It was great meeting with so many of you last week to discuss each student’s progress and goals! I look forward to continuing on this journey with each of you. As always, please call/text/email/stop by with any questions, concerns, or causes for celebration! If you have not been able to schedule a conference yet, there is always time to do so, even if just over the phone!
We have two weeks left before spring break and thus 2 weeks left of third quarter. In addition to finishing up language and cultural units, we will be pushing on to new explorations. This week in cultural studies we’ll begin wrapping up our government/civics unit by analyzing our national government and the 3 branches of government that all of our other levels are government are modeled off of. In language we’ll look at the voice of the verb (active vs. passive). In reading we’ll be testing out our skills on our graphic organizers in addition to practicing our words-per-minute rate building (4/5 graders) and SRA’s (6th graders). In math our fourth and fifth graders will mostly be separate again for their lessons, though they will all be exploring fractions! Our sixth graders will look at percents. Additionally, all students in the class will be pressed to deal with analog time telling on their homework this week, as state-wide testing is approaching and it definitely demands utilization of traditional, normal, analog clock time telling. Next Tuesday is spring picture day. Please watch for more info/packets to make their way home as they are distributed to teachers. I wanted to send a big thank you to those of you able to donate books from the book fair or if you were able to volunteer to staff the fundraising event! If you were not able to contribute with the fair but would like to help the classroom in a different way, although nearly three quarters of the school year are over, it seems our classroom may need a few supplies restocked. I held off on a winter resupply notice in hopes of making it through the year but alas, here we are out of grid paper and low on Clorox wipes. If you are capable of donating these items, our fractions and health would greatly appreciate it! Additionally, as always, our classroom hosts an online wishlist as a means of donating items, at http://a.co/8jM0qUg and/or through our class website. This weekend Fur Rondy and the Iditarod Ceremonial Start make our community an active place! I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the weekend ahead! As always, call/text/email/stop by with any questions, concerns, or causes for celebration!
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A short newsletter for a short week, conferences week.
This week Tuesday is a full day, Wednesday and Thursdays are half days, and both Monday and Friday there is no class. That being said, Tuesday and Wednesday will not have many new lessons. We’ll do some geometry, STEM, and writing, but it will mostly be spent as catch up time. There will be no homework or spelling this week. Thursday, a half day, will be a read-in. Students are allowed a pillow, blanket/sleeping bag, teddy sort of animal, pajamas, and must have at least ONE chapter book. After the short week we have two full weeks left of third quarter in which we need to bring focus and dedication back into the classroom. If you did not sign up for conferences yet, please contact me or of the office to do so, as online scheduling is now disabled to avoid conflicts. Students are invited and encouraged to be part of this meeting, though it is not necessary depending on your own personal preferences and availabilities. I hope you all have a great week! As always, call/text/email/stop by with any questions, concerns, or causes for celebration! I hope you all stayed warm this weekend! My wife and I skied out to a public Nancy Lake cabin to practice patience while heating a cold cabin! Of course once a cabin has become heated, it needs to be cooled down!
All of our community experiences have been so rewarding! I hope your children have been sharing their stories with you and your family! If you were not able to chaperone but would still like to “see” our experiences with guest speakers and field trips, check out some pictures on our class website at http://mrbrentsclass.weebly.com (be careful to type that address exactly). This week we’re off to our final field trip for a while to the Governor’s office in the Atwood Building! Inside the classroom this week we will be telling time and making sure we can still read analog clocks and calculate elapsed time (a train leaves Denver at 9am and another train leaves Chicago at 11am, etc. etc.). Sixth graders will finish up working with unit rates and will likely move on to percents, while fourth and fifth graders will continue work in long division and begin a look into fractions. Language study continues analyzing verbs this week, this time looking at transitive and intransitive verbs. This week’s homework features a worksheet practicing our ability to tell the two types apart. In our cultural studies we have placed a hold on our Map of the Week so we can make maps of our own. Our maps will feature a list of 25 different features and will correspond with our understanding of our STEM unit analyzing the hydrosphere (all the water on our nice planet). We’ll also transition from exploring our local government to our state government (hence the trip to the Governor’s office). Top Secret Extra Credit: On your student’s homework page this week, draw a star in the lower right corner, to give me an idea of how many families are reading newsletters J Please note that the Science share project is an extracurricular activity that is not required but is only offered as a choice for students to do science for the joy of doing science. It’s a great way to really analyze the scientific method in a personally relevant and inspired way (generally speaking, the scientific method begins when the student asks a question, then creates a hypothesis, designs an experiment, conducts 3+ trials, accepts or rejects hypothesis). For information on parent teacher conferences next week, you can go online to http://www.asdk12.org/parents/conferences/ . To locate a good time for you, make sure you select “mix” for grade of student. I have made my schedule available Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, as well as Thursday morning. If you feel that you cannot make it for these times, please contact me so we can try to arrange something that will work for both of us. Students are invited and encouraged to be part of this meeting, though it is not necessary depending on your own personal preferences and availabilities. I hope you all have a great week! As always, call/text/email/stop by with any questions, concerns, or causes for celebration! Dear Families,
This week we are absorbing lessons from our community! Making these connections possible are a field trip to the Mayor’s Office on Monday, Assembly member Patrick Flynn as a guest speaker on Tuesday, and a field trip to go ice fishing at Jewell Lake on Friday. A huge thanks to those that were able to volunteer as chaperones and drivers! I truly believe that the best lessons learned are those rooted and supported in real life experiences and examples, and opportunities like these make that possible! In the classroom this week, in addition to looking at different parts of our local government, we will be exploring watersheds in STEM, the mood of verbs in Language (indicative, imperative, subjunctive verbs), our type of government research project I writing, and weekly choices in reading (in addition to gearing up for a novel study). In math we will continue our way through concepts from long division to ratios to geometry. Looking ahead, Wednesdays have become our “spirit day” at school. This Wednesday is wear your favorite jersey day, followed by dress like a P.E. teacher day next week. These are fun ways to show unity, commonality, and pride in our local community at Denali. Parent teacher conferences are right around the corner, the week of February 20, and I am eager to discuss the progress of your children and hear more about how things are going on your side of their education. This is a time to celebrate achievements and reflect upon goals and progress. If you have any concerns or a desire to talk in length, you are always welcome to schedule an additional and/or separate time for before or after school. Of course, invitations always stand for any families to visit the classroom while we are learning if you would like to see us in action! For information on parent teacher conferences go online to http://www.asdk12.org/parents/conferences/ . To locate a good time for you, make sure you select “mix” for grade of student. I have made my schedule available Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, as well as Thursday morning. If you feel that you cannot make it for these times, please contact me so we can try to arrange something that will work for both of us, even if it is the week before or after. Students are invited and highly encouraged to be part of this meeting, though it is not necessary depending on your own personal preferences and availability. Valentine’s Day is also coming up, next Tuesday, the 14th. As such, we will celebrate together in our class after library, beginning at 2:05pm. The celebration will include mail exchanges and snacks. If your child brings Valentine’s cards to share, please use the attached list of names to ensure no one is left out. Snacks will be allowed this day, and although I always ask families strive to offer healthy snacks to the class, this day of sugar shall be an exception. Please keep in mind though nothing should have peanuts and anything with dairy or carrots should be clearly marked before leaving your possession. I hope you all have a great week! As always, call/text/email/stop by with any questions, concerns, or causes for celebration! |