2007 a new year

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you all on the 3rd of January.

We Like to Leave Comments

This is the part where you can leave comments just for the sake of leaving a comment or to talk to another classmember.

>>Remember whatever you write gets sent to my email account.

>>Remember becareful of the information you are putting on, use class numbers or initials.

Jouranal Online

If you would like to respond to a question or two please leave a comment. This is for adults and students!


What do you like about the winter season and why?

What did you do over the 4 day break that we had from school?

December Newsletter

Stuck on Good Behavior

Students reached their goal and filled the poster man with tape. In return stuck Ms. G to the wall.
Next goal is to fill the man to get the opportunity to play in a giant bubble and have a movie afternoon.

Encouragement

Encourage your students to read. With practice students become more fluent readers and their language skill will improve.
Encourage your students to study spelling words or even math facts at night for even just ten minutes a night to help improve scores.

Congratulations

Congratulations to our class for earning a movie, popcorn, and extra recess for getting back the parent surveys.
Congratulations to 7 and 11, our Carnival King and Queen. Also a big thanks to the parents and students who helped us collect the pennies to vote.

Upcoming Events

Dec. 12 Music Concert 7p.m.
Dec. 20 End of 1st Semester
Dec. 20 Early out 12:30 p.m.
Dec. 20 Holiday Party at school
Dec. 21-Jan.2 No School
Dec.22 16 & 17's Birthday

Thank You

Thank you to 1 and 10 for the beautiful bulletin board for November.
The carnival was a while ago, but thank you to all the parents and students that helped out in our spooky classroom.

Long Division

D M S B r

Dad's job is to divide
Mom's job is to multiply
Sister's job is to bring down
Brother's job is to bring down
sometime Rover comes around as a remainder

*remember to look back at your notes

Happy Thanksgiving

Don't forget no school Wednesday- Friday this week.

Tuesday we will have class as normal until recess. We earned 30mins of extra recess and we get to watch a movie in the afternoon. Popcorn provided by Mrs. Riley.

Sticky Situation

Two full rolls of duct

tape, 35minutes later, and I have a brand-new outfit!

All Filled

Stuck on Good Behavior is completed. Ms. G gets to be tapped to the wall Wednesday!







Our next goal is to fill the bubbles so we can play in a giant bubble and watch a movie!

Family Tree Project

5th Grade Family Tree Project

What does your family look like?

Start Date November 14, 2006 +2 weeks = assignment due November 28, 2006

Create your family tree. (doesn’t have to look like a tree)

Must Have:
Start with your name at the bottom, top, or one side.
Have a key example : female pink writing, male blue writing
Title to your project
Names of people (try to get first and last names)
Creative Presentation (how are you going to show all your information)


Optional:
Write down details about the person
Where they are from/ lived
Date of birth- death
Pictures

What can I make it on?
Poster board
Computers (PowerPoint, word programs)
Large paper
Card board
Mobile hanging downward
Construction paper
Other

Other information:
Will be looking at organization of information and neatness, as well as how much was completed using the source available to you like your family members.

This project is wroth 50points towards your reading grade.

There will be some class time spent on this project, but very little.

This project is about looking at your history and communication within your family. Use all the resources available to you.

If you need material to create your project please talk to Ms. Gray

Count Down

http://home.valornet.com/sabruf2/countchr.html

Guess that arm?

Arm A (white shirt)

Arm B (red shirt)

Links

POEMS
http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/

http://www.gigglepoetry.com/

HEALTH
http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/food/pyramid.html

WORDS
http://www.eduplace.com/tales/

ART/ENGLISH
http://www.stephen.com/enigma/enigma.html

http://www.eduweb.com/pintura/

READING
http://www.starfall.com/

MATH
http://coolmath4kids.com/

Carnival Night

Congradulations to our King and Queen and to our class for raising the most votes by collecting pennies.

Thank you to all of the students and parents for participating in the haunted classroom. Also thank for everything that was donated.

Red Ribbon Week

Congratulations to the cap winner DP and to TE for winning the pennant contest for Red Ribbon Week.

Stuck on Good Behavior

New Class Member

We have a new addition to our class thanks to RF and TE.


5 lined female, young Skink

Sally

For extra credit in science you can tell the class another fact about our new class pet.

November Newsletter

Fall

With fall here and winter approaching temperatures are dropping. Please make sure your students have the proper clothing and shoes to wear outside. We have been fortunate to not have many students out with colds this past quarter.

Thank You

Thank you to RF and TP for the creative faces on window painted pumpkins. Also for a very spooky bulliten board in the hall.

Learning Cornner

Science: We just finished with the planets and working on wonderful PowerPoints that were created by each student. We are going to begin the topic of water, weather and the watercycle,

Math: We are working in Chapter 3 with geometry the study of shapes and figures. We will also continue working on our multiplication facts.

English: Currently we are working on verbs and several parts of speech. We are going to be working also on several forms of letter writing.

Reading: Almost finished with literature circles, we will begin working in centers once again. The next set of literature books will be chosen by the student.s. What book they choose will indicates the group they will work in.

Upcoming Events

Nov. 3 6-9pm Carnival
Nov. 3 Book orders due
Nov. 4 15’s Birthday
Nov. 10 6’s Birthday
Nov. 11 Veteran’s Day
Nov. 17 Mid Quarter
Nov. 22-24 Thanksgiving Break: No School
Nov. 24 Ms. G's Birthday

PowerPoint

What do we like most about PowerPoints
check the comments for what the 5th grade thinks!!

(please don't put your name or the names of your classmates)

6th Grade Links

Crystal Links
http://www.crystalinks.com/astronomy.html

DustBunny
http://www.dustbunny.com/afk/constellations/

The Constellations and their Stars
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/constellations.html

October News Letter

Stuck on Good Behavior
The class has been showing such good behavior, The month of Sept. they have managed to fill up both arms and are working on filling the head. They seem to be following directions and working hard on making good choices and demonstrating good behavior in the classroom.
Right now when we get all assingments in on time we get 5min of extra recess.


Frog Folders
The Frog Folders are looking good. Everyone has been taking them home. I have had several parents writing notes to me.



PTO Carnival
The PTO is sponsoring a carnival November 3rd. Each class is responsible for creating a booth. I have chosen to do our classroom as a spook- house. I’m open to any ideas on how to make our classroom scary and fun. I’m also going to be sending home a list of items to donate and asking for times to volunteer. I would appreciate all the help we can get!



King and Queen?
We are starting early in collecting pennies. Each penny represents one vote. The 5th-8th grade is in one division. Half the money raised for our class representatives will go to the PTO and the other half directly to our class to help provide for books and other materials. The class representatives with the most coins wins the title king and queen. Our class took a vote and A.N. and K.E. will represent our class.

Congratulations


Upcoming Events
Tuesday, Oct. 3rd J.L. Birthday
Thursday, Oct. 5th Book Orders Due
Friday, Oct. 6th No School
Friday, Oct. 20th End of 1st Quarter
Wednesday, Oct. 25th Conferences 3-7pm
Thursday, Oct. 26th Early Out 12:30pm
Conferences 1-5pm
Friday, Oct 27th No School

Blog Web Page

This a great place to see what is going on in the classroom and for you to interact with us as a class. If you want to ask a question or post any comments please do so, it will automatically email to the teacher. If you would like updates emailed to you please let me know by writing your email address in your students FROG binder. If you have questions please feel free to ask.

What you might see on this blog:
Links to kid friendly sites that we use in class
Homework listings
Student work
Pictures

What else would you like to see? Please let me know!

September News Letter

Learning is the discovery that something is possible. ~Fritz Perls

Extraordinary News

The first few weeks of school have flown by. Things in our classroom are going wonderfully. Everyone is getting along, staying on task, and working hard.

Stuck on Good Behavior

With good behaviors demonstrated in the classroom and completing assignment notebooks, students will have the opportunity to collect tape to fill up a poster. When the poster is filled the class will be allowed to stick me to a wall. “Stuck on Good Behavior”

What’s Going On

Everyday we start out doing daily oral language and working on our language and writing skills. In reading we are looking at Nature’s Fury and comprehension strategies. We started doing centers for reading,were we get to slit up into groups and work on practicing skills in reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, and fluency.
Every Monday will be taking a practice test for spelling and testing again Fridays. Lists are sent home for the next week on Friday.
In math we start off doing a word problem and then on some mental math skills that we may use daily in our lives.

AR Reading

Your child has the opportunity to gain points. Each book is worth a certain amount of points that a student reads. In order to get those points they must answer a few questions about the book on a computer program. Points will be tallied at the end of each month. The goal for our class is to individually read a minimum of 6points for the month of September.

FROG Folders

Fifth Grade
Remarkable
Organization
Goal

Our goal is to keep organized and to build on communication from home and school. These folders will have one pocket to write notes home and and another for you to write to me any notes or comments back. Any important papers or homework will also be kept in these folders. They are to be brought home every night. On Fridays they will need to be signed by a parent or guardian before being brought to school on Monday so I know that it is being looked at on occation. I hope that this folder will help on communication, also with students’ organizational skills, and problems with missing assignments and homework.

At Home

Homework isn’t given out every day. I try to have less than a half hour a night. Things I give them for homework are things that should be review or extra practice. Spelling is given out every Friday so they have a whole week to study. Some students have books to take home from the class library or the school library to read. I recommend that student who do not have homework parctice with a parent or friend multiplication facts, read for 15-20mins, practice their spelling, or even write a story.

Fall Schedule

8:05-9:10
English (Tuesday Health)

9:10-9:15
Restroom

9:15-10:55
Reading

10:55-11:00
Restroom/ Get ready for lunch

11:00-11:10
Journal

11:10-11:35
Lunch

11:35-Noon
Recess

Noon-1:28
Math

1:28-2:18
Monday:Library/ Counseling
Tuesday: Art
Wednesday: Computers (6th and 7th hour)
Thursday:Music
Friday: P.E.

2:18-2:58
Monday/Thursday: Science
Tuesday/Friday: Social Studies

2:58-3:05
Home

Space Links

Take a look at the planets!

NinePlanets
NinePlanets



KidsF9
Kids.F9



DustBunny * used most in PowerPoint project
DustBunny



Kids Astonomy
Kids Astonomy



Nasa
NASA

About Our Teacher

About Me

I’m from a small town in Southwest Iowa where my parents and several family members still reside. I graduated from the College of Human Science at Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and special education K-6 multicatigorical. I have worked in child care, before/after school programs, and summer camps for over six years. I have had teaching experiences in kindergarten-sixth grade. I have been involved with youth and 4-H groups for over ten years. I love education and I love having the opportunity to help mold students into great character and citizens in our country.

Educational Philosophy

Learning is a discovery that things in life are possible. Helping students to become life long learners is half the battle. Having them become the doers of what they know is how you measure that a path has been reached on their journey. Every student has the ability to learn and I believe that we should establish realistic, but yet high expectations respecting the abilities of every child. I can achieve that goal by creating a positive atmosphere that facilitates meaningful learning experiences through inquiry based learning and open discussion. I can improve on being an educator by combining research-based strategies with critical self-reflection. Collaborative partnerships with parents, colleagues, and administration will ultimately define me as a professional.

Constitution Day

We took the Preamble and gave it a little twist. We replaced words so that it made more sense to us. Then made the paper looked aged. We ripped the edges, crumpled it up, and then soaked it all day in a mixture of coffee grounds, tea, and water.