I don't say the above lightly. But, I do have the best group of sixth graders ever to be assembled! Parents, you should be even more proud. As we all know our parent pick up line is not the fastest in town (yet), but today our sixth grade leaders helped us all get finished at about 4:15! They braved the rain with us to help students get to cars. Sixth graders stepped up and helped keep the younger students quiet and calm and preventing them from horse playing. This is a great group of kids.

As we keep moving forward with the school year I have nothing but high expectations for all of you, students. Working as a team we will make it through subjects that might not be our favorite and excel in them. Together we will do the best!

As we continue to get ready for the arrival of texts (eta Friday) we are continually reviewing, re-teaching where necessary, and learning some new foundational skills. We will also be working on writing, creating stories whenever possible, and poetry, but most of all we will be working on the mechanics of writing. We will be working intently on mechanics when we do writing in social studies. The skill of writing is not restricted to language arts or reading, it is a cross curricular skill. Plus, I like writing (do you remember what I said about writing?).

I hope that as we continue to bring the parent pickup times down with the help of these great sixth grade leaders, we can finally have our informational sessions about the magazine and the building sessions. We will do these sometime after the Labor Day weekend.

In the meantime, bask in the glow that is your own awesomeness. You all deserve it. I am as proud as a mother goose!
 
Hello sixth graders! We are one school day away from the end of our first week! You have already shown yourselves to be great student leaders and I know Mrs. Lukomski and I have been very proud of you many times this week. The whole rest of the school is very jealous of how well behaved you are in just five days! I knew you would be a great group.

Friday is the grand opening of our school! It's also our first spirit day, so wear your spirit shirts if you want, or a school polo or regular polo. It's your decision. The grand opening ceremony will begin around 2:00 and there will be an official ribbon cutting at 3. All of your parents, grand parents, and guardians are invited! 

I am so thankful that you are all in my classes and I know we will learn much this year. 

For your adults: Congratulations on having great students. You must all be so proud of the responsible, respectful young men and women that you have. You are my heroes! 


See you Friday! 

(PS- We could still use some AAA batteries for our student clickers, if anyone has some that can be donated. Thank you in advance!)

 
   What a great first day! I had a wonderful day meeting all of you and seeing how well you worked together. I think we had a great time learning classroom procedures. Who would have ever thought that, huh? And the days will continue to get better as we move toward content and books.
   Please remember a few important things: first, we need five binders with paper in them by Friday. Three for my class and two for Mrs. Lukomski's class. You will also need to have PE clothes with you (or on order) by Friday as well.
  I want to say thank you so much for all of the generous donations made to the classroom! I may never need to buy hand sanitizer again! LOL! You are all so very kind. I have lots of great things planned for the construction paper and the other items you donated. Thank you again.
  I think one fun activity that we did today was the Marshmallow Challenge. It was so very interesting to see how students decided as groups to build a structure out of just 20 pieces of spaghetti, 1 yard of string, 1 yard of masking tape in only 18 minutes that could support the weight of a regular marshmallow. Everyone worked together, exchanging ideas, and testing their prototypes. It's interesting to note that those who perform best on this challenge are kindergarteners, while the worst performers are college graduates of business school. I have some pictures below of student creations.
   Lastly, I would like to apologize for the parent pick up mishaps today. We had a meeting after all parents were through and believe that we have come up with a better solution. You should have received an email at the email address you have on file with the school. Please check that and let me know if I can answer any questions for you. Thank you for your continued patience and I'll see you tomorrow!
 
   It's time! Monday starts the 2013-14 school year! It was so great to meet all of you last night, as well as your adults! I can tell already that this is going to be a spectacular year! 
   I hope you enjoyed writing on your "tag wall." I loved seeing all of your names and pictures. I think I will leave that board up for a long while.
   How many of you are nervous? (Can you see my hand way up in the air?) This is going to be a great new adventure for all of us, and our nerves will calm down. We will enjoy seeing and working with one another every day, and I will do everything I can to keep things fun and interesting. 
   I have had a lot o questions about PE. It's ok to be a bit shy about that as well. If you feel a bit of butterflies about changing in the restroom, you can always wear your PE shirt under your polo. As long as you still meet dress code, no one will say anything to you. 
   I want to take a second to say Thank You very much to all the great parents and guardians that took time to come and have cookies with me last night. I hope I was able to answer all of your questions, but I am here if you have more. And sorry for any problems that my school supply list caused. Students should come to class (By Friday at least) with:
  • 5- 1" Binders. Any color, it doesn't matter. 2 will go to Mrs. Lukomski's room, 3 will stay in mine.
  • Wide ruled paper for each binder. 
  • A backpack loaded with a few pencils, pens, some colored pencils, a ruler, a small 4-function calculator, some ear buds (or other headphone), scissors, index cards, highlighter(s), and a USB flash drive. These things will be just for your student and not for class consumption. 

Also:
  • If you are donating any items, such as a pack of copy paper, tissues, construction paper, AAA batteries, hand sanitizer, or disinfecting wipes, those can be brought and left at your convenience. 


   This first week will be here and gone before we even know what hit us! We will have had such a good time learning the rules that you might not even know you were in school. 
   Don't forget to visit the school's webpage and look around on ours! See you Monday morning bright and early! 
 
   How many times do you order the same meal at the same restaurant? Play the same games the same way? We all do it; as humans we like the consistency and scheduled things in our lives. However, life does not always like for us to become so used to things.
   As you (and your parents) transition from fifth grade to sixth grade you will feel nervous and uncomfortable on occasion. That's okay.  These feelings are part of our lives and are to be expected. Part of building character is stepping outside of our comfort zones and be risk takers. Many higher level curriculums, such as International Baccalaureate, emphasis being a risk taker; doing what scares us. If you are nervous about starting, I am too. 
   But, we aren't just talking about changes in you guys. Sadly, last week Mr. Bradfield, the second sixth grade teacher, had to resign his position. he had a family emergency back home in Missouri and we will keep him in our thoughts while we wish him well. Now the administration is reviewing many of the applications that they received looking for another qualified candidate. Because of that, some of the subjects that I am teaching (mainly math) may also change. Boy are my nerves fried! However, I am still moving forward and my enthusiasm is undaunted. I still know that this will be a great year. We will get past all of our butterflies together, make great learning gains, and have a stellar year. 
   Are you coming to Meet the Teacher night? I hope that you come. I really am looking forward to seeing you Friday night at 6!  
 
   Well, our websites were added to the GCCAS.org webpage and this page has exploded! It has been viewed by many students and parents a like. How do I know? Because some of you have already emailed me or called me about events coming up! That's great!
   One fun thing that we will be doing as an extension to our STEM focus as a school in sixth grade will be participating in the Made by Milk carton building contest. Check out the website and get your thinking caps on! I will announce the first week of school via the website, calendar, and a note on the white board, when our first meeting will be and what will be on the agenda. If you are thinking about joining the team, please plan on attending to learn more! 
   I hope you have all had a chance to run by the school and get your uniform shirts ordered. The sixth grade shirts are different colors than all the other grades. We will have a lot more things for you to participate in as well. For example, we will be having a sixth grade staffed safety patrol comprised of trustworthy students that can get to school just a bit earlier and stay a bit later. Not all members of the safety patrol need to patrol both times. I also believe that our principal, Mr. Auer, will ask parents of sixth graders to pick them up just a few minutes after regular pick up time in the afternoons so that sixth graders can help with the younger students. What a great responsibility!
  That's about it for now. Make sure you keep up with the calendar. If you use Google calendars you can simply copy any events onto your own calendar to keep important dates on your desk top, phone, or other devices. If you need help with any of the technology we may be using in class, don't hesitate to contact me

   Us teachers start back to school next week, so summertime must be over. :^(  I look forward to meeting you all at Meet the Teacher night! :^)
   
 
     I am so excited! This week things at the school have really started to come together. I have bee volunteering for a kindergarten reading readiness boot camp in the morning and working on my classroom of the afternoons, and I must admit the anticipation is building! We are still waiting on some furniture (should be in very very soon) and text books, but things are coming in every day! I am really looking forward to meeting you all as time draws near for the first day of school. I hope you are as excited as I am. I bet you are! 
     Remember, as you gather school supplies there are no particular colors of binders needed, nothing needs to come from Walmart (buy it where the price is the best), and some things may not even need to be new (think USB Flash drives, ear buds, etc...). If you have items that are in good repair, use those. 
     Soon I will have items posted here like the syllabus, students handbook, and other important information that you may want to refer to in the future. 
    Speaking of the future, I'd better go to bed, 7:30 comes real early in the morning! See you soon!!!!