Viewing: June, 2011
June 12, 2011
Summer Birthdays
We will be celebrating summer birthdays with a pizza lunch on Tuesday. I’ll order the pizzas, but any parent would like to volunteer to pick them up and bring them to us at about 12:15, I’d really appreciate it! If any parents of kids with summer birthdays (or any birthdays in the remaining week of school) would like to contribute a dollar or two to help cover the pizza, please feel free! I’ll cover whatever is left. Kids who aren’t pizza fans are welcome to bring their own lunch, but I’ve told the school kitchen that they should not expect us for buying lunch. If you’re able to pick up the pizzas, please email me. Thanks! Happy final full week of school!
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
June 9, 2011
Product Taste Test – RESCHEDULED
Tomorrow’s product taste test activity will be rescheduled for Monday. Sorry for the last minute change. I need the time to finish some activities from this week, and it’s easier to move the taste test since it’s more isolated. Kids can still feel free to bring in the products tomorrow.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
June 9, 2011
Expository Writing (By #19)
On May 11, the class worked on a outline for an expository article. The title was Why I love Baseball and we learned all about main ideas and supporting details. The class also did homework where we had to write down 3 reasons why we love our favorite sport, that we will soon turn into an expository article. We are also currently working with Mr. Giannini’s class to write an article about Japan by watching a short film.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
June 7, 2011
Number the Stars
Over the past month, we have worked on a joint social studies and reading unit about the Holocaust. In early May, we were fortunate enough to have theater educators from The Hartford Stage come to our class each day for one week to begin the unit with a dramatic study of Lois Lowry’s famous novel Number the Stars. Where a traditional book study would have started with some background instruction about the holocaust, our theater educator, Summer, started by diving into the story with the kids. The students had some incredibly rich discussions about the events that occurred in this sadly realistic piece of historical fiction. One of my big focuses was helping the kids to make reader-text connections to the text. These sorts of connections are very important to comprehending text, and (fortunately) these students have a hard time connecting to the events of the Holocaust.
After the week-long Hartford Stage residency ended, we started reading the story together. Although I was initially skeptical about how interested the kids would be in the story (since they already knew how many of the pivotal moments ended up), I have been so glad to see that the kids have been tremendously interested in the story. We’ve had meaningful and thoughtful conversations about the book; the likes of which I’d not previously seen this year. This book has also been a tremendous opportunity to learn about thick and thin questions: questions that are in-depth and thought-provoking or shallow and fact-oriented, respectively.
Today, we finished the book. It was a wonderful conclusion, and we had some terrific discussions about the book, character voice, and much more! I’m so proud of the kids. I’ll be out of the classroom tomorrow, but the kids will continue to work on activities relating to the book.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
June 6, 2011
Saving Computer Files
Ms. Sigan has asked me to remind students and families that they have until June 17th to bring in a CD or flash drive if they would like to save their files that are on the PGS server. Generally, these files are things that were created in the computer lab. This is optional. All CDs or flash drives need to be labeled with the student’s name, class number, and teacher name.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss