Monday, December 7, 2015

Letter about Homework


Good News from Room 303
Dear families,

       I was going to give out a reading log, math packet, and spelling list for homework this week, but I think something more important may be in order...  

Lately, our world has been seemingly filled with all kinds of horrible events. It seems like every time we turn on the news, get on the Internet, tune into the radio, or pick up a newspaper we are immersed in negative stories about crime or violence. Some of these stories are important; we want to ensure we are “in the know” because some of these stories hit close to home, maybe it reveals wounds that were simply covered up and can lead to productive dialogue that can actually change the course of history.

          Yes, we do live in a world where “bad things happen”. But, I think the reason we phrase it like that is because we recognize that it’s a shame that so much good in the world gets overshadowed by the bad. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to celebrate the good things in the world instead of dwell on the bad.

          Our class is in the middle of a unit on nonfiction. We were going to work on pieces about weather, but something came up in our morning meeting today that I think would be immensely more powerful and authentic. The students want to create a newspaper that only has stories, opinion pieces, instructional pieces, sports pieces that focus on the good in life.

          This is a massive overtaking. We want to get it put together before Winter Break begins; we’ve already begun coming up with some possible ideas:

·       South Carolina flood recovery
·       President Obama pardoning the turkeys
·       The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade
·       The lighting of the tree at the State House
·       Clemson’s 30,000 person pizza party
·       A community helping replace a woman’s stolen Christmas lights.
·       The Panthers being 12-0
·       Important things that make us personally joyful
·       Passing of the Cans
·       Donating gifts
·       Recipes/directions
·       Student Voice Council
·       Morning Milers
·       5th graders getting ready for 6th grade

I’ve decided that I’m going to do a story on President Jimmy Carter being cancer-free. I want to learn more about the man and what his life has stood for. Your child wants to come up with an idea for a piece that is positive and worth a read. It can be:

·       A story from the local community
·       A story from your personal connections about someone doing good to others.
·       A sports story that highlights something positive
·       A national story that is positive
·       An opinion piece about something positive your child wants to convince others about.
·       A story about our school.
·       Recipes and other how-to pieces
·       Interviews

Your child’s homework tonight is to come up with a possible idea to write on this week. So we can publish it next week. I appreciate your help with that. Your child will have a sheet of paper to guide their thinking tonight. If you would ensure that it is completed and brought back tomorrow, that would be awesome.

-Mr. Foote

Monday, November 30, 2015

Homework

Homework is pretty straightforward this week. Your child has their weekly spelling list in their folder. They should study for 10 minutes on 2 different days before Friday. Also, there is a math packet with the due dates at the top of each page. All of the pages deal with comparing values of numbers. Other than that, I'm leaving the kids some free time so they can try to earn cans for Passing of the Cans.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Homework

Math Packet: Three worksheets due on different days, just like last week. The second worksheet is not one that requires any answers on the paper, just practice. I need to see a signature from a parent on this sheet on Friday for your child to get credit.

Reading Log: Students should log 4 days of reading equation style by next Tuesday.

Th- Spelling List: The list the students came up with contains these words: thought, thanks, through, third, threw, those, these, think, they, and thousand. They should study for 10 minutes a day on 2 days before this Friday's check-in.

Monday, November 9, 2015

11/9 Homework

Hello families,

Something strange happened to me over the last two months; I was able to experience life with kids in school for the first time ever. It has been an incredible experience, but extremely thought-provoking as I am now experiencing the "joys" of making sure that tired, hungry kids get their homework done and everything signed and OH WAIT a permission form that's due tomorrow and...yeah.

I've spent the last few weeks reflecting deeply about how homework in our classroom is structured. I want to give the students authentic, sometimes enjoyable engagements or assignments. There also is a balance between giving independent practice in math, reading, and writing. I value the quality time that you get with your children and I don't want your evenings to be chock-full of assignments. Most of the work I'll send home will be things that the students will not need much scaffolding with and will not consume their evenings. If a larger task needs to be done, say a project, then it will usually be the only assignment for that week.

Here is your child's homework for this week, they have different due dates so it's not all done on the same day.

Weekly Word List: Check-in on Friday
I have revised our spelling practice. Instead of looking at the words on the recommended list, we are looking at a spelling pattern or sound each week, doing a minilesson about the structure of those words, naming several words, and voting on the words we think we would use most often in our writing. That's where the spelling lists will come from now on.

stronger, burn, dinner, purse, nurse, member, remember, number, culture, November (festive, I know)

Place Value Math Game: Play by Thursday
There is a score sheet, front and back, for you to share with your child.
1. Roll 2 dice. Add the numbers up.
2. Pick which place you want to put that number. The goal is to build the larger number than your child. Hide your number so there's mystery about where you put it.
3. Your child goes. You hope they roll low numbers.
4. You repeat until the 10th round.
5. Whoever wins the most rounds does a victory dance. Or, you could maybe get some additional chores out of them? Just trying to give you some good ideas.

Scoring: 2-9 is worth 2-9. 10 is worth 0. 11 is worth 1. 12 is a reroll.

I'd like for you to write out what you learned as well. This is to be turned in on Thursday.

Reading Log: Due Monday
Your child will need to log 4 days of reading by next Monday. They should read 20 minutes each day. Please make sure they do their equation to figure out how many pages they read.

Monday, November 2, 2015

Homework for the Week

Homework

Three math worksheets are in a packet. They are based off of the math we will be working on in class this week. The due dates for each sheet are written at the top of the page. We have only done the lesson for the first sheet, so that's all that should be done before Wednesday. The second sheet is due Friday. The third sheet is due next Monday.

Also due next Monday is your child's second weather observation/illustration. Alot of students put in great detail with their written observations. Please look over your child's work to make sure clarity and detail are present.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Homework

We're going to hold off on spelling this week because I need to revise the list and make new copies for the students.

This week's homework will have two parts.

Part 1: Due Wednesday
We are learning about nonfiction texts beginning this week. We talked about the famous quote: "A picture is worth 1,000 words." Your child is going to write a response about what they think this quote means. We will be discussing our responses on Wednesday.

Part 2: Due Monday
Your child will go outdoors and observe the weather. They will write down their observations on one half of the sheet of paper and make an illustration of the outdoor scene they observed. We will share these out next Monday when we begin our weather unit.

As we are learning about the part that photography plays in nonfiction, I am sending out an all-call. If you have collected amazing images from magazine covers or photographs you have taken yourself, we would love to have them in class so we can discuss in our class. Thanks!

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Beginning Memoir

We are beginning our first genre study and it will result in our first published memoirs. A memoir is a personal narrative about important memories. They are detailed and contain a lot of emotional meaning. Today, in class we read one of my favorite memoirs, Crow Call by Lois Lowry. It's about her going on a hunting trip with her dad who just returned from the war. I asked the students to come up with some observations from the book.

"It's very realistic."
"The pictures looked lifelike."
"I thought she was very enthusiastic."
"She chose words that were calm and peaceful."
"She had other people talking in the story."

These are all very important observations that will help guide us as we prepare memoirs of our own. The class came up with some memories and we categorized them. Obviously there could be other categories, but here you go:

-Vacations
-Visiting relatives
-Medical emergencies (broken arms, bumped heads)
-Birthdays
-Important firsts
-Beach trips
-Major accomplishments (Aquil said he hit a home run!)
-Overcoming fears
-Fun memories
-Tiny but important moments (Addison mentioned a time a girl stopped what she was doing to help her get a basketball that rolled in the street)
-Sad memories
-Time with parents
-Brothers or sisters being born
-Hero moments

After we made the list, the students went off and made a personal list of 3 memories. They are bringing it home tonight. Their homework is to talk through their list with you and work on narrowing it down to the BEST choice. The best choice would be the one that your child has the most details in their retelling. You can show them pictures of these events, or you could even say, "Remember when this happened?" so they come up with a brand new idea that they didn't think of today. The goal is that every student has picked a topic that will be a good choice for them as we begin this genre study. Monday, we will begin writing.

B

Friday, September 18, 2015

Pics of the New Foote Family

So, some observations from the day:

1. We could start our own pick-up basketball team.

2. These kids love music.

3. My pizza budget might need to increase substantially.

Seriously guys, I'm experiencing tremendous joy right now. I don't really understand how to explain it. But, I thought you would like to see a few pics from our afternoon.






Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Update

We have been busy using our awesome brains in the last two weeks. Along the way, we've done some pretty neat stuff that I wanted to share with you.

Economics and Communities

We broke up into groups and created communities with tax money. Some groups had rural communities, some suburban, and some urban. The rural communities had the least money and the urban community had the most, related to how many people could be taxed. Each group had a sheet with things they needed to build, such as police stations, fire departments, and schools. Each community had to have utilities such as power lines, sewage, and water treatment facilities. To keep track of their spending, the kids used calculators and a ledger.





After balancing their budgets, the students began building their communities by drawing on poster boards. They used the ledgers as a guide. They weren't allowed to build anything they hadn't paid for. Along the way, the students learned how difficult it is to plan communities and how communities with more people have more than those with less people.







Damien and Aubree named theirs "Labor City" where every day is Labor Day. Nice!


Here is a video that the kids have been begging me to put on the blog.



Math

We are still working with learning how to decompose numbers and combine them to add and subtract. This is the building block of regrouping, which is huge for 2nd grade. It helps the students see that when you're carrying, it's not just a 1, it's actually a 10. To help us practice, we played a math game called Race to 100, which is a very simple game you could play at home. All you need is 2 dice. Your child would love to teach you!



Writing

Next week, we will begin our Memoir or Personal Narrative study, but we wanted to get an initial published piece accomplished so we better understood the process that authors go through. These are choice pieces. Some kids chose to write nonfiction, others fiction. The important thing was moving through the process of making revisions and editing so an audience can better understand it. These pieces will be shorter than the personal narratives we will write beginning next week. I'm very excited about the Memoir study. One suggestion is to help your child come up with some ideas of important and meaningful memories that are just begging to be written.

Reading

We have been looking closely at reading responses such as summarizing and predicting. We also are practicing reading strategies such as chunking words, looking at spelling patterns, and skipping the word to read around it. As a chapter book read aloud, we have been reading Frindle by Andrew Clements. 

Explorations Pics



And this last pic is of Anna, Maiya, and me bringing back the colonial look.


Monday, September 14, 2015

Homework: Due Monday 9/21

Reading Log
Log 5 days, no summaries needed.

Math Packet
3 sheets. Two sheets are word problems; please make sure your child writes the equation or number sentence for each problem. The other sheet is mixed addition and subtraction.

Spelling List
Beginning this week, your child will have a weekly spelling list. They will see a few weeks on one sheet of paper, but they will only focus on 1 week at a time. If you feel they are ready to work on others, feel free. Since this is our 1st week, start with Week 1, not Week 5.

over
new
art
take
only
car
park
hard
barn
card
shark
dark
oh
eyes
timeline
hold

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Homework (Blog Post to Come Later)

Homework: (Due Monday)
No math homework this week. Instead it's a reading log but only 4 days to log. Additionally, your child will do a short summary about the selection of text they read on 2 nights. It can come from the same book, just different parts of the story. This is to be written on notebook paper. The total of the 2 summaries shouldn't go beyond a full page (just one side). We're working on finding the most important information from the text to share. Have your child show you what they wrote and check for clarity of thought and ask them to probe their thinking more if you feel they need to add more important info.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Update, Homework, and Dates

So, we made it through our first full week of school. One of the things that impressed me about the kids, and I shared this with them Friday after Gathering, is how quickly we have made the transition from summer/1st grade to what we are expected to do as 2nd graders. They are growing in their understanding of how they fit into a smaller classroom with more responsibilities and expectations. Now that we have that in our heads, we are able to take our experiences to another level!

Last week, we spent a lot of time going over procedures such as how to use a chart to log our independent reading choices and then we reflected on the chart to set goals for ourselves. Some noticed that they read only nonfiction, some noticed that they chose a different book each day, some noticed that they read more as the week went on.



We also spent some time observing different types of maps and pictures of the world. We started by looking at the world map, noticing how continents were landmasses consisting of several countries. We also checked out this guy here:

https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly

This is Scott Kelly, an astronaut who posts pictures of the Earth on his Twitter feed. We were able to see pictures of "Hurricane" Danny and the northern islands of Canada.

After we looked at countries, we shifted our focus to the states. We looked at atlases in groups and recorded our observations. This also provided us with valuable practice for working with our peers.




In Math, we have been working at understanding the number 10, how we can create number bonds to help us make 10, which makes adding and subtracting significantly more efficient. It also builds our number sense.

Finally, we have begun Explorations and the excitement is so evident in the students. I was impressed at the choices they were making. GarageBand seems to be a class-favorite, as well as building with the K'nex and Contraptions. Here are some pictures:




Here are pictures from the Gathering where Marley, Wyatt, and Paula Kay were introduced by their fellow students.




Sidenote: Let's say your awesome kid does something awesome at home and wants to share that awesome thing with their awesome friends. Send it to me in an email!!! I'll put it on the blog so that it can make the Internet more awesome! Will's family sent this to me last week.


I'll be posting tons of pictures this year, so if you don't see your kid in these, you'll see them in other posts.

Homework
Due Wednesday: Your child will ask you a few questions about taxes, they will write down your answers and bring them back to class Wednesday. This will help us as we understand how citizens fit into their communities.

Due next Tuesday: Math packet and reading log.

Dates
Tuesday, Sept. 8: MAP Reading
Tuesday, Sept. 15: MAP Math
Thursday, Sept. 17: Opening Picnic
Thursday, Sept. 24: Early Dismissal/Parent-Teacher Conference Day (Let me know if you would like to meet)
Thursday, Oct. 8: Curriculum Night #1
Friday, Oct. 16: Zoo Trip and our 1st Gathering...eeesh, your kids will be exhausted for that weekend.

Adoption Update
We fly out early Saturday to see the kids for Labor Day weekend. We also got our official dates for them to move out here! Weekend of Sept. 19th. I'll probably take a couple of days off that following week as we help our family adjust to the changes. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks!

Monday, August 24, 2015

Homework, Dates, and the Week Ahead (Week 2)

Good morning families,

I trust that all of you had a pleasant and life-giving weekend. We had family in town this weekend and my house had, at one point, 16 kids in it for Conner's birthday party. Good practice I guess.

Homework
Your child is to read 20 minutes each day, including Saturdays and Sundays. Each day after they read, they will log their choice into a reading log. They will have to write the title, type of book (fiction or nonfiction), and the number of pages read. They should write the number of pages in a subtraction math fact. For example, if I ended reading on page 23 but started on page 16, I could write 23-16=7. Any practice with math is good practice!

Also, your child will have a very short math packet where he/she will practice the math concepts we explored last week. Please look over this with them and help them correct miscues. Doing so will provide you insight into how they are working through the concept and help reinforce some of the learning.

Both of these assignments are to be completed and turned in before Explorations on Monday, August 31st.

Dates
Monday, 9/7: Labor Day, no school
Thursday, 9/17: Opening Picnic, hold on times
Thursday, 9/24: Early Dismissal, conference day

If you would like to schedule a conference with me for that Thursday, send me an email.

The Week Ahead
This week, we are going to look at the reading strategies that our parents are using when they read. We'll categorize them and come up with strategies that we can fall back on when we are trying to figure out how to say a word or figure out what a word means. If you have some that didn't make it in the packet, feel free to post some in the comments!

We are still setting up our Writer's Workshop time. Today, we compiled lists to help us have a point of reference for thinking of ideas to write about. As we "get the cobwebs" out, we will be working on ending punctuation in our writing.

In Math, we are working on fluently adding and subtracting within 20, including decomposing numbers to help us begin to understand what regrouping actually does.

In Unit of Study, we are going to look at maps this week, including how populations are distributed based on resources available.


Adoption update: Tori and I are flying out the beginning of Labor Day weekend to visit the 4 kids and we'll get to hang with them for 3 days. The paperwork has been completed by both Texas and SC and so it should be happening soon! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Thx.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Our First Day

We've had a great time so far; right now they're at Library with Mrs. Hucks and I was able to see they are ALREADY checking out books which means they followed all of her expectations. Sweet!

We're spending the day learning what life is like as a 2nd grader, there are a lot of changes. Lots of labeling, lots of expectations, lots of fun as well.

Homework: (Yes, I know...)
Your child is bringing home a folder that is either blue or yellow. It has their name and "HW" on the top. This is their homework folder and needs to make the trip back and forth each day. Most often, the homework will be given out the first day of the week, but there might be something particular for your child or something just came up that we wanted to take advantage of.

Inside you'll find forms, forms, and more forms.

However, inside you'll also see a reading interview that is your child's first homework assignment. They may need some help reading and processing through some of the questions, so if you wouldn't mind assisting, that would be great. Also, they are supposed to ask you questions as well.

This is due Monday, August 24th.

Here's some pics from lunch.





Tuesday, August 18, 2015

T Minus 16 Hours

Aaaaaaaaaaaand we're ready!


This is our class blog, as you've probably already guessed. This is where the good stuff gets posted, as well as homework and notes for the weeks ahead. We try to have fun here.

Here's a great "get ready for school" video for you kids.



Good luck with the traffic tomorrow; it gets pretty cray.

Oh, and I just got a ukulele for my birthday. I tried to get the instrument that would make me look the tallest.

See you all tomorrow!!!

-B

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Final Expert Project Info

Guess what? This is probably going to be the most relaxing expert project season you've ever gone through as a parent!

I am a big believer in the "Apprenticeship Model" of teaching, which is a gradual release of responsibility.

With each expert project, the expectations for the students have grown and developed. This expert project will be done completely in school, completely by the kids, with some recommendations by me. By following this model, your child has built up understanding of how to use technology, how to search for appropriate and helpful resources, develop skills and strategies for accessing more challenging texts, practiced networking with other students, and developed more organizational skills. It is now time to have the culmination of this work.

Your child is researching a famous event in history. Most of the students have chosen events related to American history, though they had the freedom to choose one that dealt with world history. Their expert projects will center around what led to that event, details about the event itself, and how the result of that event changed history. It's a lot of work and information. They are recording their notes on notecards first and then choosing the most relevant information to include in their slideshows.

You will still be able to view their slideshows when they are created, however I ask that we make this project completely kid-made. I encourage you to ask reflective questions about their work in an effort to make it better; but the work should be done by the student. It should sound like them. This will also provide their new teacher, Ms. Whitecotton, with an excellent work sample as she prepares to teach the kids.

I highly encourage you to come in to listen to your child's project. Their projects will take on the form of a mini-lesson on their event. It would be really awesome to see how your (at one time) 2nd grader has transformed into a confident teacher of their peers! We will do presentations Tuesday May 26th-Friday May 29th. I will provide you with a schedule Tuesday of next week so you can make arrangements if you need.

So, take a breather. Expert project season doesn't have to be a stressful one!  :)

Monday, April 20, 2015

Homework and Dates

Dates:

Thursday, April 23rd: Curriculum Night

Friday, April 24th: 11:30 dismissal

Tuesday, April 28th-Thursday, April 30th: ACT Aspire testing

Wednesday, April 29th: Field study permission slips and money due

Tuesday, May 5th: Field study to the SC State Museum

Homework:

In preparation for the ACT Aspire tests next week, I have created student accounts on two websites that students will access at home or in Aftercare.

www.readtheory.org

www.ixl.com

Your child is bringing home a letter with their log-in information.

This will provide exposure to various types of questions and also will provide data for how they are doing with those questions. Their homework is a practice log. It is on the back of the IXL letter you will receive. It looks like this:

Day
Read Theory
IXL
Parent Signature
Monday



Tuesday



Wednesday



Thursday



Friday



Saturday




Students will work on Read Theory for at least 20 minutes and IXL for at least 20 minutes daily. On IXL, you can choose concepts you want them to work on as well, but they can choose different ones to work on. They must get their log signed and brought back each day. Each student is allotted one "pass" day in case there are circumstances where the work could not be done the previous night. As I told the kids, in every job there is "crunch time" where you have to buckle down and challenge yourself more; this week is crunch time. I do not want the students to practice Sunday so they can have a breather before next week starts.


Monday, April 6, 2015

MAP and Pictures from Filter of Hope

Our class will be participating in the MAP Reading and Math tests this week. Tuesday morning, we will take the Reading portion. Thursday morning, we will take the Math portion. I encourage all students to get enough sleep and eat a healthy breakfast to prepare for the test. We worked diligently this morning on the types of questions the test would ask and how to approach answering those questions. We will be spending the next three days reviewing material that we have covered at the beginning of the year in math, just to jog our memory.

There will not be homework until next week, except a reading log without responses. This is due Monday.


Here are some pictures of the water filters our class purchased being distributed in a small African country called Burkina Faso. Our contact at Filter of Hope told me that in this village, 35% of all children die before they turn 5 because of the parasites and bacteria that is in their water. The picture of the small pond is this village's only water source. Please pass these pictures along to those that donated, so they know their donations saved lives of children in these pictures.







Monday, March 23, 2015

Homework

Due to our abbreviated week and then Spring Break, I thought it best to give the students a reading log that they could complete over the two weeks for homework. They can return in the Monday we return.

Thursday is a half day. There will still be after care.

Friday is a student holiday.

I hope everyone has a great and enjoyable Spring Break!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Class Bracket Challenge

Your child may have already told you this, but we are having a friendly March Madness Bracket Challenge. It's something we do in this class every loop to learn about probability and statistics. I absolutely love basketball and I'm always surprised at how much the children enjoy making predictions or guesses and seeing if they are correct. Here's my bracket.
It's pretty much the best bracket ever created. Feel free to compare our brackets if you are filling one out at home.

Here's how the scoring works:
For every correct prediction you get points based on the round.

Round 1: 10 points
Round 2: 20 points
Round 3: 30 points
Round 4: 40 points
Round 5: 50 points
Round 6: 60 points



Monday, March 9, 2015

Homework

I sent an email this morning giving details about how our fractions test that was originally scheduled to be this Wednesday will be moved until next Thursday due to illnesses in our class. Also, I will be out of town Thursday through Monday for my brother's wedding in Florida.

Homework:

Phase 1 (Due Thursday): Students will have editing conferences with their revised fiction pieces. Topics of discussion include spelling of words we should know, capitalization, punctuation, paragraphs, commas in a series, quotation marks, and necessary speech tags. The students did self-edits today in class in preparation for this process. This is not to be rewritten, just show what needs to be changed on the paper. We will publish in class beginning Thursday and add illustrations.

Phase 2 (Due next Tuesday): On Thursday, your child will bring home a fraction review for the assessment the next week. This is to be completed and returned next Tuesday so we can go over the answers and correct any miscues.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Homework

This week's homework will be in two phases.

Phase one will be due Wednesday. The students have written 1st drafts of fiction stories about a character they created and developed. They are to read the story with you and conference about what they can do better in their 2nd draft. This is not the editing portion of the Author's Cycle. We are just focusing on the bettering of ideas conveyed in the story, descriptions, and development of character and plot. Your child is to write down the list of suggestions you have and bring it back to class on Wednesday.

Phase Two will be a math packet that your child will receive Wednesday at school. It will be due the following Monday.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Homework and Dates

Good morning everyone!

As you know, we have been working with fractions this month. There are so many different concepts we will explore in fractions, so I'm breaking it up over two assessments. This Friday, our class will have an assessment on identifying fractions, partitioning shapes, and using a number line to name and compare distance between fractions. There will be a review sent home for homework that is due Friday. Next week, we will focus on equivalences and comparing size of fractions. This will have an assessment the following week on March 11th. It will also have a review.

Important Dates
Thursday, March 12-Monday, March 16: I will be out of town at my brother's wedding. We have a sub that the kids are very familiar with.

Friday, March 20: Our class will have its last Gathering together.

Wednesday, March 25: End of the 3rd Nine Weeks. You will receive narratives after Spring Break

Thursday, March 26: 11:30 Dismissal

Friday, March 27-Sunday, April 5: Spring Break

Tuesday, April 7: Reading MAP test

Thursday, April 9: Math MAP test

Update with Filter of Hope
Over the last two weeks, we have brought in over 65 dollars! Additionally, our two videos have 437 views and our class is featured on R2TV.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Homework and Notes

Homework (due Monday)
Complete the math packet and return next Monday.
Some students need to complete "character maps" that they began today in class. Basically, it's just the blueprint of a fictional character they're going to create a story for. This is to be brought back tomorrow.

Notes
If you were unable to set up a Student Led Conference time with me, please email me to let me know a time that would work for you. I can meet most afternoons, except Mondays.


Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Homework, Student Led Conferences, and Feete News

For homework this week, there is a reading log and a math worksheet. The math worksheet deals with partitioning shapes (splitting them up evenly). The front page where they actually have to draw the partitions in the shapes and label each fraction has already been used before in class. The back page where there are different shapes presented and partitioned differently is new. They are to determine which letters for each row have a shape split up evenly. They need to look closely. There may be multiple answers to each question, but there also may be none. All homework is going to be due next Tuesday.

Student Led Conference day is fast approaching and we are working diligently in class to prepare for this special occasion. I have two requests:

1. While we have a 30-minute block, we will aim for the conference to be approximately 20 minutes, so we can greet each other, say our good byes after the conference, and it gives me time to get prepared for the next conference. Please remember to show up on time or a little before your scheduled time slot so that we can honor other students' time slots. Thanks for your help with this.

2. A Student Led Conference is a time to celebrate how the student has grown. They will be leading it; I will sometimes help guide the conference if it is needed, and we are all free to ask questions to probe for clarity or deeper understanding. However, if you have concerns to address with me about your child, let's set up a separate conference to discuss them.

Looking forward to it!

P.S. As you may have heard from your child, or may not have heard, my wife and I have decided to add to our family through adoption. We are hoping to adopt a pair of siblings through the foster care system. We have recently been approved by our agency and are beginning the home study process. It's a very exciting time for us; if you would like to know about our plans I would love to share them with you.

Friday, February 6, 2015

Filter of Hope Update

Just this week we raised $107.08. Now from the time we started we have raised over $520. That is over 13 filters!

Note from Mr. Foote:

R2TV heard about our work in the water project and are coming out on Monday to do a story on the work the kids did!

Monday, February 2, 2015

Homework 2/2/15-2/9/15

Homework:

Complete the 100 quick division problems by Monday. Highlight or circle the equations you were able to solve mentally (in your head).

Read the article in Scholastic News about bullying. Write a piece at home where you explain the problem of bullying and a solution you have. Try to make the piece over one page long. Make sure you read over it to see if it makes sense to you and to make corrections in grammar. This is due Monday.

Student Led Conferences:

The sign-up sheets are in the lobby of the school. Please come by at your earliest convenience and choose a time slot to attend your child's student led conference. Thank you!

Brandon

P.S. Today we had enough money for another filter!

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Curriculum Night Sale Results

Faith and I just got the final count from our Curriculum Night sale and it was...


100.88!!!!!!!

Update


 Hi, so far  we have 4 filters and a graph to keep up where are money is. This graph tells us how much money we have. Today the graph was going down but the money from Dr. mills made  the graph up more than we had before early today. Today we made some posters with our tables and stories  to sell at  curriculum night.Please come to the Gathering Room before or after curriculum night we need all the money we can get. Mrs.Botle said she wanted 22 pictures for  22 dollars .She said that she  would hang our pictures in her classroom but we have a surprise in for her !!! Mrs. Botle is making a big  impact on us.PLEASE DONATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Michael and Zhanaya