Ready to Spring

Tornado drills with fire drills (your kids were excellent, by the way!) and persuasive essays and triangles...that's what today was. All the kids have for homework tonight is Math Study Link 9.6 and twenty minutes of reading.

Have a great hump-day, everyone.

Future Shocks

The kids got on me today about not putting anything on here for awhile. That is true, I suppose, but to be fair I wasn't in school last Thursday and on Friday, well, it was Friday and I guess I was ready to hit the trail.

Enough about me, though. It was great to see so many familiar faces at the Woodbrook Carnival the other day. Thanks to everyone who came out to help support that event. I'm not sure I'll work in the trading post again next year, but you can bet I'll probably be around, so everyone make sure you come back in the future.

Today the only homework was Study Link 9.5 and read 20 minutes.

Have a great Tuesday!

If You Can Think It, You Can Write It

The kids have a writing assignment in from their reading book tonight. These were two questions that the students really struggled with (I only got a couple hands in the air when I asked them), so I thought maybe another read-through would be in order. I changed the questions for this assignment from what they originally were. I told them I didn't expect any more than a full paragraph, but I did expect at least that.

They also have spelling and math! Happy hump-day.

With Urgent Undertones

The Mane Event "Rock 'n Roll Is Here To Stay" Carnival is coming to Woodbrook.  The fun begins THIS Saturday, March 23rd from 11 am to 3 pm.  Woodbrook will be transformed into a carnival playground with games, music, food and fun for the whole family.  In order to make this event a success, we need all parents to sign up for at least one volunteer time slot.   There are many rooms that have no volunteers to run the games. Please click on the link below and sign up today.  If you have any questions regarding the carnival or volunteer opportunities, please contact Christy Tofaute, tofaute@sbcglobal.net

To sign up, go to:
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/20F0B49AAAE29A64-woodbrook1/2253553

Self Control for Life's Speed

Hey there. First off, I want to apologize for the fact that I will not be here tomorrow afternoon, Thursday afternoon, or next Wednesday afternoon. I am not in control of any of these decisions, I am not in trouble, nor am I sick. I just have meetings to attend, and I wish I could tell you that this was the end of them. This mainly affects my Math class, but that's more than enough effect on my classroom.

Homework tonight is in their assignment notebooks. Here's a copy of the spelling list if you need it (although they all swore they had them in their backpacks).

comfortable
dependable
dreadful
joyless
powerful
priceless
stressful
useless
valuable
youthful
reckless
suitable

Last week's spelling list was just as difficult if not more so, and the spelling tests showed it. Keep in mind that if I'm following Rigby to the letter, I should give the kids 20 spelling words a week, but instead I give them twelve. It may take a little more studying at home on these words on Wednesday and Thursday night at least.

Today we didn't have specials, but it wasn't that bad. We had more room to let our lessons breathe this morning, and I was able to spend a little extra time reading to the class.

Okay, that's my rant and rave for today. Have a great evening.

Superunknown

Singing fish, the story of a kid who told a big lie, the Silver Surfer, Loyalists and Patriots, prepositions, adverbs, and Lyme Disease-carrying ticks have all been a part of the conversation the last few days, oddly enough. And perhaps even more odd is that it all made some sense in a way.

Tomorrow we will be watching Because of Winn-Dixie in the morning as a reward for good behavior during this quarter, and in the afternoon we will be having Math. I am ready to move on to chapter 9. We are going to have to plug away like there's no tomorrow in Math over the next  couple weeks, but it looks doubtful we'll be able to get all of chapter 9 in before spring break.

We've had lots of people absent over the last few days. Get well, everyone!

Motorcycle Ghosts

When I couldn't find the book I was looking for earlier today, I read the kids a story from a book called Guys Read: Funny Business. It was a story by Paul Feig called "My Parents Gave My Bedroom to a Biker." It's as funny and absurd as it sounds.The Guys Read program is actually pretty good if you give it a poke-around.

We did have the Theme Test today. We did have the third Math quiz today. Other than that, it was a fairly standard day. This is a good thing.

Who Here Knows What Lurks Within?

We have a staff meeting today after school so I'm doing this right now while the kids are doing their silent reading. The kids will have a paper today to practice their "determining levels of importance" for Rigby Reading. If they did what I asked, they have put their green reading books in their backpacks (or they will have) and they should have the page to fill out also. It is about the story called "Famous Firsts", the page numbers are on the paper, and it tells them what to do at the top. You will notice that for a couple of them (Jackie Robinson, for instance) there are five levels of importance, and for others, I'm only asking them to find three (as with Junko Tabei).

They will also have a new spelling list (all adverbs this week--and it's challenging in parts), a short prepositions page (so glad that this group gets prepositions...), and a short assignment on adding fractions for my math crew.

The kids may come home a little grossed out tonight. We started our health unit which includes a book on bacteria and other microscopic organisms that live inside our bodies. This is definitely an "eww, gross" kind of unit, but hopefully some people are fascinated enough to pursue a future in a medical profession.

Come On Get Happy

We're going to watch Because of Winn-Dixie on Friday, barring any problems weather-wise, technological, or horrific illness that takes out the whole class. The kids liked this book a lot more than I thought they would, and it's a heavy and light book at the same time. A great departure from the goofiness that was in The Genius Files.

Things do get back to normal for a couple weeks here. Well, things get back to normal for the most part. The only thing out of the ordinary is that I am out of the building a few times for the afternoons, which will be weird because it takes me out for Math about once a week for the next three weeks. I will have to check, but I'm pretty sure I'm gone this Wednesday, next Thursday, and then some other time in there. Not sure exactly when. I really should find out, yeah? Oh, and by the way, these are planned school meetings, not doctor's appointments. I am healthy. 

American Heritage and Others

Expect the kids to come home with a quiz for you regarding their heritage tonight. It became clear during Social Studies today that the kids needed something a little different than the plain old red Social Studies book for a short while, at least. I think they were a little surprised by how little or how much their friends knew about their heritage. Should spark some fun conversations, I hope.

Mr. Warriner played a game of Jeopardy with a very competitive fifth grade class today. They reviewed vocabulary, Caesar's English roots, and some grammar. There was also some Mr. Warriner trivia thrown in for fun. We also read all about curling, the Olympic sport. It's actually a little more interesting than you might think.

Tomorrow my Math class will be having a short five-point quiz over simplifying fractions.

The Overlooked Tomorrow

The kids finished up their ISTEP today, and we got a couple kids caught up who were absent during the first days of the testing.

My Math students did have one page for homework, (there are 36 fractions to simplify; I asked them to simplify 20 of them, their choice), and the kids are expected to read for 20 minutes tonight also.

Ready to get back to normal!

Regularly Scheduled Madness

Well, we had our final "long" test of this testing session today. It was 55 minutes, and the kids got through it with even fewer problems than we had yesterday.

Today we go back to having Math like normal people. We haven't been on a regular Math schedule since last Thursday, so I will be glad to get back to that. It's indoor recess right now, and I mercifully don't have duty today. Sounds a bit like a madhouse out there, so I'm happy to be in here. 

Behind the Name

 

Adding his name to the list of "spelling my name with his snack hall of fame" was Matthew last Friday. I like the little Cheez-It dot after "Mr". Thanks, Matthew!

Sleep, My Pretties

Well, the worst of the ISTEP is over. Today we had testing for a 40-minute block and a 60-minute block. It was a little tedious for some of them, but hey, they all survived just fine.

Tomorrow we have one test, and then the final one is on Wednesday. That is, final for this round, anyway. We will begin anew come May.

Oh, and I told the kids that, even if we have a 2-hour delay tomorrow, we will still be doing the ISTEP test. We received official word. I know that the forecast for the next 48 hours is really weird--calling for snowstorms and ice storms and a hurricane or two.

As I've told the kids, their homework for tonight is to sleep.