Homework, Recess, Dancing, and Pics!

Found this little (big) cutie outside today. Anyone know what kind of caterpillar it is?

Homework starts this week.  There will be a poem, with questions, and some math.  The poem should be read every night silently and aloud. All of it is due on Friday. This format will stay the same all year.  By October, I will have different levels for different students, but it will stay independent.  Students may need help with some of it, but I have asked them to not become frustrated and ask for help the next day.  No more than 50 minutes should be spent on homework. Students do read during the day, but I expect them to read at home for a bit when time allows.  Example: Your child read the poem and did the 5 questions, did 4 of the math problems, but got stuck on #5. He or she will as me about the math problem in the morning.  This took 20 minutes.  He or she should read for 20-30 minutes depending on your family activities for the afternoon and evening.

Recess: Today, we talked about recess being a fun activity. If any game or activity becomes so serious that name calling and physical contact becomes involved, then that activity may be canceled and students showing that behavior will be asked to sit out for a couple of minutes.  Discussion about the behavior will be attempted, but sometimes students aren't available to have a productive conversation at that point.  The student may be able to go back to the activity if s/he can discuss what happened.  If not, then the student will need to find another activity.  Discussion and reteaching will happen at another time.  It is a Maple Run policy that recess cannot be withheld, but an alternative recess may be provided if needed.

Fortnite, disco, The Waltz, The Tango, Tap, Ballet, etc: Students are more than welcome to dance the night away at recess! Any dancing in the classroom/hallway, unless we have a dance party, causes students to focus more on the dancing than the instruction.  We appreciate your help with this, really...........we do!!!  Not kidding, we really do!

All About Me Poster: Miscommunication on my part!!!!! We sent home a sheet explaining this at our Orientation.  I was to send it home via email and it just didn't happen. No excuse except my overloaded brain! Students may bring in pictures to add to their posters. We can also take a picture of your child and print it if needed.  Let us know if we can help.  Here is the letter.    All About Me Poster  We did not get to it on Friday.  Today was the first day and they will have time to work on it tomorrow and Friday.  

Parent-Student Handbook: Please read the handbook.  Here is the link.  Parent-Student Handbook  Let me know if you have any questions.

Open House is Thursday, September 13th.

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More pics

Paper Chain challenge!!!!!

Community Building Activities

Please send in paperwork if you haven't done so already.

Remember notes for change of plans.

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This week we have been focusing on community building activities and activities that allow us to experience how we will learn in the classroom.  Personalized learning and differentiated instruction require the students to be able to navigate their learning environment.  The classroom needs to run smoothly with everyone understanding the expectations.  It takes time at the beginning of the year to set this up, but we get that time back when the learning takes off!!  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to give me a call, text me, or email me!

First Day of School!!!!!!

Homework:
If you did not send paperwork in with your child, please send it in as soon as possible!
No other homework.  Homework-general grammar and math, will start next week.  More information on that will have its own blog post.

SUPER IMPORTANT!!!!!!
Your child has a normal end of the day routine that they will do on most days.  That routine might be different for some days, but for the most part, it is the normal end of day dismissal routine.  If that routine changes, we MUST have a note.  For sports, we encourage parents to send in a forever note for that season.  Example:  Any time there is soccer, Joey can stay after school. If the practice doesn't start right after school, then he will go to the BNML.  Mrs. Fournier is organizing an after-school program, so if you need information on that, please email her at jfournier@maplerun.org
If we don't have a note, and we cannot contact you due to time issues, then your child will have to go with his or her normal routine that you shared with us on the form you filled out.  You can always email us and copy Brenda on the email.  We can't guarantee that we can check emails after 11:45 am because we are teaching Core subjects and out for recess duty.

Unified Arts Schedule

 Monday:                              Music 5T PE 5M
Tuesday: Art 5T PE 5M
Wednesday: PE 5T Art 5M
Thursday: PE 5T Library 5M
Friday: Library 5T Music 5M

Please send in pictures/drawings/maps, etc for your child's All About Me poster. We will start working on these this Friday, or next Tuesday, depending on what we get done tomorrow! We always over plan the first week!!!!

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It's August!

Hi everyone!  I got back yesterday from our annual visit to Long Island.  We had a wonderful time in the city shoe shopping,  seeing family, and eating at our favorite Japanese Steak House!!!! 

Now it's time to think about this school year, which isn't hard for me since I taught summer school and am working on a writing committee this week!  Ms. Hathaway and I will be at City School organizing our On Demand Writing Prompts for our Common Local Assessments.

I sent out more information on the August 27th 5th Grade Orientation. 

Use What You Know!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday, a student asked me for help with

21%

the following problem.
I was honest and said, "hmm, I'm not quite sure, I haven't done a problem like that in many years.  But, I do know that in math, you find out what you know and start with that."
So----- we knew that "is" can be "=" and "of" can be multiplication (x).  We then knew we could change the way the problem was read by substituting smaller numbers.
Example:
10 = 5  x ___   can be written as 5   x  ______ = 10

We know this answer is 2, but how?  We divided... 10 divided by 2 is 5.
So........ 84 divided by 21% = the missing number.

 We remembered how to change %s back to decimals and how to divide with decimals and got our answer of 400.

We did the problem without really knowing how. 
Lesson?  ALWAYS start with what you know, NOT with what you don't know.
I love teaching math and am excited to be back at it this year!

Summer School Gardening and such........

We have spent a little bit of time every day weeding the gardens.  This has led us to write plant identification guides on the plants that are growing in these gardens.  Today we worked on writing introductions and claims.

Working hard on the pizza garden!

If found a plant!  Basal or pepper?

Introduction & claim work.