The Mind Is Like A Parachute, It Works Best When Open

The first quarter is rapidly coming to a close. Report cards will go home on Wednesday, October 12th. We are having conferences for every student the week of October 17th through the 21st. I will send home a sign up sheet on Monday in everyone's Homework Folder. Please sign up for three times, so that I can try and give you one that fits your schedule. Conferences will be for 15 minutes, and will focus on grades and behavior.

Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly!

The papers on "What I Would Do If I Was Invisible!" that I've been color editing with students have been very creative so far! A great imaginaion is a wonderful thing for all young writers to have. We did not get around to picking out "Critters" this week, so no need to worry about doing any research at home just yet.
You will find in Monday's homework packet the glossary of words from our Buckle Down Science books.
These are terms that they must all be familiar with in order to be successful on the Science portion of the AIMS test. They have plenty of time between now and then to work on just one column at a time to be able to recognize the word and remember it's definition.

A Wise Man Reads Both Books And Life Itself!

I spent the weekend in Phoenix watching our son play in a baseball tourney. In between pitches I managed to grade seven different assignments for 26 students, which comes out to 182 papers. Everyone kept asking me the score because they thought I was keeping the book.
Please look for your child's graded papers in their Homework Folder on Monday. There is some important information going home tomorrow regarding the Scholastic Book Club. Everyone should  receive at least two different papers on available books to order. All orders must be returned by Tuesday, September 27th.
It doesn't matter if the order form is from Arrow, Lucky or Scholastic, as you can just send in one check with the total amount. Please make checks payable to SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB.
Please do not send cash, or checks made out to me.
This is a wonderful opportunity for students to pick out books they find interesting and earn free pizza from our "Book It" program that was discussed in last week's blog.

A Book Shut Tight Is Just A Block Of Paper!

I hope you were able to visit the Book Fair last week. Our Big Dog Reading Logs will soon become even more important as we start the "Book It" program! For each four completed reading logs that are turned in with a parent's signature, students earn a coupon for a free pizza from Pizza Hut! Students who fill in the entire "Book It" chart, which will be on display in our room, will receive an additonal prize from me for reaching Super Reader status!
I will soon be sending home Scholastic Book club forms so students can order books on any topic that interests them. Every child should be reading for at least twenty minutes each night, as practice is the best way to improve this important skill.

Hard Work and Perseverance Bring Reward

We had a great turn out for Open House! Thanks for stopping by to see what we're learning in The Big Dog Room. I would also like to thank everyone for the birthday cards and thousands of cookies the class brought me. I knew it was a good idea to name the room's mascot, "Cookie".
This week we worked on making a Multiplication Table up to 12. I have been stressing the idea that multiplication is a much faster way to do addition, and the sooner they memorize the table, the better off they will be. Not easy, but like the title says, hard work does bring rewards.
I tied this weeks Science lesson into our Writing, with an assignment on being an inventor, and describing what their latest invention would be.We will be working on this for another week, so they get used to the format I want them to follow, and instructions on how to color edit their work. I am hoping they will put all our Super Sentence lessons to good use.
We continued researching members of the animal kingdom this week. Our focus here was on Mammals, Spiders, and Insects. The class will be doing a lot of Science during our short week.