November 16th, 2012

NO SCHOOL NEXT WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, AND FRIDAY.  WE WILL BE CLOSED FOR THE THANKSGIVING BREAK.

What a week!!!  We were busy and learning, running every minute!  Kudos to the kids for working so hard.

This morning we started with Vocabulary, Root Word, and Grammar tests.  Students handed in spelling activities.  One group went with Miss Sherman for spelling.  I REMINDED THE CHILDREN THAT JOHNNY TREMAIN PART III IS SUPPOSED TO BE READ BEFORE MONDAY.  Monday we will be working on presentations to be presented Tuesday to reading club groups.

We have started memorizing the state capitals.  There are great online resources for students to study these.  If you google "state capital games online", a slew of fun resources will appear.  WE WILL HAVE OUR FIRST TEST ON THE STATE CAPITALS ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH.

In Math I introduced students to the idea that cancellation eliminates a lot of work.  I'm not sure they are convinced, however, as they insisted that bar models were lots easier and you could just see the answer.  Some called cancellation a "long-cut"!  I gave out an extra credit sheet for students to practice cancelling on.  Please be sure they pair up numerators with denominators to cancel.  Some students have the idea that two numerators or two denominators can cancel each other out.  This is definitely NOT the case!  Exercise 19 we did in class. It was a bit challenging.  HOMEWORK IS THE FIRST THREE PAGES OF THE CHAPTER REVIEW.  MONDAY WE WILL ALSO REVIEW FRACTIONS.  TUESDAY WILL BE THE CHAPTER TEST.

Today in Cultural Roundtable students learned about Austria.  Food, castles, celebrities, clothing, etc.  They even received an Austrian treat.

We discussed paradigms and principles in the Covey 7 Habit lesson today.  Some were quick to point out that King George certainly had a different paradigm on fairness than the early colonists.

We turned the lights out for history after the kids had situated themselves in a comfortable place in the room.  Dividing a paper into six sections, they first listened to various accounts of the beginning of the Revolutionary War in the dark as I read by flashlight.  In the account intervals, students illustrated for two minutes what they had just heard.  Many wrote and drew accounts as comic strips.  A few wrote as if they were newspaper journalists.  All listened, digested the information, and were spellbound as Paul Revere and Billy Dawes and Dr. Prescott set off to warn the people in Lexington and Concord.  They were quite satisfied with the difficult march home that the British Redcoats had, and they were very happy that the colonists did not suffer great losses.  Review this with your children.

Minicourses were successful today.  I will be at school tomorrow morning to complete grading. 

NOTE: A FEW CHILDREN HAVE NOT BEEN FEELING WELL.  PLEASE BE SURE YOUR CHILD GETS ADEQUATE SLEEP AND EATS A GOOD BREAKFAST.