You are looking at posts that were written in the month of January in the year 2009.
Arcadia students
will be participating in a reading incentive program from Monday, Feb. 2 to Friday, Feb. 27 to grow reading skills, for enjoyment, and to celebrate literacy as part of our Read Across America celebration.
We will be counting the minutes students read or are read to outside of school. Minutes for each classroom are tracked; every five hours of reading adds a stripe to the Cat in the Hat’s hats, which are posted outside of classrooms. Classes that meet grade level goals (3rd grade: 50 hours, 4th grade: 75 hours, 5th grade: 80 hours) receive root beer floats on March 6. Other prizes are awarded along the way to classrooms and to individuals.
In addition, guest readers from the community will be in the building on March 6 to help us celebrate. If you are interested in reading to a class, or know someone who might like to participate, please call Diane Ball at 464-5730 or e-mail to
Function Tables (In and Out) http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/NumberCruncher/
Tables and Chairs http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/Chairs/
Fractions http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/BoundFractionFinder/
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/EquivFractionFinder/
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/EquivFractionPointer/
All the activities from this site. Great for College and high school too.
This only means that this week, our classroom is in a state of . ..well disarray. I do not mean the kind of disarray you are familiar with when arriving in our room. But the kind where everything that was in the cabinets is not in boxes stacked in varioud locations about the room. The kind where the cabinets themselves are stacked in various locales, and all of our desks are lined up into two long tables. Loud fans and dehumidifiers are blaring behind a wall-long screen of plastic. Doesn’t that sound fun!? Actually, we love an adventure! This experience is designed to reduce the possibility of mold growth and other icky stuff that comes from the walls being saturated with water during the recent post snowstorm melt-down. Despite this we are bolstering our problems solving skills and writing letters to President Obama. I hopes that no matter who we voted for, he will meet all of our expectations. Some of us are writing that we hope he meets with the leaders of countries who still allow slavery of people and others are asking him to provide driver’s licenses to 10-year-olds . . . 
Whatever the poltical view of your family, this is a unique day in our nations history. Because we will not have this event again in our time together, I am using the opportunity to review the Legislative branch of government and to learn a little more about our nations new leader. It is kinda cool that he has kids in this age group.
http://www.c-span.org/classroom/govt/inauguration.asp
As I post this link http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/ there are still quite a few things from President Bush. I particularly like the Barney cam.
Look for our portraits of President Obama and our letters to him in Yoke’s soon.
Wow, it sure feels nice to get into the swing of things. I posted a calendar page. You will find it on the left menu bar. I hope to keep class relevant items on there, it should help us keep track of due dates and plans.
I thought we were moving away from our probability studies, but they tied in so well with what we are doing as reader’s and writers, that we are going a little deeper. Our Thinking topic is Making Inferences and Predictions. As writers we are trying to write in such a way that we do not have to TELL the reader some things, we SHOW them and let the reader infer. Scientists and mathematicians look at data make make conclusions based on evidence. We do the same as readers and historians. The evidence plus the background knowledge we have leads us to make inferences, predictions and conclusions.
Evidence + Background Knowledge = Inference
I also added a few links in the spelling area and under math a Fractals page.
In Math after we finish Probability and Statistics, we will be working on Geometry. This is actually easy for students who have difficulties with number sense since most of geometry is about shapes and space, for now. The difficult part of Geometry is the vocabulary. we will be making flash cards to help us remember all the vocabulary. There will be a word on one side and the picture of the word on the other.
In reading we are working on Making Predictions and Inferences. As well as Fact/opinion and Cause and effect.
Science, we are noticing how systems work, what energy is going into a system and what happens if one part of a system is changed.
Social Studies continues our adventure with Explorers!
That certainly seems like the thing to say after having not been at school for almost a month! I am working on this page at home while the sun reflects off the snow. I hope to make this page useful to us for communication and resources to help you assist in your child’s learning. I will be sending home a survey to seek input on what you would find useful.
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