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.