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!!!!
I am so exhausted! On July 18th we started moving furniture and desks into the school! It's so exciting to see the old office building that Forza leased for us take shape as a school. The cafeteria has all new flooring, as does much of the school. The classrooms have carpet. The walls are all new, and freshly painted and we are almost ready to set up our classrooms. Sixth graders have two of the largest classrooms in the school! Our second sixth grade teacher, Mr. Bradfield, arrived just in time to help and we toured the new sixth grade space. We were both pretty pleased at how large the rooms are, but look forward to adding furniture and you, the students! My room number is 12, and Mr. Bradfield's room number is 1, but they are right next to one another. We still have lots to do, however. There are shipment of furniture, technology, textbooks, and more yet to arrive. Hopefully we will get the same level of volunteerism as we did on the first moving day. We had lots of parents, a whole football team, and many of the teachers and staff on hand to help. Some of the other shipments could require assembly, so I guess I'd better get my cordless screwdrivers charged. Check out the school website or the GCCAS Facebook page for pictures! Also, follow the PTO's Facebook page for other events coming up. See you soon!
I hope you are all having a great summer! I know mine has been super busy. I have been developing computer tools to help all of the staff at GCCAS. I am also looking forward to attending a summer STEM conference, where I expect to learn many great ways to incorporate science, math, engineering, and technology into more of our class time. I have great expectations for the STEM focus that we are taking this year.
In the midst of getting ready for this new big adventure I had to take a very important test. How many of you like to take tests? A lot of people think that after you finish school you won't ever have to take another test, but many jobs require certifications, teachers being one of them. I graduated from college being certified to teach 6-12th grade social studies. However, to be able to teach other subjects, I needed to be certified to teach K-6th grade in general education. So, I started to study. Reading books and guides and taking practice tests. It was not the best way I could think of spending my summer; I'd much rather have been fishing!
Luckily, all that studying paid off and I passed that major test! One of the things we will work on all year are test taking strategies and how to study and take notes. These skills will serve you a lifetime! Now I can not only teach social studies, but also other subjects. I believe that I will be teaching social studies and math this year. This might change before the first day, but I'm pretty sure this is plan. I'm glad I took that test and did well. Do you feel good when you do well on an important test or other event that you want to do well in? We all practice to do as best as we can. Studying for this test had me reading a lot over the past few weeks. i hope you have been reading as well. Have you ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book? They are a pretty neat series of books. I know they have them at the library. If you get a chance to go to the library you should look them up. We are getting close to move in day at the school! Soon we will be setting up classrooms, shelving classroom libraries, and preparing for meet the teacher night! If you have already started getting ready for school by purchasing supplies, please make sure you read the notes on the list and check it before school starts. I am looking forward to meeting you all very soon!
As sixth graders we will be involved in the Accelerated Reader, or AR, program. If you have never been introduced to the AR program, allow me to explain a bit about how it works.First, at the beginning of the year we will take a quick reading assessment called the STAR test. It will help to determine what AR level students should read on. This test has a proven algorithm for determining fluency level, vocabulary level, and text complexity to help students further develop their reading skills. Like many people, if left alone, students will stick to a level of text that they find comfortable. AR challenges that comfort level by awarding points for books read and tested on.Next, after the STAR test has been administered, students will be assigned a reading range. Books have been assessed by the developers of the AR program and placed within the ranges based on the same things students were tested on. As the ranges increase in value, so does the difficulty and complexity of the text. Once assigned a reading level, together with the students we will establish a point goal for the grading period. The students will then read AR books within their range, test on the book after completion, and gain points toward their goals. At the end of each quarter we will look at how well the student did, in both gaining points and achieving goals, and then decide how much we can raise the goal for the next quarter. Students may also gain extra recognition or small rewards for making gains. That's not too bad, right? It's not, and students love to read the wide range of books available to test on as well as compete against each other. The hurdle we have at the moment is the lack of books for sixth graders to read and test on.I have taken the time to create a wish list through Classrooms by Walmart of the top books for sixth grade readers over the past few years. If you can donate any of these books to our classroom library, it would be very appreciated. The books will be available for all students to check out, read, and test on. And the books don't need to be bought from Walmart, they can be donated to the classroom from any source you have. If you decide to give a book, just click the Pledge button under the title and that lets me know you will bring it in.In the meantime, you can use this list to help direct your students summer reading! See you soon!!!!
I'm sure by now you have heard the term Common Core, but do you really know what it is? Don't feel bad if you don't, we are all learning about it. So let me see if I can shed some light on the mystery for you.Here's what I know: 1. Common Core was an initiative developed by a group of experts to help place an emphasis what all students should know by the time they graduate high school. 2. Common Core has been adopted by 45 states. Florida is one of the states who has adopted Common Core. 3. The Common Core standards have a focus on English (across all subjects) and Mathematics. I know more about the English standards, but the Math standards are very com4. Common Core standards help bring critical thinking into all subject areas and have a heavy emphasis on writing, justifying, and analyzing many types of text including fiction stories and non-fiction (or informational) texts. 5. Compared with the Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for the subject of Social Studies, which is comprised of 85 individual standards, there are 10 Common Core standards. The difference is the NGSSS standards focus on content students should know, while CC standards focus on how students should be able to read and write with regards to that content. I think you will find that for all the issues that the media and other organizations can have with Common Core, you really won't see them in action. As sixth graders it is important to start to look at material given to you and start to analyze it. You should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary and questioning main ideas. You should also be able to write a summary about any reading and provide justification (or citations) from the reading to support your own interpretations. Every day in our classes we will address the NGSSS standards as well as CC standards and we will have a great time doing it. Make sure you stock up on paper! Let's get to writing! To learn more about Common Core standards visit their website.
 What do you like to do when it's either too hot or won't stop raining during these Florida summers?
I like to explore the online universe! One of my favorite hobbies is technology. I am always looking for great new ways to make learning fun and exciting.
When the school year starts we will talk about a few ways to utilize technology in our classroom, and out of it, that will help us communicate for success. I am spending my days researching more ways and look forward to sharing all that I have found during our first few meetings.
In the meantime, why not use the internet to play some games? If you look around on our website you will see that I have added some game sites that many teachers are recommending because their students loved them so much.
However, you should always follow a few rules when going online.
- Always ask your parent's permission. You should let them know what you are wanting to view.
- Never click on any ads or commercials. Be cautious as you navigate the web. When in doubt, log out!
- Never give any private information about yourself to anyone. If you want to use a site that asks you to create an account, ask your parent's to help you out. Don't chat with people you don't know.
As thoroughly as I evaluate websites, I have no control over the ones that display advertisements. If it were up to me, there would be no ads at all!
And why can playing games help you over he summer? Well, most of them require you to read, which is always a good thing. Many of them make you think critically about what you need to do next. And some of them can help keep your other skills sharp as well, like your math skills and science vocabulary skills.
Have fun playing games and keep cool!
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