Marvelous Mathematicians!

WOW! Thank you so much to the 14 donors who donated to our DonorsChoose project and helped get it funded this weekend! I appreciate all of your support (both emotionally and financially) and your help to make our classroom the best it can be!

Cultural Heritage Project Questions Answered!

Woweee! What a fast month it has been.... I guess the holiday season always gets that way, doesn't it!

Well lots of exciting things have been happening in Room 15, namely our good friend, the cultural heritage project. First of all, I just want to say that this was a big project... and I mean a BIG, GIANT project! It was research, and writing, and reading, and more writing, and editing, and MORE! But you know what, we did it... dare I say we made it out alive and better students in the end!

I know that there are some project that come along that are very involved and challenge every ounce of ourselves as students (and teachers too!). The beauty of those projects, however, is that we learn a LOT, not only about the subject but about ourselves! I can't describe the groans I heard when I introduced the project to the students a mere three weeks ago. Nor can I describe to you the looks of terror on the faces of the students when I told them the due dates and what all would be involved in this project! But I have to say that after spending a week doing hours of research, both on computers and in books, writing a first draft, editing our first draft, writing our second draft, typing our final draft and finally printing off our final draft, I have never been prouder of the work I'm seeing from the students. For the first time this year I feel like I've found a project that students are not only engaged in, but are doing their BEST work that they're able. So as far as I'm concerned, mission accomplish. I'm not doing my job as a teacher if I'm not challenging your students to do their best every day and even stretch their understandings and abilities to the maximum limits. That's why we come to school after all is to learn and become better students, right? So before I answer the questions, I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of the students who have been at school every day, ready to learn, ready to add onto this monstrous project, and have given it EVERYTHING they have to give. You know who you are and I applaud your effort and determination. The result speaks for itself!

But enough of what I want to say! :) Now onto the questions that I've been receiving in this last minute crunch of the project and last minute reminders about deadlines!

1. When is the final draft of the written project due? The final written draft of the project (TYPED) is due Wednesday December 14th (tomorrow!).
2. What format do you want the typed final draft in? Each paragraph should be on its own page with the title of the paragraph's topic as a title of the page. For example, on the page with the paragraph with my country's culture at the top, I would write the title "Culture" at the top! :)
3. What size is the poster? What is on the poster? Do we provide our own materials for the poster? The poster will be a standard sized poster board paper, approximately 24"x18". The poster will have pictures (each student is allowed to have two pictures printed off of the computer at school, but more can be printed off at home and brought in) and favorite pieces of information about their country. I expect each poster to have 5-7 interesting "facts" or pieces of information about the country in addition to the poster pictures. Make sure your country's name is big and bold! The materials will be provided for the students at school on December 14th to work on in class. Whatever isn't finished will be done at home.
4. Tell me more about the International Celebration! The International Celebration will be in Room 15 on December 15th starting at 2 o'clock. Family and friends are welcome and encouraged to come and see a little taste from the cultures around the world in our classroom! "Official" invitations will be coming home tomorrow with the students. Students are expected to wear costumes which represent traditional clothing from their country's heritage. The costumes don't have to be elaborate, though! It can definitely be our "best approximation" of what they would be wearing! :) Students are also expected to bring food from their country for students to "taste test". This means a bite-sized sample for each student, not a full meal! Please make enough for about 40 people to taste.

Last but not least, thank you SO much for those people who have helped make this project successful! I know at times, it seemed like we'd never make it but here we are! We've learned a lot and had a ton of fun in the process! I can't wait to see you all on Thursday for this GREAT celebration!

Double Your Donation!

We have a Donors Choose project open right now that would love some holiday gifts this season! Some families have asked what I would like for Christmas (or winter holiday) gifts and honestly I have pretty much everything I need in the classroom. However, we have a math project open right now on a great website called www.donorschoose.org where people can donate directly toward projects we have needs for in the classroom! I was SO excited to hear that from now through December 12th, DonorsChoose is matching your donations dollar for dollar!

You can go to the website above and look up Marvelous Mathematicians in the search bar to find us or click here! When you check out add the matching code SPARK and DonorsChoose will match your donation toward our class project! How cool is that?!

We are so thankful for all that you do for us throughout the year and hope that everyone is having a great winter so far! Stay warm out there!

Book Orders Make Great Gifts!

Well the last book orders before winter break came out yesterday (seems so weird to talk about winter break already!!) and I forgot to write on them that they are due November 29th. There are a TON of great products this month and a lot of great ideas for Christmas gifts in there! If you go to www.scholastic.com and sign into book clubs as a parent using our classroom activation code (J2J6H) you can order online even which gives us free books each time! On the classroom page you will see recommended titles as well as a classroom wish list in case you're interested in supporting our classroom library this holiday season! Thank you so much for your orders!

Note: If you're interested in having a book ordered as a gift, I recommend ordering online and sending me a quick email that it's a gift. That way I know to hold the book and set up a secret meeting time when the books come in! :)

A Break from Posting

Not that I've been super regular lately with posting but there will be a slight interruption in posting on my behalf. I just moved this weekend and amidst everything I'm in the chaos of unpacking AND I don't have internet hooked up just yet. Thanks for hanging in there with my during the interruption! :)

Sand Art and Verbs

Well today was a SUPER fast day!

Today was one of the first days where I feel like the lightbulb went off with most of the students. They are finally getting into the routine we've been working on all year and are getting into such a great rhythm that they can come in from recess, look at the schedule and get straight to work! It's so exciting to finally see we are at that place! I was so proud today!

In art today, we did some sand painting to go with our Rocks and Minerals science finale. We used the Grand Canyon as our inspiration and really got some great results!

Since this week is a shortened week (no school Friday for Veteran's Day) there is NO SPELLING. Instead we are focusing on action verbs which are always lots of fun! We did our introduction today about what action verbs are and starting tomorrow we will learn the three tenses that our verbs can take - past, future, and present. It's always exciting to see what everyone comes up with as their sentences. :)

Today we also started our author study on Kevin Henkes. We are going to be focusing on one author for a couple of weeks to find more books that we are interested in and learn to improve our writing through reading other author's work. Kevin Henkes is one of my favorites and has such great stories that have really positive messages. We read Chrysanthemum today - ask your student what it was about!

To start off the spirit of Thanksgiving we also started our expository writing about why we are thankful. It was really interesting to hear what the students were thankful for! Some started off with the "essentials" in life like food, clothing, housing, etc. while others took a totally opposite approach and were thankful for video games and Blu-ray DVDs! What a difference!

Behind Schedule... Once Again!

Goodness, Gracious, Oh MY!

I am behind schedule on posting AGAIN...

I dare say that you're all used to it by this point and are hoping I get my act together pretty soon. Let me tell you, that makes two of us! :) I am definitely ready to get back into my blogging routine and keep in touch more often! With the party this week and conferences coming up soon I have been on overload but the excuses stop here!

This week we have a LOT of great things coming up in our shortened week (reminder that Friday there is no school for Veteran's Day).

This week we will talk about VERBS! I love the actions words because we get to ACT it out! How fun is that?!

Junior Achievement is finishing their last two lessons with us for social studies which is bittersweet. We have LOVED having Devin and Cole in our room teaching us so much about social studies but it's a great launching point for our social studies unit starting next week!

This week we are also starting a new kind of writing - expository writing! Expository writing is non-fiction writing meant to inform or explain. We are going to be writing about why we are thankful since Thanksgiving is right around the corner (can anyone else not believe how fast this year is flying by??).

With so much going on this week I hope we all get plenty of sleep and are ready for a great week ahead! See you all tomorrow morning!