Snap Back To Reality; Whoop, There Goes Gravity

Homework for tonight is page 29 in their White Pages for Social Studies, I handed out the kids' study guide today for Science (it actually was in their mailboxes, and I see quite a few un-emptied mailboxes over there right now...it was kind of a crazy end of the day today to be fair), and finally read for 20 minutes.

I found out that Jump With Jill is not tomorrow, but is on Wednesday this week. This is a good thing because tomorrow we will have a very special guest reader after specials. Also, our gym time is still intact, and won't have to be truncated (Word of the Day).

That's all the urgent news for today. More later!

The Countdown Has Begun

Hello there! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and that everybody is ready for yet another busy week in 5-1:

• Friday is BizTown! If you don't have your permission slip turned in by now, I need it a couple weeks ago. I think I'm still missing a couple of them, so please get them turned in.
• This week we will talk about the kids' procedural speeches. Next week, they will give them (or that's how it's planned right now...).
• Thursday we will have a Science test over the space unit. I will hand out the study guide tomorrow!

I think those are all of our vitals this week. I was originally going to give out a Caesar's English list this week, but I think we are going to end up having enough other stuff that is going to consume our time. Talk soon!

Enjoy the Feast

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving! Hopefully everybody remembered to wear stretchy pants for the great feast. However you spent your holiday, I hope you were surrounded by family and friends. 

Never Underestimate the Padawans

Before the grandparents arrived yesterday, I told the kiddos that we needed to do an emergency deep clean. The one thing I told the kids is that they were not allowed to ask me, "What should I do with this, Mr. Carter?" I told them I just wanted them to do what they thought would be best. They all did an amazing job. I was so proud of them; they worked together ("synergized", to use the Seven Habits term...) and man, did my classroom ever sparkle by the time we were finished.

Well done, everybody! I'm sorry to say that if your parents read this blog regularly, they now know that you are able to do the same thing for your bedroom. I have a poster on my classroom door with Yoda on it, and underneath, it says, "This Room Protected By the Force." Below that it says, "But Sadly, Not Cleaned Up By It." Luckily, I have 24 Padawans to help me with that in the meantime, in the in-between time.

One Big Family

What an awesome Grandparents' Day we had yesterday! I was so proud of how good the kids were, how they took them on tours of the classroom, and even how they filled out the Venn diagrams comparing the classrooms when they were in fifth grade with our current classroom. (Leave it to me to make it educational and sap the fun out of it, but I thought it was a pretty good idea.)

Thanks to everyone who came for the day, and to all of the grandparents out there who couldn't come, we missed you and I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving.

Dojo Mojo

Class Dojo is a system that many of you are already familiar with from your younger children at Woodbrook. I'm a little late in the game, but I did start using this about a week and a half ago. I'm trying to use this to help the kids keep accountability on things such as their homework, staying on task, and their behavior.

If you would like to receive updates via Class Dojo, please shoot me an email with your preferred address for receiving said updates at jcarter1@ccs.k12.in.us.

And by the way, "Mr. Carter's Dojo" predates "Class Dojo" by several years. Just saying.

Don't Forget To Be Awesome

I am just a couple weeks late in sharing this information with you, which was very kindly organized by Dr. Tina Fleming. This is for 5-1's totally optional volunteer event coming on March 12, 2015. Here is the forwarded message from Gleaner's Food Bank of Indiana:

We have restructured our 2016 Saturday WAREHOUSE shifts and wanted to let you know ASAP.

Instead of a 9am-12pm shift, all 2016 Saturdays will now be a 9am-11am shift. Please still instruct you volunteers to arrive by 8:45am for sign in-in and orientation just let them know we will end 1 hour earlier than originally planned.

This change will be reflected in your reminder email closer to your date as well!

               

                NEW 2016 SATURDAY TIMES:    

Arrival: 8:45am

Volunteer 9:00am-11:00am

Dr. Fleming had contacted me earlier in the school year, wanting to know about coming up with an idea to help show some good spirits and help this awesome class do some good for the world. I know that this will be a meaningful project for all the kids and families that can come. Hopefully this is enough notice so that you can make it that day. Let us know, and thanks again, Dr. Fleming!

One Thankful Crew

Thank you to the awesome 5-1 moms Mrs. Fuertges, Mrs. Moriarity, Mrs. Croner, and Mrs. Anderson for throwing an awesome Fall Party on Friday afternoon, complete with pumpkin bowling, mummifying, and some sort of "toss the ping pong ball into the Solo cup" game that I had sure never seen before. In all seriousness, it was the perfect ending to a good day, and I am happy to say that all of the students were very polite and thankful.

As for this week, we will have a relatively normal day tomorrow, and then Tuesday will be a little bit different: Grandparents' Day activities first of all, then a couple of other things thrown in, and then a Math test in the afternoon.

A Prosperous Balance With the Speed Of Light

This is the video I showed in class on Wednesday, after doing this lesson live for the kids on Tuesday. I am happy to say that they really seemed to understand this very well. It is posted here because, while they do have this in their Science notebooks, this is a nice video set of those exact same notes. This will prove very helpful when studying for the test we will be taking during the week after Thanksgiving Break.

I Found a Bookmark On the Floor

Well, another day is down. Tonight's homework is another econ sheet, study for spelling, and don't forget the kids' bookmarks are due tomorrow.

We went to the Makerspace today, had a mini-marathon of Two-Minute Mysteries, had an econ lesson, did some reading, and went to the library to make up for our lost Tuesday. Pretty normal day around here, actually.

Tomorrow are the Fall Parties in the afternoon. We are looking forward to those, and hopefully the kids will stay nice and good for the kind parents volunteering their time!

And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

We keep on keeping on with the BizTown curriculum and our Astronomy unit.

Have your child explain why the seasons come and go like they do every year. We have talked about this quite a bit over the last couple days.

Also, I am teaching the kids about writing checks, deposit slips, and filling out a check register. My class is learning that there is a lot of work that goes into just making and spending money and keeping track of it all.

Those are the highlights. Homework tonight is an economics page, the meaning exercise for spelling (either a sentence or an illustration for each word), and my math class has a Study Link tonight.

Have a great evening.

Re-Taken

Tomorrow is picture re-take day at Woodbrook! 

If you wish your child to have their school picture re-taken, please send their original picture package to school with them tomorrow and their picture will be re-taken.

We will also be taking picture of students who are new to our school since picture day, October 14^th, or who were absent on October 14^th.

If you have questions, please call our office at 846-4225.

Less Is More

Tomorrow should be a fairly normal day, only with the added field trip thrown in there.

I took the economics away from the kids due to their "heavy schedule" protests today, but I can't do that all the time.

Oh, and I will try to get some information home to you soon about a thing I'm doing in class right now called "Class Dojo", which will help you keep track of things like whether or not they turn in homework, what they're doing right in class, and any disruptions or abnormalities during the school day. There is even a "blog feature", but I think I'm going to keep my blogging to right here. 

Sorry, I'll try to be more verbose tomorrow, but for now, this is about all you're going to get before my head lands on the keyboard.

Trust the Curve

First item up for this week is that on Tuesday morning, we will head to the Palladium to hear the Carmel Symphony Orchestra. This is a fun little event that we attend yearly. We will only be there for about an hour, so there's no need to pack a lunch for that day. We will be back long before lunch time. I am going to tell the kids that I do expect them to dress nicely for this day. We're not going to the State Fair, we're going to the Palladium, and that suggests a certain code. Let's all try to look pretty presentable that day. Of course, for your child to be allowed to go, they must have a permission slip signed by you. Make sure that gets to me by Tuesday, otherwise your kid is not going to be happy with me nor you.

We will do several economics lessons this week. You can expect homework to come home every night (well, except Friday) before our trip to BizTown so that I can get all of those lessons in before the big trip.

Also, we are going to continue our study of Astronomy this week, and yes, I realize we still have not re-done our quiz over the eclipses. That shouldn't be hard (although their first round of quizzes proved otherwise), so we will try to squeeze that in some day this week.

Well, tomorrow I should be handing out the rubrics for the Rube Goldberg project among other things, but until then, I'm going to close out for this post. Have a good week, everyone.

Every One's Crazy 'Bout a Sharp-Dressed Class

I wish I had taken more pictures of the kids in small groups today, because they really really looked great. I was so proud. Before they walked in this morning, I realized that I didn't really remind them at the end of the day yesterday about dressing up, although I had spoken with them earlier this week about the importance of looking good during an interview. Here's what I did get:

This is now my background image on my computer at school, as well as on my school iPad, thanks to the girls who helped me out with it.

I have heard so many great things about the interviews this morning, and I am really looking forward to BizTown. I am also starting to feel the crunch time to get everything done before we get there. We will have a lot of economics lessons in the time between now and then. But I am relieved to know that at least the students of 5-1 will look very professional when we go down Keystone to the JA building in December.

A Better Mousetrap

 

Here are the students yesterday in the afterglow of the Veterans' Day program. We didn't just take the rest of the day off, although I was tempted. Instead, we went into the Makerspace and started in with the kids' Rube Goldberg projects. Here they are, their wheels turning and the ideas flowing. I'm really looking forward to this over the next few weeks.

Wednesday Morning In America

 

 

These pictures should speak for themselves. I am so incredibly proud of how well your kids did today. I think they really understood when the veterans were standing up and we were all clapping just how important this day can be. Today's experience seemed to transcend the Veterans' Day program as being "that thing you have to/get to do when you're in Mr. Carter's class" to really having some meaning to them.