February 27, 2011

"Chugga, chugga," said the train. Or was it, "I think I can, I think I can!" Either way, it's relevant! I have two pictures to share this week. The first one comes from the author we had visit this week. His name is David Greenberg. He came in and gave an excellent talk on civil rights. I'd expect nothing less than that, considering his father was Martin Luther King's lawyer.

The second picture comes from our Pillow, PJ, Popcorn and Movie Party! We had a great time on Friday watching Despicable Me. Well, all of us except for my microwave that is. I guess 13 bags of popcorn in a row is too much for a little microwave. Luckily, once it cooled off, it worked again, good as new. At any rate, the kids earned the little bit of extra work from it and me. We just completed the Jazz/Usborne Reading Contest. We had set a class goal at 53,460 minutes, which was an hour per student per night of the contest. With a few stragglers, we not only passed our goal, we blew it out of the water, reading a grand total of 78,670 minutes. They earned every bit of that party on Friday!

As a whole, our school reached their goal as well, meaning that we will be having a jeans and movie day, coming up sometime soon (date still to be announced). We also were one of the top 10 reading schools in the contest, which means that this Wednesday at 1:00 we will have an assembly starring one the Utah Jazz players! We never know who they're sending us until they get here, but I can tell you this much... it won't be Deron Williams!!! (Bad joke, sorry :)

There's currently not a whole lot of big news for the classroom. Most things are moving along as normal. We will be taking the February Benchmark test in Math this week. Also, Science Fair projects need to be completed soon. Judging for the projects is the start of next week. They are looking for volunteers to help judge the science fair projects. Your child should have a paper with all the details. If you have any questions on it, please contact Mrs. Dezember.

Other that, class will move on like normal! I'll keep teaching, and hopefully they keep learning!

“A happy life is one spent in learning, earning, and yearning” -Lillian Gish

February 4, 2011

Onward and upward we continue! Our picture this week comes from the hall of dioramas we have set up throughout the sixth grade halls. Our story from this week was about a girl who built a diorama for a school project. This was a three day in class project I designed strictly on the basis that too many kids claimed to not know what a diorama was. I felt it would be unjust of me as a teacher to let them leave elementary school having never made a diorama. Once we started making them, most of them realized they had made one before, but oh well! They still turned out to be super cute!

They will be set up to, and most likely beyond, conferences. So when you're here to chat with us, check them out! They put a lot of hard work into them!

This was most of what we did in my rotation this week. We did have an assignment on linking verbs, but after that lesson on Monday, my room became a mess of mayhem with 130 or so dioramas being built at the same time! I'm excited with how well they turned out, but I'm not going to lie, I'm also excited to have them and the mess out of my room.

Math this week we worked a lot with integers. I reintroduced them, reminding them on Monday that an integer is any whole number, positive, negative or zero. Tuesday went into comparing them: -3 is less than 5, etc. Wednesday we added integers: -7 + -3 = -10; and Thursday we subtracted integers: -3 - (-5) = 2. Friday we did a fun graphing activity which incorporated adding integers and absolute values. Once they were done with the graphs, they had to color them with one of the sets of complementary colors: red and green, blue and orange, or yellow and purple.

Quick run down of the last couple of subjects, Mrs. McGuire's Art's and Technology groups have been moving forward on their newscasts, Mr. Albrecht's Social Studies have been moving further into Ancient Egypt, and Mrs. Dezember's Science class has been studying about the Seasons and Moon Phases! Also, keep in mind that the Science Fair projects should be in progress at this time.

Couple of big things coming up this week. Thursday is the second of our field trips this year! In conjunction with the science core, we are going to the Planetarium. It should be a fun trip! On that same day we are having the Maturation program. Both of these are things that we need permission slips for. They have gone home with the students, so if you haven't seen them, please ask for them. Also on Friday, Officer Penrod will be officially starting DARE!

He was here with a fellow officer of his today, but they held a 6th-9th assembly focusing on other topics: Bullying and Cyber Bullying, and the extremities of consequences these can have on the bully as well as the victim. They also talked about other inappropraite uses of technology going into subjects I wouldn't quite feel appropraite about posting on my class blog.. Please feel free to open a discussion with your child about any of them as I do feel these are things should be heavily talked about in the home. I hope these are things that your children, though they may not feel comfortable talking about, realize it is important to talk about, and if there is ever a problem or issue with any of them, I hope they realize they can talk to their parents, myself, or any other member of our faculty here at the school.

They said something in that assembly today that I think really made a lot of the students think. At first they referenced themselves as police officers and how their day to day job would be to sacrifice their lives for these children. Then they referenced us teachers, and talked about how we care for them so much that we would do the same. The kids questioned this during the discussion we held when we got back to the room. "Mr. Pratt, would you really be willing to give your life for us?" I do believe I would. I truly love each and every one of your children as if they were my own because for eight hours of the day, they are and there are very few minutes of any day that go by that I'm not thinking about them, and what I can do for them while they are here at my school, in my classroom. It's the life I've chosen as a teacher, and I don't for one minute regret it!

"A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to." ~Robert Brault,