Monday, April 30th

Today students took the Social Studies CRCT.  They completed their Civil Rights notes and the assessment will be this Friday.  They will be able to use their notes on the test and it will consist of multiple choice, matching, and essay questions.


Thank you to all of the parents who donated snacks.  Now we need more tissue : )


As a reminder, I have an auction item available and the last day to bid is this Friday.  Click on the flyer below to get more information about my auction item and feel free to email me if you have any questions.  Thanks!

Wednesday & Thursday

Wednesday -- Students took the ELA CRCT and worked on their Civil Rights Road Map 3-D map.

Post-CRCT football w/ Mr. Stewart's Class

Post CRCT basketball w/ Mr. Zimbardo's and Mr. Taube's class

Thursday -- Students took the Math CRCT and worked on their Exhibition projects.

Tuesday, April 24th

Students completed the Reading CRCT this morning.  During the afternoon we continued working on a short Math CRCT practice test, watched a BrainPop video on the Brown v. Board of Education court case, and worked on Exhibition projects.


Tomorrow students will take the English Language Arts CRCT and, last but not least, thank you so much for the drinks and snacks.  All the students appreciated them.

Post CRCT Football

Online Auction!

Click on the flyer to get more information about the F.AVE online auction! 

If you want to view my item, click HERE.

Monday, April 22nd

Thank you to the parents who have sent (or are sending) snacks and drinks in for CRCT; we appreciate it!

CRCT Testing Schedule

Tuesday - Reading

Wednesday - English Language Arts

Thursday - Math

Friday - Science

Monday - Social Studies

Thursday, April 19th

Math -- We discussed some strategies for solving tricky word problems.


Social Studies -- Students worked together to answer textbook questions about the Cold War.  We watched a short BrainPop video about the Vietnam War and during lunch we watched a PBS documentary that profiled Vietnam Veterans sharing their experiences.


Reading -- Students did the interactive exercises with Parallel Structure on chompchomp.com


Friday Assessments -- Students have assessments on parallel structure, the Cold War, and vocabulary.  

Wednesday, April 18th

Students had the opportunity to work on their individual projects this morning.  During Social Studies we watched a short video on Nixon and discussed his political career.  After that we read, took notes, and discussed the Social Studies textbook chapter on the Cold War.  We concluded Social Studies by watching a short video on the Berlin Wall.  The students were quite interested when I told them that I was their age when the wall came down so perhaps tonight your families can discuss your feelings about that time period. 


It was raining all day today but we still went outside... sorry for the muddy clothes.

CRCT Testing --> Testing begins next Tuesday.  We will test every morning and it will be over on Monday, April 30th.  Since testing is quite rigorous it would be great if we could have a snack and drink during our daily mid-CRCT break.  If you are able to contribute please feel free to send the treats in (no peanuts please).

Parent to parent...

When my son attended Winnona Park I would stop by every other month, rifle through the lost and found, and usually locate a long-lost sweater or jacket.

And it was NEVER this bad....

If you get a chance before the end of school PLEASE stop by and look through the lost and found.  I try to have my students look through it but they often can't even remember if something is theirs (probably because the don't pay for anything...)

ELA -- Students completed their parallel structure worksheets and worked with the other students at their table to draft a paragraph where every sentence had correct parallel structure.  We then discussed this week's vocabulary and students did a short activity with the words.

Social Studies -- I introduced the Cuban Missile Crisis and students discussed what they would have done if they were in John F. Kennedy's shoes when presented with this crisis.  We then discussed how some of their "solutions" would have panned out.  This is a difficult concept for some students to grasp; however, they were really interested and we had a lively discussion.  We concluded social studies by watching a short video about JFK, discussing the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and talking about JFK's presidency.

Math -- Students completed their graph review worksheet and did a short graph assessment.

Monday, April 16th

ELA -- I gave a short lesson parallel structure.  Afterwards students began a formative assessment where they practiced fixing sentences with incorrect parallel structure.


Science -- We continued watching a Nova video on the elements.  Students were required to take notes on what they watched and I periodically noted different things they'll be studying in middle school science (chemistry - 8th grade; biology - 7th grade...)


Math -- We did a review of graphs.  Students interpreted graphs, gathered data, and created their own graphs.


MAP -- Students completed the Language Arts MAP.  Students who did not finish one or more of the MAP tests will finish on Wednesday.


Announcements:  We need more band-aids please.

Report Cards

Report cards are coming home today; please make sure to check your child's folder.  I do not need them to be signed and returned.


Please note that there are two minor errors:
1.  There's a grade in term 6 that should not be there.  It falls under the Math standard for "Computes Volume" and it was assessed in term 5.
2.  There should be an "N/A" for the Social Studies "Cold War" standard.  We are doing that standard THIS term and I have not assessed it yet.  


I normally try to catch those things prior to report cards going out; however, I didn't want to waste paper and print a whole new set of progress reports for small errors like that.  


Please let me know if you have any questions.

Wednesday, April 11th

ELA -- Today's topic was subject-verb agreement and we discussed why it's essential that the subjects and verbs in our sentences agree.  There will be a quiz on Friday covering contractions, subject-verb agreement, and "there, their, and they're."


Social Studies -- We watched a short video about the Korean War and went over the applicable vocabulary (dictatorship, communism, colony, etc...).  We had a very lively discussion about what's currently going on in Korea and communism so you may want to talk to your child about what we discussed today.  (hopefully he/she was one of the ones paying attention).


Math - Mr. Wither's taught a review lesson that reviewed numbers & operations and he discussed the best way to solve various types of word problems.


Exhibition -- Ms. Newton visited our class today and talked to students about the upcoming Exhibition projects.

Football is back!

Tuesday, April 10th

ELA -- During term 6 I'm making a last ditch effort to help students with their mechanics.  Today we worked on contractions and differentiating between the homophones there, their, and they're.  We also discussed text connections and I explained that as they mature, they are expected to be able to make more thoughtful connections to the texts they read.  We read the story Eleven and they really seemed to enjoy it.


Math -- Students took the Math MAP test today so I didn't teach a lesson.  


Students spent the remainder of the day after the MAP test working on their individual projects to raise their grades.

Monday, April 9th

Reading -- During Reading I discussed the term 6 work expectations and guidelines.  In addition to the group Expedition projects students will be given the opportunity to raise past grades by creating their own projects.  Also, if a student received 3s and 4s on all of their previous grades they will have the option to create a project based on the 5th or 6th grade standards.


Math -- We reviewed the math topics we discussed this year and discussed some test taking strategies.


Social Studies -- We watched a few short videos on the United Nations and the Cold War.  Students then identified key Cold War vocabulary.  Lastly they completed two short answer questions on communism and the Cold War.


During Science we watched a segment of Life while students received past work to put in their binders.