It was a quick day! We had hearing tests and made-up Reader Buddies from my absence on Friday. Mrs. B had her students and my students make a Halloween treat for themselves. It was a nice surprise for the kids. The students were able to sneak in a little shenanigans under Mr. Berkey's nose after all.
My math group went outside today and practiced measuring the perimeter of the covered play area, after we corrected some of our mistakes. The kids did pretty well measuring, after some initial goofing off. Tomorrow, with Mrs. Wright's students back in class, we will be able to move on in our lesson. Our objective tomorrow is to get preliminary measurements of all of the equipment.
In my reading group today we began reading about Volcanoes through a Seymour Simon story. The theme of our reading now is "Nature's Fury" and we're reading a lot about natural occurrences, like earthquakes, and lightning storms, and this week, volcanoes. Our reading strategies for the week are to monitor and clarify. We have been monitoring ourselves by reading aloud, and re-reading things that we make mistakes on. We have been clarifying our understanding every few paragraphs and making sure that everyone comprehends what we are reading.
As always, I hope that everyone missing from class is enjoying themselves. You are missed!
Take Care,
Mr. B
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 28th
On Friday I took a day off to run my dad to some doctors. My substitute reported an excellent day in almost all areas. The guest teacher said she loved teaching my class, and was grateful to the students who did their best to welcome her.
I did not get a newsletter in for the Friday deadline, so I am now writing frantically on Sunday night to get everyone updated. When I finish my newsletter (hopefully this evening) I will save a .pdf version and add it to the blog.
The weather in Juneau continues to be drizzly on good days, and hurricane-like on bad days. I bet that two kids are so very jealous that they are not here with us!
We continue to notice the absence of our traveling students, but look forward to news from other parts of the world. If those students who are traveling choose to take a lot of digital pictures, and want to do a slide show, I bet we could make that happen.
Take Care Out There!
Mr. B
I did not get a newsletter in for the Friday deadline, so I am now writing frantically on Sunday night to get everyone updated. When I finish my newsletter (hopefully this evening) I will save a .pdf version and add it to the blog.
The weather in Juneau continues to be drizzly on good days, and hurricane-like on bad days. I bet that two kids are so very jealous that they are not here with us!
We continue to notice the absence of our traveling students, but look forward to news from other parts of the world. If those students who are traveling choose to take a lot of digital pictures, and want to do a slide show, I bet we could make that happen.
Take Care Out There!
Mr. B
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Wednesday, October 26th
Today was a very strange day, indeed...
Simon's aunt, Debbie Dunn, an Olympic hopeful and world-class runner (with the medals to prove it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Dunn) came by the classroom. Simon's mom told me that this would be happening, but to be honest I thought I misunderstood what was going to occur in the classroom. Had I been a little bit more intelligent, I would have snapped a picture of the whole thing. I've still got some learning to do with this blog thing.
My math group did a bunch of work with measuring tapes today. We are gearing up to measure a bunch of the playground equipment and attempt to make a model of the playground. This exercise should hit a lot of areas in math that kids will enjoy. They had a lot of fun with the tape measures, and so far no one has gotten hurt. I can't make this one up for you Evan, but I bet if you asked Arias, he and I would gladly reproduce the lesson during recesses. We're pretty big fans of Evan.
My reading group did work in their Houghton Mifflin books today. We read about lightning storms from a story by Warren Faidley. We will continue this reading tomorrow in class, and will be doing questions at the end to strengthen our comprehension skills.
The weather has been terrible, and the kids are starting to show the signs of winter. Our traveling students missed some insane winds last night. The power didn't go out, but planes weren't flying and I watched one of those big green trash cans with a bear lid fly across the road around 8pm. Enjoy your beautiful weather, and your swimming!
We continued working in our writing journals today, and I swear that I will get our Daily Language Exercises up on here soon.
I'll write to you tomorrow!
Mr. B
Simon's aunt, Debbie Dunn, an Olympic hopeful and world-class runner (with the medals to prove it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Dunn) came by the classroom. Simon's mom told me that this would be happening, but to be honest I thought I misunderstood what was going to occur in the classroom. Had I been a little bit more intelligent, I would have snapped a picture of the whole thing. I've still got some learning to do with this blog thing.
My math group did a bunch of work with measuring tapes today. We are gearing up to measure a bunch of the playground equipment and attempt to make a model of the playground. This exercise should hit a lot of areas in math that kids will enjoy. They had a lot of fun with the tape measures, and so far no one has gotten hurt. I can't make this one up for you Evan, but I bet if you asked Arias, he and I would gladly reproduce the lesson during recesses. We're pretty big fans of Evan.
My reading group did work in their Houghton Mifflin books today. We read about lightning storms from a story by Warren Faidley. We will continue this reading tomorrow in class, and will be doing questions at the end to strengthen our comprehension skills.
The weather has been terrible, and the kids are starting to show the signs of winter. Our traveling students missed some insane winds last night. The power didn't go out, but planes weren't flying and I watched one of those big green trash cans with a bear lid fly across the road around 8pm. Enjoy your beautiful weather, and your swimming!
We continued working in our writing journals today, and I swear that I will get our Daily Language Exercises up on here soon.
I'll write to you tomorrow!
Mr. B
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Tuesday, October 25th
Today I quickly showed the students how easy it could be for us to snap a picture of something and put it up to the blog. I'm going to look into how other teachers use blogs and the way that they use the blogs within the class. If anyone is terrified of the idea of their child being put up, let me know right away. If you're open to the idea, I'll send information along soon regarding this issue. I know the school has sent home slips, but I don't imagine anyone had a blog in mind for classroom information. The short of it is, you won't see any pictures of your kids on here unless you specifically choose to opt-in to such a decision.
Today's Areas of Study:
We didn't have a "special" (gym, music, counseling, library) today, so we spent that forty-five minutes focusing on science. I showed the class a documentary (Cosmic Voyage - narrated by the fantastic Morgan Freeman) that I show every year to give the kids a full view of how far out we've seen with telescopes, and how far in we've gone with microscopes.
We currently live in a time in which we know that electrons are not the smallest bits of matter in the universe. We know about quarks now! We theorize about strings, which are smaller than quarks. When I went to middle school, nothing was smaller than an electron.
Then, telescoping out, the documentary takes us to Venice, Italy, birthplace of the telescope, and then shoots us out to the farthest known reaches of space.
The video is part of the Imax Space set that IMax did with Nasa. It's a really fascinating documentary. If you're hooked up with Netflix, Cosmic Voyage is the name.
My Readers' Theatre group performed in front of (nearly) the entire fourth grade today, and a few parents who were able to make it. Everyone did a great job, and had an opportunity to perform and speak in front of an audience. It was a good day.
My math group continued on with the x8 and x9 work and reviewed our quiz from the previous day. The quiz was five questions, and neither of my students who are out of town missed anything in the quiz.
We read more from George's Secret Key to the Universe, and looked at our poster of the planets on the Smart Board.
In writing we did our Daily Language Exercises, and then worked in our writer's journals on one of the student's current writing pieces. I let the students know that I would be asking for them to edit a piece to final draft form.
Our big technology discovery of the day was to finally implement Google Docs into the classroom, which allows me to look at something online that a child has written through my Google account. It's not accessible by anyone other than myself, but allows me instant access to student work digitally.
I miss my vacation students, but understand the need for a different environment. Enjoy yourselves Evan and Hannah.
Take Care,
Mr. B
We didn't have a "special" (gym, music, counseling, library) today, so we spent that forty-five minutes focusing on science. I showed the class a documentary (Cosmic Voyage - narrated by the fantastic Morgan Freeman) that I show every year to give the kids a full view of how far out we've seen with telescopes, and how far in we've gone with microscopes.
We currently live in a time in which we know that electrons are not the smallest bits of matter in the universe. We know about quarks now! We theorize about strings, which are smaller than quarks. When I went to middle school, nothing was smaller than an electron.
Then, telescoping out, the documentary takes us to Venice, Italy, birthplace of the telescope, and then shoots us out to the farthest known reaches of space.
The video is part of the Imax Space set that IMax did with Nasa. It's a really fascinating documentary. If you're hooked up with Netflix, Cosmic Voyage is the name.
My Readers' Theatre group performed in front of (nearly) the entire fourth grade today, and a few parents who were able to make it. Everyone did a great job, and had an opportunity to perform and speak in front of an audience. It was a good day.
My math group continued on with the x8 and x9 work and reviewed our quiz from the previous day. The quiz was five questions, and neither of my students who are out of town missed anything in the quiz.
We read more from George's Secret Key to the Universe, and looked at our poster of the planets on the Smart Board.
In writing we did our Daily Language Exercises, and then worked in our writer's journals on one of the student's current writing pieces. I let the students know that I would be asking for them to edit a piece to final draft form.
Our big technology discovery of the day was to finally implement Google Docs into the classroom, which allows me to look at something online that a child has written through my Google account. It's not accessible by anyone other than myself, but allows me instant access to student work digitally.
I miss my vacation students, but understand the need for a different environment. Enjoy yourselves Evan and Hannah.
Take Care,
Mr. B
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday's Class
Monday, 10/24/11
Today we went over the following things in Mr. Berkey's Class:
Reading: Practiced Readers Theatre (My Group)
Math: x8 and x9 rules. Quick quiz. (My Group)
x8 - Double-Quadruple. So 8x8=2x(8x4)
x9 - Just like in addition and subtraction, if you see 9 think 10. 14x9=(14x10)-14.
Writing:DLE
Social Studies: We began talking about laws of the constitution vs. state, city laws.
Science: Georgie Reading - Reviewed planets from The Sun to Neptune - no Pluto :(
Order Of Planets (from sun) - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Enjoy your trips! I'll try to get pictures of work up very soon.
Mr. B
Today we went over the following things in Mr. Berkey's Class:
Reading: Practiced Readers Theatre (My Group)
Math: x8 and x9 rules. Quick quiz. (My Group)
x8 - Double-Quadruple. So 8x8=2x(8x4)
x9 - Just like in addition and subtraction, if you see 9 think 10. 14x9=(14x10)-14.
Writing:DLE
Social Studies: We began talking about laws of the constitution vs. state, city laws.
Science: Georgie Reading - Reviewed planets from The Sun to Neptune - no Pluto :(
Order Of Planets (from sun) - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Enjoy your trips! I'll try to get pictures of work up very soon.
Mr. B
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Another Test
This is a continued test to look at the blog when it has multiple messages posted on the same day.
This is a test for Hannah and Evan
Dear Hannah and Evan:
If I am successful, this will be a daily view of what occurred within our classroom each day. I don't want you to feel like you missed out on anything, and in this day-and-age there is nothing keeping me from scanning our work and publishing it online.
Tomorrow I will try to scan our work on our work copier and email the scans to me, then publish them here for you.
Enjoy your vacation, but ready yourself for learning at any moment you're bored.
Take Care Out There!
Mr. B
If I am successful, this will be a daily view of what occurred within our classroom each day. I don't want you to feel like you missed out on anything, and in this day-and-age there is nothing keeping me from scanning our work and publishing it online.
Tomorrow I will try to scan our work on our work copier and email the scans to me, then publish them here for you.
Enjoy your vacation, but ready yourself for learning at any moment you're bored.
Take Care Out There!
Mr. B
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