, we tested our spelling words Thursday. We will be starting a new list on Monday and considering it's a full week, we will testing them on Friday.

With that, we just need to keep in the forefront of our minds that the end of the term is only two and a half weeks away. That's plenty of time to get caught up what we need, but it's also plenty of time to let things slip. I'll do my best in class to make sure things are kept on top of. So long as the students do their part, we can finish the term strong!

"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best." - Bob Talbert

September 28 - 30

This having been such a short week, there's not a whole lot to update on. We took our September Benchmark tests for Language Arts and Math on Tuesday and Wednesday. With the results of those in, I will be sending home progress reports on Monday, which I will expect the students have you parents sign and then return on Tuesday. This will alleviate any surprises for Parent Teacher Conferences, which are this week as well. I've sent home a notice on that already. Your time will also be printed on the bottom of the progress report. If you have any problems with his time, please contact me and I'll see what else we can arrange. With that, I think I'll bid adieu for this week. With another short week ahead of us, another post is not too far away!

"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them."

September 21 - 25

Yet another exciting week down! Our in-class schedule got rearranged a bit this week because of some visitors we had to our school. Missoula Children's Theatre came on Monday. On the day they arrived, they held auditions for the show they were going to produce, The Princess and the Pea. And then over the course of the week, students who were accepted into the show left school a half an hour early and practiced until 7:30 at night for the performances they put on Friday and Saturday night. I've been doing theatre most of my life, and I tell you what, I was very pleasantly suprised at how delightful an evening I had coming to see the four of our students who were in the show. From Leperchauns, to dust bunnies, it was nothing like I thought it would be and far better than I would have expected for a production that went from audition to production in 5 days. Below is a picture of the four from our class that were part of the production.

Just a few reminders from this week. Book orders are due by Wednesday if you're wanting to get anything, I will be placing the order Wednesday after school. I sent home this week a note with my Parent Teacher Conference schedule on it. These are not until Wednesday and Thursday of next week (October 7 and 8). If you are unable to attend the time I have put you in, please contact me and we'll figure out a time that will work for the both of us. If the schedule happened to not make it home, also contact me and I can get you a copy of it.

I also did not realize until this week that our book reports were scheduled during the same week as Mrs. McGuire is doing the Culture fair with our kids. In an effort to alleviate a bit of pressure that week, I gave the kids the option to move it up to the week before (October 5-8). I have sent home a note that has a rubric for the Share-A-Books on it as well as your student's assigned date.

We have a short week coming up this week with Fall break giving us Thursday and Friday off. Being the end of the month, we have our September Benchmark tests we will be taking this week for Language Arts and Math. We will be using one day to review, one day to test and the other to grade. During the rest of the time in the mornings, we will be doing a Creature Feature, which is a fun little project where they will get to draw a creature and then write a descriptive enough paragraph that someone else could draw it off of just the description. The ultimate test will be when we give the descriptions to another class to see how well their drawings look like what they're supposed to look like.

In drama this previous week, we have begun reading through our script which will be the final project of the term. The script is for a short musical called The Turkeys Go On Srike. This coming week we will working on learning the rest of the songs for it. Hopefully by next week, I will have decided upon and assigned parts. Lastly, in science this week, we will be diving further into the Kingdom of Protists as we learn about animal-like Protists.

"Creativity is first of all an act of destruction." ~Picasso

September 14 - 18

I want to begin this week's messages by giving Kudos to all of your children. We watched Bridge to Terabithia on Friday and used it to transition into a discussion on death. The discussion followed a script I had written (which I'd be more than willing to provide you a copy of if interested). We touched bases on several different ideas. First off I explained to them why I felt it was important for us to hold this discussion. I told them about my father passing away during my student teaching and how, when the students asked questions, I really didn't know how to answer them because I had no idea what their parents or teacher had taught them about death. From there the discussion focused on feelings. In the book, and movie, Jess' best friend dies while he is out at an art exhibit with his teacher.

I posed two retorical questions: How would you feel if this happened to you? How should you feel if this happened to you? The second question wasn't meant to invalidate any feelings they might have been considering, but because, in the book, Jess felt guilty. He thought it was his fault that Leslie ended up going to Terabithia alone and if he'd have been there, the rope wouldn't have broken and she wouldn't have died. With that, we talked about the guilty feeling, and how death is just as inescapeable as life, and it's never our fault if someone else passes on. I explained to them that there are a whole array of feelings that would be appropriate to feel in this situation, but guilt is not one of them.

I then handed them a paper with a few questions on it: How would you feel? How would you react? How would you want to be treated? Etc. After they filled them out, I asked for volunteer to share some of their answers and we used their answers for some more topics of discussion. Our discussions led perfectly into the poem that I ended the lesson with:

“You can shed tears that she is gone,

or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,

or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,

or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her only that she is gone,

or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind,

be empty and turn your back.

Or you can do what she'd want:

smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”

- David Harkins

With this poem and the idea of it in mind, I had them end with writing a paragraph on why Jess' life was different now, not because she had passed, but because he had the opportunity of having her as a friend. It ended up being a far more powerful lesson than I could have ever asked for.

Our picture for this week comes from our class performance of "Don Gato" during our Drama period.

A few notes for parents: We started our box top collecting this week. The class that collects the most box tops, gets a soccer ball for their classroom. I also sent home book orders on Friday. Book orders can be done online now, or you can send in a paper copy and I will send them in online. If you do the ordering online from home, each order to come in online earns a free book for our classroom. Book orders are due by September 30. I am going to be getting the list of books the students are planning on using for their book reports on Monday. I will also assign them their exact date on Monday. I will make sure they write these in their planner, and then I will also give plenty or reminders. Again, the week for book reports is going to be October 12-16.

There's not a whole lot out of the norm coming up this week. We will be getting new spelling lists on Monday. Being a full week again, we will test them on Friday, so be sure they are practicing at home as well as at school. Our Basal story this week is going to be Darnell Rock Reporting. It's a story of a boy whose article on creating a garden for the homeless inspires others into action. We started measurements in math this week and will be continuing on with it for the majority of next week. The read aloud we will begin this week is Flat Staney. It's a pretty short read, but when we're finished with it, we are going to create Flat Stanleys and send them to a buddy class taught by my cousin in Wisconsin. Finally, in science we finished the Kingdom of Monerans this week and move into the Kindom of Protists next week.

"Practice what you know, and it will make clear what you do not know." - Rembrandt

September 8 - 11

On top of the normal activities for the week, we added several fun activities. With just a shortened four day week, it was tough to cram it all in. Wednesday was 9-9-09, so we celebrated the number 9! We wrote a nine poem, drew a nine picture, learned a nine song, and shared them all with a class of 9 year olds (4th grade). Also, rather than the school standard "Give Me 5", for the day it was "Give Me 9". It ended up being a day full of fun.


On a more serious side, this week was 9-11. Though I'm sure you parents remember every vivid detail about it as well as I do, the six graders this year were only 3 years old when it happened. I wanted to find a delicate way to share with them the seriousness of the whole day, without overdoing it. I decided to use the day to give them a lesson on the difference between a hero and a celebrity. I invited one of our student's father, who is a Syracuse Firemen, as well as the Syracuse Fire Chief, to come in and talk to our class Friday afternoon. As a presentation for them, we drew some pictures of heroes in action, and wrote letter thanking the firemen for what they do for us. I bound this into a nice little book, wrote a letter from the class and had everyone sign it. We presented this to them on Friday as a token of our gratitude; as a way to honor our hometown heroes.

When push came to shove, the fire chief holding back tears as he talked about his 343 fellow brothers that lost their lives that day taught a better lesson than I could have ever done myself.

A few reminders for our parents. Remember I gave them homework folders this week. They should be bringing those home daily with their homework and any other letters that are for you. Monday is our picture day, so please send the picture packets back with your students. I sent home a missing assignment report on Friday that your student should have you sign and then bring back with them on Monday. Also remember in the front cover of the homework folder is the username and password for your access to your students grades online. On that same note, I will be sending home a progress report with the students Tuesday. This will have nothing that you can't see online. In fact, I'm going to be stapling with it a note. In an effort to help SAA with our conservation goals, I would rather keep this with a paperless system. So please read that letter, and sign and return it if you DO NOT have regular access to the internet and WILL NOT be able to keep a regular eye online. If I don't get that letter back, I will assume that you have regular access to the gradebook website (https://www.classactiongradebook.com/members/login.aspx) and do not need a paper copy of the progress report.

Just a short list of this weeks upcoming schedule: We will be finishing our class read aloud of Bridge to Terabithia. I have promised the students that IF every single student has NO missing assignments, we will watch the movie on Friday. If we do end up seeing the movie, which with a little pushing from me I think we will, I will use it to segue into a Character Lesson on death. I've learned through the loss of my father during student teaching that a preemptive lesson on this can be very helpful in the unfortunate event that anyone in the class experiences any form of death throughout the year.

We will be continuing on in our Basal reader and keeping the same Words Their Way spelling list we practiced with last week. We continue on studying microorganisms in science moving this week into monerans and other single celled organisms. Finally in Math, we will be discussing properties of equations, prime and composite numbers, coordinates, and customary forms of measurement.

Blue skies coming at us. Blue skies coming our way!

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." ~ Maya Angelou

Week 3! August 31-September 4

A few pictures from the week:

During Drama this week we worked up to a couple of performances of a reader's theater I had adapted from the book, If You Give a Cat a Cookie. The first picture is from our performance for Mrs. J and Ms. Neilson.

On Friday this week, our Character Lesson focused on being Trustworthy. Along with other discussions, we built a Trust Tower. Each student came up with three different ways to build trust with someone and wrote their ideas on a sticky note. We stuck them to blocks and used them to build up our tower which ended up 12 at the base and 12 high for 78 blocks tall. At the end of the lesson, I had a ball with just one simple thing on it that could break trust. I used lying, but we talked about other possibilities, and then I used the ball to break the tower, to show them just how fragile trust could be. This picture is of a couple of our classmates adding their ideas to the tower.

“Trust is like a vase... Hard to build, and if it gets broken,

though you can fix it, the vase will never be the same again.”

To add to our excitement of this next week, we have two new students joining our class on Tuesday! I met them both Friday afternoon. They should both add their own personality to make our class that much more fun. Our original number, before the year started was 27 students, but we had lost 3, so adding these two, we have a class total of 26 students now!

This week has a lot of fun activities in store. We have the usual things, of course. We'll read this weeks Basal story, Knots in My Yo-yo String. We'll continue on with our Words Their Way spelling list. This first week had a lot of success. The kids did well with their lists, and we've all moved forward. We're going to look further in Algebraic expression and study prime and composite number this week. In drama on Monday we're going to work with a poem book called Joyful Noise which is poetry for two voices. The kids will partner up and practive a poem which will them perform for the class. After that we will have some fun acting out the dramatics in the song Don Gato.

There are a few special occasions going on this week. Wednesday is the special day of the YEAR! It's September 9, which is numeric form is 9-9-09. So we're going to celebrate the number 9 by writing a 9 poem, and drawing a nine picture, and then giving those pictures to some 9 year olds. If all goes well, we also perform a nine song for them.

Then, of course, for those of us who are old enough to remember, Friday is 9-11. I am going to do a couple of lesson this week using the events of 9-11 to teach them the difference between a hero and a celebrity.

All in all, it should be a fun filled week with lots of learning!

"The Holy Grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it." -Banksy

First Whole Week!

We've made it through the first whole week! Yay! I hope your students are having as good a time in my class as I am having teaching them. It's been a fantastic week really getting to know the kids. All of our preassessments are out of the way. I'm really hoping that I can make it through the Words Their Way tests this weekend so I can hand out the leveled spelling lists next week. I didn't even test the spelling list this week because it wasn't a part of our program. The main concept behind this week's list was getting the kids used to the different sorts.

Thanks to everyone for getting all of our locker forms in this week! Our class has our lockers. The kids have been enjoying getting used to the combinations and how to open them. We are going to be focusing this next week on making sure we have everything out of our lockers before we need it. I have posted in the hallway a whiteboard that will tell the kids what they are going to need for the morning and again what they are going to need for the afternoon. So long as the students look at this list and abide by it, it will eliminate all the senseless trips to the lockers during class time.

On that same note, I sent home our Computer Usage Agreements on today (Friday, August 28). These need to be signed and returned before the students will be allowed to use the computers. Our first trip to the computer lab is this Tuesday. The ultimate goal is to have these all signed and returned on Monday, but Tuesday at the latest so the kids will be allowed to participate with our Computer Specialist this week.

We have a lot of fun things planned for the coming week. We will be moving on to the next story in our Basal reader, which is "Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs". On Monday we will be filling in our Words We Love Chart, which we will change once a month. We will be looking at prefixes, suffixes and root words and complete and simple subjects. As I said prior, hopefully I will have the leveled spelling lists ready by Monday this week. That is my goal at least.

We will keep pushing forward in our first chapter of Math. It is still a lot of review and solidification of things we should have learned last year. (You should ask your student to sing you our order of operations song. It was fun!) This week we will be looking at the distributive property and expanded and scientific notation and then we will jumping into algebraic equations.

We began our Drama art elective this week and we will continue with it for the rest of this term before rotating to our next elective. For the first few weeks we will just be doing small in class drama activities. It will only be either next week (Aug. 31) or the week after that we will begin looking at the script for this terms production.

Finally, in science this week we will begin looking at microorganisms. This is our focus for the rest of this term. More specifically this week, we will be looking at what the six characteristics of living things are and how we can apply them to the real world.

I'm looking forward to another fantastic week this week and I hope everyone else is too!!!

Days 1 and 2 down!

And what a fantastic couple of days it was! My class is stacked with a good bunch of kids, which makes me all the more excited for this year. We all now know the policies and procedures of the classroom and school. We've seen it all in action and know how it all works. We're bright and ready to come in full steam next week.

Next week we start almost full bore, minus library and computer specialists. We're going to break into our Basal reader with the first story of the book, "The Best School Year Ever". The first week of math is a lot of review of basic concepts from last year: place value, exponents, estimating sums, differences, products and quotients, and order of operation. We are going to begin a class read aloud of "Bridge to Terabithia" which I'm sure is going to be a heart wrenching way to teach the kids the power of friendship. Finally, during science we are going to begin exploring the scientific method and different methods of measurement in the metric system.

I would like to thank all of the parents for the outpouring of support. The supplies we had donated for our classroom will be put to good use. Thanks you so much for all that you've done so far and all that you are willing to do in the future.

Mr. Pratt

Quote of the week:
"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." -Michelangelo

Welcome to Sixth Grade

Hello Parents!

It’s that time of year again! Time to fly our Dragons into the 2009-2010 school year. I would like to start by welcoming us all together for what I hope will be one of your student’s greatest years yet! Yes, welcome to the sixth grade. My name is Aaron Pratt and I will be your child’s teacher, mentor and confidante throughout the year.

I am excited to be breaking my way into the teaching world with Syracuse Arts Academy. I graduated in December of 2008 from Weber State University with a Bachelors of Science in Elementary Education with a Fine Arts Emphasis. For the next few months, I kept myself active within the school system by substitute teaching, where I was referred to a long-term job at Eagle Bay Elementary where I finished the last four months of the school year with a fourth grade class.

When I did my screening with Academica West, it was with the Syracuse Arts Academy as my primary school of interest. I am happy to be one of the newest members of the faculty. I am even happier to be teaching your child.

I wish to be available for you, the parents, as well. My e-mail address is apratt@syracuseartsacademy.org and of course the school number is
(801)779-2066. If I am unavailable to answer, please leave me a message as to what your call was regarding. I will return your calls and e-mails within 24 hours of receiving them.

If you have any questions throughout the year, feel free to contact me with any of them. Also keep an eye on this blog, because I will be attempting to update it once a week, usually Saturdays.

I'm looking forward to us having a wonderful year together.

With warm ragards,

Aaron Pratt