May 22, 2010

This week's blog is just going to be a short, quick blurb of upcoming dates. Put them on your calendars for your records:

May 23 - Missing Assignment/Grade Sheet sent home
May 25 - Last day for graded assignments/missing work
May 26 - Field Day 1:00
May 30 - Memorial Day, No School
May 31 - End of Year Field Trip to Syracuse 6
June 1 - Awards Assembly 9:00
June 1 - Graduation 2:00
June 2 - Talent Show 9:00
June 2 - 6th Grade T-Shirt Creation
(A note with more info will be coming home)
June 3 - Yearbooks! Last day of school!

If you have any questions on any of this, feel free to e-mail me or call me here at the school. Only 9 school days left until year end! Unbelieveable!

May 13, 2011

Hello!

So that countdown that nobody is doing, there's only 14 school days left! It's unbelieveable how quickly it's gone by! It feels like just yesterday that I was really getting to know these kids and now they're going to be leaving me! I'll just have to make sure we have some fun these last few weeks so I know they won't forget me! Haha! Our picture this week comes from the work we did in my rotation. It's called a "Tree of Life". There are five kingdoms that all living things are classified into. Each branch of the tree is dedicated to one of the five kingdoms and each leaf is dedicated to something within the kingdom it's connected to. 625 or so leaves later, and our tree filled in pretty well.
As we move into next week I want to remind you that we do take our final end of level tests this week. The first section of the math test is on Monday and the second section is on Wednesday. Please do your best to be sure that your students don't miss those days so we don't need to make any tests up.

Grades are updated online as well. I am pretty close to being done giving out assignments that will be graded. There will be a few other small things, but for the most part, the lists are close to complete. There is still time to get in any missing assignments. My last day to accept any late work will be May 25. Please keep a close eye on your students and make sure they are caught up. It's a tough time of year for them to focus, so a little extra support could do them good.

A short note on things that are coming up. DARE Lagoon day is next Friday. We are pleaing with you that your students at least come to school so we can mark them here. Lagoon doesn't even open until 10:30, so if they can come until 10:00 to keep our attendance up, that would be greatly appreciated. Field Day is going to be Thursday, May 26. 6th grade will be doing their portion of field day in the afternoon. May 31 is the 6th grade end of year field trip. We will be walking up to the Syracuse Six and watching Kung Fu Panda 2. We will then head to the park right behind there and have some pizza and play some games. There is a permission slip required for this. I have about half of them in. There is also a $10 fee associated with it. The sixth grade talent show will be on June 2 at 9:00. The graduation will be held that same day at 2:00. June 3 is yearbook day. It's the final day for this school year. A day for bittersweet tears to be cried.

These last few weeks are going to go by super quick. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure your students enjoy the time we have left. I hope they do the same for me!

"But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day." ~Benjamin Disraeli

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