May 2, 2011

I have a few videos that I'd like to share this week. The first one comes with a huge thanks to Scott Ramsden, one of our many wonderful parents. He came in on Friday this last week and taught the kids a bit about his homeland of New Zealand. Part of that came with a wonderful demonstration of the Native Haka dance. The below video is a bit of that presentation. The last 30 seconds or so is a full on show of the dance.

The other video comes from our PE class. First off, a huge thank you, thank you, thank you to Deb Pullum who has taught out PE class for us the entire year! She has done a fantastic job with it! I had afew of the girls in the class approach me and ask if they could teach a dance during PE. Their rationalization behind it, "We did football with the boys, they can do dance with us." I was all for it, but I figured I'd let Mrs. Pullum have the final say considering she's been running our PE program for the year. She let them do it, and after one days work they produced this video. They did work on it a second week, but I promised them I wouldn't record the second one.

A few bits of important information to pass along. After a few bits of heartache on Thursday, we did finally begin end of level testing today. Our schedule has changed just a bit. We did the first Language Arts test today. We will do the second tomorrow. Because of the issues last week, on Wednesday we will now be taking both sections of the science test. We still have next week off of testing, and we take the two sections of math the following week.

The days are really winding down quick. Only 22 school days remain. It will be a bittersweet ending as I know we are all ready for summer vacation, but I really will miss these guys.

April 21, 2011

I feel as If I've been a terrible slacker at keeping you all updated here via the blog. I apologize! It's been a VERY busy couple of weeks both in and out of school The Friday before Spring Break, my wife and I signed on a house so the past few weeks, I've been leaving from school as soon as contract allows to try and get us set up in our home. Aside from the moving in, it seems we find one repair after another, and though none are major, it's still very time consuming. All in all, none of this is really an excuse for my slacking on the blog, just an explanation.

Here we are, back and at it though. We've been doing so much here! For about a week and a half of math time, we created game boards, with questions and rules, and everything! I have them being displayed in the halls right now, and I'll make sure I keep them up until conference time, so you'll have the opportunity to see them. As for what I've been teaching in math, it's all been review. Everything your student needs to learn in the sixth grade has been taught. The next few weeks we will spend reviewing some of the key materials they seem to need support in. Can you believe that end of levels are right around the corner? We're only exactly one week away from our first Language Arts test.

Here is what our testing schedule looks like as far as the last revision of the schedule goes:

Thursday, May 28 - Language Arts 1
Monday, May 2 - Language Arts 2
Tuesday, May 3 - Science 1
Wednesday, May 4 - Science 2

(We then take a week break from testing)

Monday, May 16 - Math 1
Wednesday, May 18 - Math 2

And with that, end of level testing is complete!!! With these testing days, I'm going to get down on my knees and beg that you have your students here. It makes it so much easier to have everyone here for testing, rather than trying to squeeze them into the make-up sessions. We do hold the make-up sessions for emergencies, but if at all possible, please have your students here on these days!

Also during this time, we will be having conferences. They will fall on Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May 6. Both of these days will be early out. These conferences are not mandatory conferences, therefore no schedule will be sent out. I will be my classroom from 1:30 to 4:30 both of those days, so if you want to conference, feel free to swing by at any time!

All in all, things are moving at a VERY rapid pace. The end of the school year is coming up quick! Only 29 days left of the school year! (Not that anyone has been counting!) It has been excellent ride this year, and I'm just going to start now with my several chances to thank each and every one of you, parents and students, for the fantastic year we've has this year! It wouldn't have been the same without all of us! We've been the only sixth grade class this year to keep all 27 students the entire year and I wouldn't have had it any other way! Thank, you, thank you, thank you!

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

March 18, 2011

The results are in! Hopefully your students have shared with you if they placed in the Science Fair. The top six places all got prizes, and the top student from each grade gets to go onto the next level of competition. In sixth grade, we actually had one student from each class, but our class was the lucky class to have two placers. Congratulations to Sami Christensen for placing fourth place in the sixth grade science fair! As I said last week though, the number one student in the sixth grade science fair came from our class as well. a HUGE congratulations to Jayden Bowles for being the top student this year with his project on "How does our lifestyle effect our pH balance and how does our pH balance effect our health?"

This week we also celebrated "National Pi Day," March 14 (3.14)! As part of reading contest, the top readers in each class got to throw a pie at the brave teachers and staff that volunteered. I, of course, was among those that did, which meant that I bravely took a pie in the face from Kristin Lawrence, our top reader in our class!

Just a few updates for this week. Most of the teachers within rotations ended their grades for Term 3 today. They should have at least close to final grades uploaded onto the gradebook. I, however, want to finish our "Genres of Literature" book for third term, so even though the assignment lists for Grammar, Spelling, and Math are complete, I have given the students one extra week to turn things in. I will be assigning the final story in the book, biography/autiobiography, this Wednesday. They will only have until Friday to turn it in before I will no longer accept it.

And with that, the third term will be over. The year is three-fourths done. I can hardly believe it. Most of the students have done really well this term. For those who could have made some improvements, use this fresh start to make them!

"For every ending, there is a new beginning." -Ancient Proverb

March 11, 2011

There's not a whole lot of news to report this week. Everything is rolling on as normal. We did have the Science Fair, and I can tell you so much as first place for sixth grade was in our class. But I can't officially make the announcement until after the assembly on Monday. I might have to have a "Special Bulliten" blog just for it.

We had a deadline put on us to have a DARE box finished by today, so the past week we worked hard to get it finished, just to find out that our DARE Officer cancelled DARE on us this week... and next week... so our finished DARE box is now finished three weeks early. Oh well, like the best of them say, "Those who finish early get the reward... of being done early." Our picture this week is a class shot with our finished DARE box.

The finished product turned out beautiful. The project was entirely student driven, and though not every student had a hand in it, I tried to make sure as many students as possible were represented in one way or another. We are all a family though, so the work of one of us, represents the work of all of us, so the whole class should be proud of this box!

I guess the big thing to keep in mind right now is that the end of the third term is just two weeks away now. March 28 is the last day. I will be having a make-up day on March 22 and the deadline for ANY work for the term will be March 25. Keep an eye on the gradebook, and I'll do my best to push the kiddos to get everything turned in on time. Let's end third term strong!

March 5, 2011

Can you believe that we're only 3 weeks away from the end of third term? Incredible, is it not? Where has the time gone? We keep moving along at the same pace, 60 minutes to an hour, yet somehow time is flying and standing still all at the same time! It's one of life's wonders.

Our picture this week is a glimpse of what's to become of our DARE box, which is a box the students can drop questions into to have Officer Penrod answer. Every year, there is a competition to see which class can design the best DARE box. Our class has come up with quite an awesome idea! Can you tell what it is from the picture? If not, you'll have to wait and see the final product.

Most of the subjects are moving along at their standard pace. For the last few weeks in grammar, we've been learning about verbs, which is also what we'll be learning about for the next couple of weeks to come: Past, present, and future tenses, participles, perfect tenses... etc. Lots of verbs to learn about in the English language. Science is continuing to learn about the planets. In reading this week, they learned about Louis Braille and how he designed the Braille reading system for the blind.

Math is continuing to march forward, but unfortunately for some, we're getting into material that I feel is leaving them behind. This is the time of year that we get into the hardest things we learn. We only have 3 weeks of math instruction left, then we use April to review for the End-of-Level testing. I tested something this month, and because of that, I'm going to ask a HUGE favor when we get closer to the end of the new month. Without the students knowing, when we reviewed for the test on Wednesday, I gave them the test, word for word, number for number, question for question, and answer for answer. Some of them noticed, others did not. Some of them did really well. In fact, I was able to award my first 100% this year for a math test. Unfortunately, they weren't all so well. You can look on gradebook to see your student's score. The fact that the scores were still all so spread out is a key indicator to me that very few of the students actually studied for the test which I gave them 100% of the answers to. This is a little disappointing. If the month goes as planned, the next review will be sent home on Thursday, March 24, for the test on Friday, March 25. Can you please keep your eye out for it and help your students study for this month's test? I won't be giving them the test question for question again, but I will be giving them questions that are worded identical to the test, just different numbers. I'd appreciate your support on this matter.

With that said, I have been very proud of these kids in many aspects: Their science test scores were up; Their Theme 4 Language test scores were up; And they had a fantastic idea for a DARE box; just to name a few. We've just got to find some way to make Math seem a little less scary.

"I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally." ~Calvin Trillin

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,