2012 State Fair

The 2012 State Fair was a success! The students proudly showed of their presentation boards and their knowledge of their state! Thanks for all those who were able to come!

State Fair Exhibition This WEDNESDAY!

As you know, during Social Studies class students have been working on their State Fair Project. We would like to welcome families to school on Wednesday, November 28th from 3:15-3:45 to attend our State Fair Exhibition in the Achieve Language Academy gym. Students have been working very hard on gathering information on their state and would love to share what they have learned! Hope to see everyone Wednesday!

Today the students were busy working on their presentation boards...

Conferences This Week!

Fall conferences started last night. Each student has a scheduled time that was sent home last week. If you miss your scheduled time please come anyways!

Conferences are:

Monday, November 19, 5-8 pm
Tuesday, November 20, 5-9 pm
Wednesday, November 21, 9-3 pm

Hope to see you at conferences and have a great 5 day break!

Reading Hall of Fame

The past month the students have been working on the Reading Hall of Fame. After a student reads a book on their level and fills out a book report for the book the student earns a sticker for the Reading Hall of Fame. After the student earns twenty stickers or reads twenty books on their level and completes a book report the student will be invited to our reading celebration at the end of the school year. The students are very motivated by the Reading Hall of Fame and many students have stickers already! The students can find books on their level in the classroom library (below) and once a week the students visit the school's library and can check out two books.

Mid November Check-In: Social Studies

The students have been very busy in social studies the past two weeks preparing for the State Fair coming up. For the project each partnership/group will need to have a large three-sided poster board. We are asking for each student to bring in $2.00 to fund the poster boards.

The students have completed a general information packet about their state, including but not limited to: geography, major cities and capital, symbols, map, people, natural resources and industries, attractions, and interesting facts.

The students are now learning about their state's history by completing a time capsule and a newspaper article about a significant event in their state’s history. Below are students working on their state history time capsules.

Many of the groups had very impressive news articles:

The State Fair will be: Wednesday, November 28^th at 3:15pm in the gym at Achieve Language Academy. We hope to see everyone there!

Mid November Check-In: Language Arts

The last two weeks we have been learning about voice and fluency in language arts. The students have been writing descriptive essays to demonstrate their voice about a memorable moment in their lives. Below is an example of a student's writing process.

To aid in the writing process along the way the students have had mini lessons on: adjectives, punctuation, and the elements of fluency (rate, phrasing, intonation, pausing, stress, and integration). Below is a poster we made during a fluency lesson.

Additionally, we have begun new guided literature circle books: Cat and Rat, Lon Po Po, and Dragonwings. Our book selections tie in perfectly to the Culture Festival coming up; the fifth and sixth graders will be representing the continent Asia at the Culture Festival. My homeroom will be specially learning and presenting the Chinese lunar and zodiac calendar.

The past few weeks the students have been practicing their word work with many different strategies in class and at home. It has been very evident the more they practice and the more they engage in the different guided strategies the better they do on their Friday assessments. Some of the fun strategies the students have been using these past two weeks include: sort, rewrite, rainbow write, sentence please, comic strip, and quiz neighbor. Below is a student's rainbow words and comic strip.

Voting at ALA

Today every student at ALA had the opportunity to vote for the mock election hosted by the 7/8th graders.

The process of the students voting at ALA was very similar to the real election.

The 2012 United States Presidential Election is Tomorrow!

Today in Social Studies the students learned about the two presidential candidates. The students compared and contrasted the two candidates with a venn diagram. The students also looked at the important issues surrounding the election. Tomorrow the students will get to vote for their choice through a mock election at Achieve Language Academy hosted by the 7/8th graders.

The students can seek out further information about their choice at: http://www.timeforkids.com/minisite/election-2012.