Our first week has been GREAT! The kids are working on tessellations to correlate to our geometry unit and Magic Circles to review different base number systems. The 6th graders have Mrs. Beatty or Mrs. Reitz for Social Studies, which give me more time to focus on the 5th grade Social Studies. Students in both grades are reading novels required by the district. We are reviewing expectations in reading groups and how to correctly write their assignments, head papers, etc. We will begin science after Labor Day. I hope you all enjoy the 3 days off. I'm heading back up to the mountains!
We will have spelling next week!! I cancel spelling on weeks shorter than 4 days.
OPEN HOUSE, ICE CREAM SOCIAL, & BOOK FAIR
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH FROM 5:30-7:00
As per Mrs. Meier’s direction, our open house will include a “teacher talk” rather than just your child showing you around the room. I will start @ 5:30. Probably around 5:50, I will let parents of 5th graders leave and will want to talk specifically to parents of 6th graders about special events that 6th graders here at Poly participate in. 5th grade parents are welcome to stay, but these things will not pertain to your children this year.
Wednesday Watch Folders & Homework Folders
The Homework folder should be coming home nightly with daily work that has been corrected & handed back. It might also have work that is homework in it. The Wednesday Watch envelopes will have mostly items from the office, PTA, and other organizations.
EXCEPT THIS WEEK! J
Please ask your child for the set of stapled papers that Mrs. Porisch forgot to have included in the Wednesday Watch envelopes!
LATE WORK & ASSIGNMENT NOTEBOOKS
I cannot stress enough the importance of asking for the assignment notebook every night. I already have 20 late assignments this week. These 20 assignments represent exactly half of the students in class. Those who have been absent are not included in that number. As always, if a child has a note from a parent, they are given extra time to complete the assignment.
PINK SLIPS
To try and improve communication and responsibility regarding late work, I am asking that students who do not have work done fill out a pink slip, give it to you, have a conversation with you about why the assignment is late, and return it to school the next day. If it is not returned, the student is asked to call and leave a message for you. This is not meant to be humiliating; it is meant to improve communication and make them more aware of late work. Last year, one whole white board listed names of students with late work. I am trying to have them be more actively involved, rather than passively look at what I have written. If you have a concern about this method, please call me.
SATURDAY LIVE
Saturday, September 24
Registration for the FunWalk/Run and the 100 yd dash is in the stapled packet.
RUBBER DUCK REGATTA
Sunday, September 11 from noon to 4 PM @ Riverfront Park
Information is in the stapled packet.
Rainbow Words (Spelling)--explanation
Students write the words they missed on the Spelling Pretest 3 times using a different color each time.
5th grade
Unit 2 Long a and e
BASIC:
awake, stray, praise, display, scale, ashamed, waist, remain, sway, brain, feast, greet, disease, repeat, thief, sleeve, beneath, sheepish, release, niece
CHALLENGE
terrain, succeed, betray, motivate, upheaval
REAL WORD VOCABULARY
Social Studies: Maps and Globes
cartographer, meridians, longitude, equator, hemispheres, parallels, latitude, compass rose
6th grade
Unit 1 Long Vowels
BASIC: supreme, bracelet, mute, strive, faithful, devote, rhyme, succeed, coax, rely, conceal, forgave, lonesome, delete, confine, exceed, terrain, reproach, abuse, defeat
CHALLENGE: ratify, serene, refute, appraise, humane
REAL WORD VOCABULARY
Language Arts: Poetry
imagery, couplet, sensory, haiku, limerick, meter, free verse, stanza
Parent Volunteers
I did a lousy job of utilizing those of you who indicated you would be willing to volunteer in the classroom last year. But I have a better grip on what I would like help with.
Basically, I am thinking that there would be 3 ways you could volunteer.
1. If you would like to create Word documents AT HOME and send them to me as attachments, I have a need for that type of help.
2. If you would like to work with individual students or small groups, I would have a need for help like that.
3. If you would like to assist with preparation of materials or correcting, I would appreciate help.
If you do either 2 or 3 above, you may have to fill out some confidentiality paperwork and/or have a background check done. I think that is just SOP.
School email address accounts
Students will be getting an email account the first few weeks of school. The main use of this account will be to access Word documents for assignments. Instead of printing off 25+ documents OR dragging and dropping documents into 25+ individual folders, this will allow me to put the document up in the Google docs cloud and allow the students to access it and work on it. Of course, they can print it off as well. As always, if you do not want your child to have this access, you will be able to decline, and I will print off a copy for them to use.
I will also be using the addresses to set up user accounts for some academic games.
ALEKS.com
I have had parents ask what they can do at home to provide challenge in math or to enhance their child’s performance in math.
A web site that you might want to check out is http://www.aleks.com. This web site has tutorials for students in math content areas. If you like what you see, you have to pay to continue using it. I cannot recommend that you do this, but I know that it greatly enhances student understandings as well as test scores. Update: A parent let me know that the cost of this program is around $180/year. That is quite an increase from what is used to be. She did mention that there is an option for a 6 month subscription for around $80.
You can "take a tour" and "begin for free--trial". I would suggest this to familiarize yourself with the site and see if you think it might be something you'd be interested in.
When I go in for the free trial, I say I'm a student, take the 30 question quiz, and make some mistakes. That way when you are done, it will recommend the topics and lessons and it will let you try some of them. I would suggest the 6th/Middle School quiz.
There are protractors, compasses, etc that you can use right on line within the program. If you (the student) are not familiar with how to use them, there is a tutorial. Also, if the student has not learned "opposite interior angles", for example, there is a lesson with 2-3 practice problems after they learned the lesson.
The student is free to choose any math area (algebra, geometry, probability, etc) and work at their own pace. There is a "pie" that shows their knowledge and changes as they complete successfully the practice problems. There is also an area where they can go in and see their "report". However, I cannot see their progress. Only the person signed in can see it.
Keyboarding
When our internet connection is up and working we will start keyboarding.
iKeepBookmarks.com
I will be putting frequently used bookmarks on this web site so you or your children can access them from home. Right now I have one called Calculation Nation there. It is a FANTASTIC site for math practice (at their level) and logical thinking. [My current favorite is neXtu. J] I will be introducing the games in class. However, students may access them at any time and read the directions for playing them.
Students need a login name and password. I have created 4 currently. They all center around the name of Zeb and a #, and the password is my last name with a #. You will need the underscore in the user name.
Accounts:
User name: Zeb_1 Password: porisch1
User name: Zeb_2 Password: porisch2
User name: Zeb_3 Password: porisch3
User name: Zeb_4 Password: porisch4
I have made these accounts for Calculation Nation so that the students can challenge each other. They will know that if a “Zeb” is online, that it is someone from the class. Each account has to have a separate email address associated with it, so at the current time, I only have 4 set up.
I will be updating this page as we get nearer to the first day of school so check back before then.
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