Books to read in 2012

This week ALA (American Library Assosiation) announced all sorts of book award winners! All of the books look good to me because I love to read but it looks like not all of them would be appealing to most people. 2012 Newbery Award winner "Dead End in Norvelt" looks very good. It's about a boy who is grounded until he helps his elderly neighbor by doing a very odd chore. Then of course, my favorite book "Wonderstruck" won the Schneider Family Award. It is a story about two people, a boy and a girl. The boy's story takes place in the present day and is told in words but the girl's story takes place fifty years ago and is told in pictures. They are both deaf and they have a connection. The boy is on a bus going to a childrens hospital but something happens and he gets lost in New York and eventually meets the older version of the girl and thats when the connection comes in! You can see many more award winning books here!


Reported by Catherine

classroom involvement opportunities

I have had a few parents express interest in helping out in our classroom. I have a few needs to offer and if you are interested in taking up these projects, please give me a call:

1. classroom library-We have our books just on a shelf, however we are working on our genre project and I think it would help the class if we could organize the library into genres. I would give you a list of the genre's and the supplies to categorize the books.

2. spelling tests-I would like to try something different. We have 3 spelling groups and I would love to try to get 3 groups testing separately at one time. Normally I give all 3 tests at once but have to fly through and just say each word. I would like for the students to hear their words in context of a sentence and give the students who need it more time to finish. I would need 2 people from 1:00-1:30 on Fridays.

3. blog posting-each week, 2 students write posts for our classroom blog. It would be wonderful to have a parent with strengths in English to work one on one with them to edit their writing pieces while we do our guided reading groups Thursday afternoons.

The following times work best for room 206 for most situations:
10:30-11:00
12:30-1:00
1:00-1:30
possibly 2:30-3:00

My heart behind classroom help is to give you time to get involved with the students. I would rather increase their contact time with someone who can help them rather than have someone make photocopies or grade papers. If you have been wanting to get involved, let me know what you have in mind and we will work out a schedule.

Report Cards...!

Yes, report cards came out today! Agh! Some kids beamed with stories of how much money they'd get when they got home, others looked a little down with some lower grades. Here are a few things to remember:

1. All envelopes need to be signed and returned by Monday
2. Grade trends-I've noticed that the main source of grade changes from 1st to 2nd quarter was simply whether or not students turned in completed assignments. Here were some of the game changers:
1. turning in spelling choices
2. turning in completed spelling choices
3. turning in reading logs
4. turning in completed reading logs

what's the difference? Each week when I assign reading logs and spelling choices, I write how many entries they must complete in parentheses next to it. It looks like this on the board:

Spelling: choices (4)

Reading: log (4)

Each day, I emphasize that they must turn in 4 entries on THURSDAY. A lot of kids have been turning in only 2 or 3 entries for our reading logs, which only gives them 50% (F) or 75% (C) for the week. We talked through that again this week, so hopefully that helps them!

Thank you!

A huge thank you to Hunter and his family for donating a Minneapolis Star Tribune to our classroom! We have been using it to focus on previewing a text, finding the main idea, cause and effect, and sequencing. What a useful and real-life tool!

As your child's teacher, I hope you each know that I sincerely appreciate all that you as parents invest into your children. It carries over into our classroom and makes a difference. Thanks again to each who have volunteered in our class, donated materials, or given input and feedback. They have all been helpful tools in my first year here!

What We Did This Week

This week we learned about topic and main idea in Reading and World War II in Social Studies. A highlight of this week was that we got to make comic strips.  Also, just to let you know, we are going to stop going to Social Studies and start going to Science in Mrs. C's class.  On Thursday, we had a man from the southern part of the state come and show us exotic animals.  There was a lemur, an owl, a monkey, a California King snake, a skunk, and a kangaroo.  My favorite was the monkey.  Its name was Peanut.  I wish he would have brought an alligator.  Maybe he will bring one next year.

Posted by, Tristan

What's New in Room 206?

This week we are learning about converting fractions into decimals, decimals into percents, and fractions into percents. We also talked and did a little work on graphs in Math. In Social Studies we talked about World War 2 and watched some videos on it. I wish we could do a few more projects and fun stuff  on Friday. I interviewed one of my friends and I asked her, "What would you change if you were the teacher?" She said, "I would change a couple of things like, more fun stuff in daily 5 and more art projects." We also had a person come in and teach us about animals. I think alot of people enjoyed the animal presentation.

Report by, Kenzie

Genre Tickets Countdown!

There are only 12, count them TWELVE days left to earn either of our two prizes for our genre tickets! Parents, here is a refresher course:
1. Student read a good-fit book and finish it
2. Student take an Accelerated Reader quiz on the book and pass with an 80% or higher
3. Student turn in ticket
4. If students turn in 5 tickets they get a coupon for a free McDonald's meal deal and if they turn in all 8 of them, they get a Subway meal deal! Thanks to McDonald's and Subway for the coupons and grants!

Deadline for earning prizes: January 31st
*All students must complete the project this spring, but will not receive prizes past 1/31/12. Project began prior to Thanksgiving break.

Speller's Choice Links

"Josh, what do you have for homework today?" Mom asks
"Uhhhhh..." As Josh watches his friends trundle down the sidewalk with hockey sticks in hand, he does what many kids (shouldn't) do. "Nothing?" He finishes.
"Really?" Mom's eyebrows raise in surprise, "let me see your backpack. As she sorts through, she find the agenda log listing Josh's spelling and reading assignments for the night and asks where those are.
"Oh...I left it at school." Josh sheepishly admits. Mom tries to call Josh's teacher, but she is gone for the day. She's frustrated and wishes she had a master copy of the homework so she could be sure her preoccupied son got his work done!

I know some of you have been here before! Spelling seems to be the most frequently forgotten homework task in our classroom. They may remember the Spelling Choices sheet...but they forgot their words...and you can't write your words without a copy of them! I think I have solved this problem. Here are your child's unit lists on googledocs. Email me if you have any problems getting to these! I hope this makes life easier for you all!

Pink: here, here, and here
Green: here, here and here
Yellow: here, here, and here

An Exciting Week

This week in in Math we have been working on converting fractions to decimals, converting fractions to percents, and Bar and Circle Graphs. In Social Studies we learned about World War 1 and the 1920's and '30's. In Daily Five we wrote a sensory paragraph, comprehension cards, and journal entries.
 On Tuesday we went down to the computer lab and took a Star Reading Test, we took Accelerated Reader Tests, and we did Storybird. Story bird is an online site where you make up your own stories with pictures and words!
In Science-content Reading we finished our Solar Energy unit. We are doing "Genre Tickets", and if we read five differnt genre of books we get a free Mcdonald's meal, if we get all of our genre tickets done we get a free Subway meal!
The best part of this week is when a local professional artist named Mrs. S came in and we did an art project. She taught us how to paint an outdoor scene.
reported by: Joe

Reading Log and Speller's Choice Links!

we began our new reading logs in room 206 and I borrowed them from a new friend and fellow fifth grade teacher. If there are questions or confusion at all, please call or email me and we'll talk through it! Just so you are aware, I selected sheets and photocopied them back to back in a 4 week rotation. If your child forgot his/her log, ask them which week they were assigned then use this key to know which pages in the pdf file to use/print:
Week 1: pages 1 and 9
Week 2: pages 7 and 8
Week 3: pages 4 and 6
Week 4: pages 2 and 3

And here is the speller's choice sheet that the kiddos should keep and reuse each week! This is also borrowed from a wonderful colleague and our whole fifth grade team uses this. Here are the guidelines:
your child needs to choose four different choices and complete 1-2 of them each night. Check our homework policy to find out when your child needs to turn in both reading logs and spelling choices.

Currently January

Currently Miss Davis is:

• Listening to: music that references sunshine, beaches, palm trees, sunblock...did I mention sunshine? Fifth graders, what would you infer that I am wishing for right now? 
• Loving: The Book Drive! Oh my Stars! I am so thrilled to have received 25 donated books and the chance to submit a wishlist of classroom books! What books would you like to see in our classroom?
• Reading: for my "grown up" side, I am reading My Antonia by Willa Cather. It is an absolutely beautifully written book! For my "kid" side, I am reading the ever popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. I've got to find out what all the hype is about!
• Thinking: I'm really excited for our guest artist coming in on Friday!
• Wanting: sleep. and dark chocolate.
• Needing: sleep!
• OLW (one little word to sum up the "main idea" of my life right now): Amazed. 

Back to School!

We are back to school in room 206 and excited for a fresh start to the year! One of those changes is starting our classroom blog! We will use this as a sort of "Classroom History," where the room 206 kiddos get to work on their writing skills as well as make history! I also will use the class blog to send updates and upload documents for parents to use! Thanks for dropping by!

here is a model of a classroom reporter post:

After a terrific holiday break, room 206 is back in action! We began the year by introducing our language arts theme of the month-Main Idea. In order to learn how to best find the main idea, we're using non-fiction text features to "steal" the main idea! We're sneaking in (previewing the book) and stealing as much information as possible using the acrostic T.H.I.E.V.E.S.

T-Title

H-Heading

I-Introduction

E-Every first sentence of a paragraph

V-Visuals and Vocabulary

E-End of chapter questions

S-Summary

We have added some work to our Daily 5 routine and next week we will try out a new reading log. With only a few short months until MCA testing, we really want to buckle down and practice our comprehension and vocabulary skills.

We also painted Winter Birch Trees to display down in the main entry bulletin boards. It was lots of fun to play with the painter's tape, watercolors, and "snow!"

Though we don't get to sleep in and wear PJ's until lunch, coming back to some fun things was a great welcome!