I just left our monthly faculty meeting.  There we learned that Benchmarks would start THIS WEEK, not next.  Thursday we will be taking the reading benchmark.  That means Wednesday we will spend pretty much the entire day reviewing for reading.  WhooHooo!

Hello everyone!  Edmodo is up and running.  It’s an awesome and amazing site that will really allow you to connect with your child throughout the school year and with me.  It’s like Facebook, but totally secure.  Students have already set up their accounts.  For parents, you’ll need the parent code on their account homepage so that you can set up an account that will connect you to your child, my classroom account and all the information connected to both.  There are apps you can download so that classroom updates and message can be texted to your phone.  You can also check your students’ progress on assigned classroom tasks.  It’s a pretty amazing site!  Why didn’t we have it when we were in school?  Go to the Edmodo page to check it out.  I’m working on getting all the links in order, so check back often!

Parents, Sadly I won’t be in tomorrow. My little girl is doing better, but still not able to go to “school” tomorrow. Students will be testing tomorrow. I hope that the results are good, but if Math and Science don’t look good, we’ll be revisiting content since I will have been out two days. I’ve also found that students don’t perform as well when their teacher isn’t present. Let’s hope all goes well, despite. I trust you will all have a wonderful and restful weekend. See you Monday!

Parents, I spoke with students today about the possibility of me being absent from school tomorrow.  My daughter was running a fever today.  All is well as I type, but if it spikes, I’ll be home with her tomorrow.  Students did write down homework for today and tomorrow in case I am not here.  I also spoke them about being responsible and well-behaved.

Speaking of behavior, I want to know that I’m so happy that the class has adjusted to the new school year and our classroom protocol.  It’s so nice to have a class that is focused and driven to well.  Grades will be soaring soon!

If you have not done so, please check the FALCON BAG for the conference request form.  I’d like to set everything in place before we leave for the weekend.  I do look forward to meeting with each of you.  If we can’t fit you in during the conference day because of scheduling, we’ll set another day.

Hope all is well.

Reading:

Students brought a new workbook to keep at Home, Measuring Up. Tonight, read pp.99-100.  Answer the question on p.100

Math:

What is the place value of each number?

578,432,157

431,283,910

541,683,210

Round each number to the nearest thousands place.

Social Studies

Think about the 3 branches of government.  Which is more important?  Why?

If you’re visiting today because you followed the Agenda, good job!  Have a look around the website.  As you can see, it’s a work in progress.  There is a lot of things I want to do here.  Take a moment and write a comment at the bottom.  Tell me what you think should be on our site.  Give me some ideas!  If your respond by tomorrow morning, you get 5 tickets!  Good Luck!  –Mr. T

• Sequencing Activity: http://www.quia.com/pages/sequencingfun.html
• Boom Town PowerPoint: http://northern.in.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/sectionlist/default.php?sectiondetailid=9926
• Sequence Video: http://www.brainpopjr.com/readingandwriting/comprehension/sequence/preview.weml

Homework was assigned today!  Students will be writing down their nightly assignments in the agenda books.  Typically students will have THUNKS (more on THUNKS next week), Spelling, Math and Science or Social Studies.  We have adopted new curriculum books for Math and Social Studies this year so the old books are being discarded.  Rather than throwing them away, or giving them to the students to sit on their book shelfs at home, I’m giving them to students for homework.  Our daily homework assignments will be coming from the books.  So far, I have sent home a Green Math Book, a Social Studies, “Out World” book and a Vocabulary workbook.  It came to my attention after the students left today, that many had taken the old-old-old Social Studies books, when we will really be using a more recent version of that book for our assignments.  They will be newer version home tomorrow.  I’ll probably write on them “For Homework” so that you know.

Today was our first night of homework.  I typically don’t assign homework on Friday.  I just wanted to work out some of the homework “bugs” before we enter week 2.  We’re getting there!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

-Mr. T

Wow.  The first day has come and gone.  It’s hard to believe the summer break is over and we’ve kick-started our 2012-2013 school year.  Today was an amazing day!  We didn’t get nearly done as I had planned, but that is typically the case with all new procedures and expectations to review before the real learning can start.

Parents, if children came home today and said they didn’t really learn much, please do not be discouraged.  Today was about setting the foundation to establishing a classroom that run smoothly.  We’ll be blasting off soon enough with sa

During one of our first meetings of Search each year, students work on products to illustrate how they define Search.  Students wrote songs, performed sketches, created sculptures and even made cheers.  One third-grade group wrote a poem that I thought I’d share:

Search Is
Search is like finding treasures buried deep.
Search is discovering questions you want to keep.
Search is not always about the answer to the unknown.
Search is looking back at where you’ve flown.
Search is being successful with your friends.
Search can be conflict, but mostly amends.