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

WECOME TO SIXTH GRADE!

Hello Parents!

It's that time of year again! Time to fly our Dragons into the 2010-2011 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 thoughout this next year.

I am excited to be here at the Syracuse Arts Academy for my second year now. I am more than proud to deliver what SAA has written as their charter. In my opinion, to teach the core through the arts is not doing anything special, it is just good teaching. It helps to get all corners of the child's mind into what is being learned.

I plan on being available to you and your student as much as possible. I am usually available at least an hour before and after school if either of you have questions. I am also available by e-mail or phone. 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.

If you have any questions throughout the school year, please feel free to contact me. Also, keep an eye on this blog. I will be updating at least a couple times a month.

I am looking forward to us having a wondeful year together!

With warm regards,

Aaron Pratt

Goodbye!

I suppose this will be the last post I write for this year's students. I cannot explain the mixed amount of emotions I felt the last day of school. It was very bittersweet. I was glad the end of the year was here and summer break was upon us, but at the same time, I'm not going to teach this group anymore. They were fantastic. Parents were fantastic. This year was nothing short of fantastic!!!

I cried a few tears. In fact, I had a student deliver me a box of tissues, which was little exaggerated, but nonetheless, it was such a thoughtless gesture, it showed the true meaning of why it will be so hard to let this group of kids go! We've laughed, cried, smiled, cheered, sweat, thought, fought, and played together. For those 9 months we were a family and I wish the very best to each and every one of my children! I know you all have the potential to do great things in life, I just hope that once you're rich and famous that you don't forget us little people who helped you get there!

Cheers! To the best things in life: live, push and fight for them, because they really are what make life worth living! Good luck to all of you!!!

May 15, 2010

Only 12 school days left... not that anyone's counting. Things are wrapping up pretty quick. Faster than I can really keep up with. Our pictures for this week will be two different things. The first is of some of students and their puppets that we've worked so diligently at for the last weeks. They've written puppet plays and created the puppets for those.

The other is what is hopefully going to become the book cover for a book that each of our students will write a part of and each of them will get to take a copy of home. "525,600, 2009-10". The question asked of them, there are 525,600 minutes in a year, what was your favorite of those this school year? There is so much coming up, I'm just going to make a list in hopes that I get it all on here:

May 18-19 - Puppet Shows (Performed throughout the day, just how up to see them)

May 21 - Term 4 Reading Miunutes End

May 21 - DARE Lagoon Day (Student's are encouraged to be at school, it will be counted as an absense if they choose to go to Lagoon instead)

May 25 - Theseus and the Minotaur (In case any of Mrs. Dezember or Mrs. Johnson's parents check this)

May 27 - Field Day (The school is still in need of volunteers if you need hours)

May 27 - Sixth Grade Graduation, 7pm

May 28 - Sixth Grade Boondocks Field Trip

June 2 - Talent Show

June 2 - Last Day of School

As I said, there's a lot coming up. I probably missed something, but that's a good chunk of it. I have pretty much finished collecting things that are actually going to be on grades. Student have until Friday to get missing assignments turned in. I will be giving them a list as well as progress reports on Monday, so keep an eye out for those Monday evening.

All in all, I think that sums it up. Time is moving so fast, and I really am going to miss each and every one of these students!!!

"Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you."

May 10, 2010

I realize it's been some time since I've written here and I must apologize. It's been an insanely busy month. Here's a couple of our highlights though: Earlier in the year, we wrote a letter to our President of the Unites States. Two weeks ago, we got a reply letter from him that included the letter, a picture of him, and a picture of his dog, Bo. It was pretty exciting.

We also had several from our class participate in the school play, 101 Dalmations!

We've made our way through almost all of our End-of-Level Testing. We'll be taking our last CRT this afternoon. We have a couple of graded tests to take this week as well. The L.A. Theme 6 test as well as the L.A. 4th Quarter Test. Also, a 4th Quarter Math test. After this week however, all of our testing for grades will be finished!

We finished our last story from our reading books last week and turned in the books, so this week will begin something a little different for reading. I have gotten my hands on a class set of the book Tuck Everlasting. We will be reading through it in little Book Clubs (groups of 5). There will be a packet to fill out as they go. Once we've read the book and quizzed on it, we might take a bit of class time and watch the movie as well.

After we test in Math, I think I'm going to just give them some different Math lessons that they might see next year. There will be assignments, but they won't be so heavily graded on how well they do on the concept as if they attempted it or not.

We have also been working heavily on the puppets we are going to be showing in our Informance. That will be coming up the 20th at 2:30 here in the auditorium. All parents are invited to come. It shuld be a fun time.

There is also a ton of things coming up, which information has gone home for already. The 6th Grade Graduation is on Thursday May 27th at 7 pm. Our sixth grade end of year field trip will be on Friday, May 28th. Permission slips should be home and returned ASAP. There were two different forms to fill out for it. I know DARE Lagoon day is coming up soon but they have yet to give us final information on it.

All in all, the end of the year is coming up SUPER quick! Only 17 school days left! (Not that anyone is counting.) I should hopefully be able to find the time to write on a semi-weekly basis again after this one. I'm sorry it has taken this long. At any rate, I'm just happy to still be trucking along with everything that has been going on! You're students are great and I really am going to be sad to see each and every one of them go. I'm not a crying man, but the end of the year could bring a few tears...

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!

"In the end, it's not nexessarily the time you've put in, but what you've put into the time."

March 29 - April 2

WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK!

That's about all I've got to say! We'll see you all when we resume on April 12!

"A vacation is having nothing to do and having all day to do it in." - Robert Orben

March 15-26

It's been two weeks time since my last post and things have seemed a little rushed and busy, as always. It has a lot to with the end of the term on the crest. This coming Monday, March 29, is the end of the third term. I sent home missing assignment sheets with the students. Unless they turn in more work, their final grades are posted online at https://www.classactiongradebook.com/members/login.aspx If you need your login information, feel free to e-mail me. I'm taking our picture for the blog this week from our trip to Hale Center Theatre. I think the tour of the theatre was a real neat experience for the kids, especially those who are really interested in the acting field. It gave them a lot of insights into theater that they might not have had otherwise.

As I've already mentioned, the end of the term is here. Monday is the last day to turn in any work. We continue forward in our newest language arts theme with the story "Dive! My Adventures in the Deep Frontier."

Math is going to be a little bit different from here on out. Throughout the year, so far, we've been following a curriculum map which has lead us through the entire sixth grade curriculum. The entire month of April is going to be strictly review. We are going to start the month off with a practice end-of-level. I'm going to make them take it exactly as it would be during the end of level testing where they cannot ask me any questions whatsoever. With the results of that test, I am going to review the topics that they seem to need the most. After we've reviewed what that test said we needed, we'll take another, and so on until testing time is here. We are also going to be practicing taking the tests with the computer to get them used to that. All of their end-of-level testing is done on computer, so it's another skill they're going to need to establish.

Science is going to be similar to Math after this week. This week however, we're going to wrap up our solar system unit. We're going to be discussing how to navigate with the North Star. Then we review and test!

Spring Break is just one week away, and I think it's definitely time for a bit of a break for all of us, the students and myself included! Third term can get a bit long because there's no real break in it besides the weekends, so the week of Spring break will certainly be good for us all!

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'" ~Robin Williams