August 18-27

The school year has started with a bang! All of my students this year are so cute! I know I've said this to some of you before, but it deserves some reiteration: your students pretty much make me wish sixth grade didn't rotate, so I could keep them the whole day long. They are such great kids!

I was told I was brave for doing it, but during the first week, our class did a watercolor art project which I then segued into a character lesson on perspective. A lot of our character lessons this year are going to focus on the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. This is the book the junior high is basing a lot of their activities around as well, so when we were asked if we wanted to participate with it, we jumped on board. One of the first chapters of the book focuses on Paradigms and the different ways you might perceive people, and the world, which might not be true. In the end. we discovered that being principle centered is the way to be: honest, service, love, hard work, respect, integrity, etc. It was the first time I had taught the lesson the way I did, and I feel it worked extremely well. Our picture for this week's blog comes from that lesson as the students were walking through the line, looking at all of the different watercolor pictures, which all derived from the same 4x6 photo and view finder:

The upcoming week is going to be moving forward at full steam. Math will move on into order of operations, expanded and scientific notations, and properties of equations. We will also get our first glimpse into variables and expressions. During their reading rotation, they will be reading about Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs. Science should be moving forward into microorganisms and social studies should continue on with map skills, possible moving into their first of the early civilizations.

I want to take a minute to give some praise to the parents this year. I sent out a e-mail earlier this week just kind of prodding to see what volunteers I might have this year. Let me tell you what! I was bombarded with your willingness! I have never had such an outpour of support. For those that said they would want to correct from home, I will send things home as often as I can, from math papers to spelling tests, etc. For those that wanted to come in, I should be sending out an e-mail today with a schedule. I believe I've actually talked to all of you about your time but if what I have you for does not work, let me know. Again, thanks so much for your support! It might take me a while to get used to having this many parents volunteering, but I will do my best!!!

With that, I will conclude for the week! Your students are fantastic and I am looking forward to a wonderful year with them!

- Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. ~ Robert Collier