Reading Through

We had a great day today in room 19. We started out in Tech Center. The students were quite jazzed because half of the iMacs in the Tech Center had been replaced with new computers thanks to Friends of Third. We were the first class to use them! The students worked a little more on their surveys using both Word and Excel. Back in the classroom, we went over Friday’s math homework. We talked about the reasons for the y to i spelling change - that’s this week’s spelling pattern. We went over this week’s vocabulary and read a short selection from Treasures.

After recess, Mr. Pratt stopped by to have the students do a first read-through of Annie. 

We worked on math after lunch and then had “play buddies” with a kindergarten friends to end the day.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 1-7 ten times each in cursive and do a sentence for each one. (2) Do pages 204-206 in the Practice book. (3) Do “Decimals to Fractions 1”. (4) Do pages 303-304 in the math book on adding and subtracting decimals. 

Leonis Adobe Field Trip

Our class and room 18, Mrs. Cha’s class, went on a field trip today to the Leonis Adobe in Calabasas. This is one of my favorite field trips of the year, and it fits in perfectly with our California history studies this year. The Leonis Adobe, built in 1844, was the first protected cultural landmark in Los Angeles. It was the home of one of our of most famous early settlers, Miguel Leonis, a Basque shepherd who grew so wealthy that he was known at one point as “The King of Calabasas.” Today the Leonis Adobe provides the students and other visitors with a sense of what it was like to live on a rancho at the beginning of the American period. 

The two classes were split into several groups and all went to the different parts of the ranch at different times. The house tour is one of the best parts. Here a docent plays the daughter of Miguel Leonis and his wife Espiritu Cahuilla, the daughter of a Chumash chieftain, and gives them background about the family. 

In the rustic dining room there is a wax statue of Leonis. He was six foot, four inches, an astounding height for the Victorian period. No wonder people called him “El Basque Grande”, the Big Basque.

For most of the students, getting to feed and touch the many farm animals is the absolute high point of the visit. There are several different types of sheep and goats here as well as Texas Longhorn cattle and draught horses.

The students were coached in the fine points of roping cattle. The fantastic docent always made sure they succeeded. 

Another docent explained the workings of a blacksmith’s forge and took them through the exhibits in the barn.

The students also learned about the domestic chores that were so important on a ranch. Here they learned to wash clothes on a washboard and to dry them in a wringer. So parents, if they can do this, of course they can do the washing at home, too!

 Cooking was important on a large ranch, and the students were taught how to grind corn into masa. They they took ball of masa and made them into tortillas with a press.

They learned about some less appealing parts of life on a ranch, too. Horrors! This was the bathroom!

As the tour came to an end, the students with given hot homemade tortillas with freshly churned butter. They were delicious!

On our way out, the two classes posed for a class picture.

We had lunch at the Woodland Hills Recreation Center nearby. 

There was even a little time to play before we got on the bus and came home. 

Homework:  (1) Do the spelling word search. (2) Do Fractions to Decimals 4. 

There will be spelling, reading, and math quizzes tomorrow. The students will also have the chapter 4 history test. They can use their notes for this and we went over everything on Wednesday. 

Bugs and Ads

Since we we have been reading part of A Cricket in Times Square as part of the Treasures program, I gave the students a writing prompt inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I left out the slightly gross detail that the hero of the story becomes a cockroach, and just told them that they had been changed into an insect. Some of the responses, like this one, were quite funny.

Today I was sitting on the couch writing in my diary. Now I love insects, even the poisonous one that was sitting next to me on the couch. The little red ant crawled on to me and then started crawling all over me. It tickled! And then, ouch! It bit me. 

Next thing I knew I was also a tiny, red ant. I was quite happy to be an ant. Everything was so big. I started to follow the ant that poisoned me. He went through an electrical outlet. I tried to warn him, but he went through it anyhow. Now there was a mini fire in my house! At that moment my mom came and started to scream. She tried to stomp on the electrical outlet. But her shoe caught fire. So she took it off and through it over the balcony. It handed on a pine tree. The tree caught and fire and it started to spread.  My mom walked over to the desk and picked up the phone. I couldn’t hear what she was saying because it was too much for my little ears.

I crawled out to the patio and looked out. There were five moving things that looked like yellow Darth Vaders. After a minute or so, the fire was out. I realized that my mother would be worried about me. I started drawing to her to tell her that I was an ant. I wondered if she would hear me in English. Just then the door feel down and the Darth Vader people They walked towards my mother and said ….

The Treasures series also introduces the idea of advertising techniques in this week. We discussed “loaded language,” “bandwagon,” “testimonials,” and “warnings” as ways that advertisers help convince us to buy things. The students were give the opportunity to create advertisements using some of these techniques. 

In the afternoon I previewed tomorrow’s field trip to the Leonis Adobe in Calabasas with both our class and room 18. Remember to have students pack a simple lunch tomorrow! There will be no place to buy food. 

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 11-15 ten times each in cursive. Write a sentence for each word. (2) Do the spelling crossword. (3) Do "Pronouns and Antecedents,” Pratice Book pages 201-202. (4) Do Fractions to Decimals 3. (5) Do “Estimating Decimals,“ pages 296-297 in the math book. 

Students who did not finish eh advertisement during class should be sure to finish at home tonight. 

NYC!

We started the morning in the Tech Center where the students started work on a survey and data reporting project. They wrote surveys yesterday, and they typed them up this morning. They will continue by surveying their fellow students - and any adults who want to participate, too - and then will be entering all this data in Excel in the new few weeks. 

We had a bit of a New York City theme today. We read and discussed a selection from the classic story A Cricket in Times Square  and we discussed both why it is a fantasy and what the theme of the selection is. 

We corrected a couple of tests from the day before winter break; the results are all on the grade book. We also went over and discussed all our homework. 

After lunch, we continued our NYC theme with Mr. Pratt who will be working with the students on this year’s production of Annie. 

 

And we finished the day with our reading buddies. 

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 6-10 ten times each and a sentence for each word. (2) Do Spelling Jumble. (3) Do “Advertisements” "Context Clues?” Practice Book 197 and 198. (4) Do the History Chapter Review. (5) Do Fractions to Decimals 2. 

There is no math book assignment today. The Chapter Four History test will be on Friday. Students will be able to use the review sheets and notes on the test but not the book. 

Welcome Back

Welcome back, one and all, and have a happy 2014. And let me thank all the families for your generosity to me at Christmas. Thanks to all of you, I have a fantastic new Chromebook. I have been really wanting a zippy little computer for home, just for personal stuff and not for making up homework! You can all breathe easier about that!

We started off today by having students first journal and then share about their vacations. Some people went to cool places, and others had a sort of “stay-cation.” We went on to talk about our newest theme in Treasures, “Working Together.” The students drew pictures of people who are working together in teams to accomplish something. 

I am not completely sure what they are doing, but it sure requires teamwork!

We wrote surveys after recess. Tomorrow in Tech Center they will be typing them up. This week they will be asking the questions to everybody they know. Next week in Tech Center they will be putting this data in Excel and making charts. 

We started a new literature book today, The Cay by Theodore Taylor. This is particularly appropriate for African-American history month. 

In math, we started work on rounding decimals and turning fractions into decimals.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 1-5 ten times each and a sentence for each word. (2) Do spelling sort. Words should be separated into “drop final e” and “double final consonant” patterns. (3) Do Inflectional endings, PB 192, Vocabulary, PB 193, and Theme, PB 194. (4) Do the history word puzzle and “Mexican California” review sheet. They will need the book for this. (5) Do Fractions to Decimals 1 practice sheet. (6) Do pages 293-294 in the math book. 

Thank You

The last day before Winter Break is hard for students, but we actually were productive today in room 19. We reviewed chapter 11 in the math book. We finished reading this week's Treasures selections. We went to the library. We took spelling, reading, and multiple math tests. And we watched the last installment of Ramona. I think many of the students were surprised by how deeply they were affected by the unjust death of Alessandro and how much they had come to care about Ramona.

We had a great party. I want to thank all the hardworking parents who contributed to the food. And I have to single our Mrs. Cha who is not only my colleague but has done so much room parent work. And she made this day a huge success.

Thank you for all the gifts. Those who sent something individually to me I will try to do what my mother always taught me and send a thank you note after the first of the year. But even more, thank all of you who contributed to the class gift, the fabulous HP Chromebook on which I'm writing this post today.

Homework:  For a change, absolutely none! Enjoy winter break.

Holiday Reading

I think even without rainy day schedule, this would have felt like a long day. The students are sooo excited about winter break. And so is the teacher!

Still, we were quite productive today in room 19. We wrote rough drafts of holiday stories about a week ago, and today the students not only created final drafts but published them in book form.

Some of the students will share their stories at the party tomorrow.

Homework:  (1) Do the usual spelling assignment with words 16-20. (2) Do the “Multiplying Fractions by a Whole Number 4” practice paper. (3) Do pages 284-287 in the math book. There is no special answer sheet today.

Have a Geometric Holiday!

Today we started the day with a mix of math and art. The students were given nets of hexagons of dodecahedrons and we asked to not only color or illustrate them with a seasonal theme, but to them put them together into the correct three dimensional shape. That last part proved to be somewhat tricky! But many of our students did an outstanding job with it.

The rest of the day was frankly kind of ho hum. We corrected homework. We finished reading “Uncle Romie.” We went to PE. We had a fire drill. Ah well. That’s what the days right before vacation are like! One and  half more to go!

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 11-15 as usual. (2) Do pages 185 and 186 in the Practice book. (3) Do the summary of the “Uncle Romie” story and answer the questions on page 391 of the Treasures book. (4) Do Multiplying Fractions and Whole Numbers 3. (5) Do pages 282 and 283 in the math book.

Ramona

This is one of the slowest weeks in the school year. The students are wild with the expectation of Winter Break, and the teachers are far more excited than the students. Sigh. We’ll get through.

It was a fairly productive day despite everything. We started work on another Treasures story and we corrected some work from last week. We learned about multiplying fractions by whole numbers and we also talked about placing fractions and decimals on a number line. For some strange reason that last skill, which never comes up in real life, is an obsession of the standards folks.

Our most interesting part of the day was starting to watch the classic movie version of Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel, Ramona. Starring Loretta Young and the almost-intolerable Don Ameche, it does give the students not only a potent dose of the “Mission Myth,” the idea that Mexican California was a kind of paradise, but it also provides a good sense of what life was like on a working rancho.

Homework:  (1) Do spelling words 1-5 as usual. (2) Do the spelling word search. (3) Do the chart on page 371 in the Treasures book. (4) Do pages 180, 181, and 182 of the Practice book. (5) Do the Rancho San Miguel map exercise. (6) Do Fractions and Whole Numbers 1. (7) Do pages 279-280 in the math book.

Brine Shrimp

In Science, we’re studying the Mono Lake ecosystem. So today we started by hatching brine shrimp, the main food source at Mono Lake. The students are trying to see what is the optimal saline concentration for the bring shrimp. So they added either 0, 1, 2, or 3 tablespoons of salt to treated water. And after that they added the tiny brine shrimp eggs.

In the afternoon, we finished the work on our monochromatic winter scenes. The students are naturals at impressionistic scenes.

Homework:  (1) Do the Mono Lake study questions. (2) Do “Fractions and Decimals” on pages 276-277 in the math book.

Back to Blogging

Since starting homework club, it’s been hard to get time in to blog. It’s also been a little crazy at home lately because our house was featured on the West Adams Heritage Association’s Christmas Tour. It’s a little strange having nearly 800 people walk through your house in a weekend and ask you all kinds of questions about everything in it! But, I will definitely try to be better about blogging, however since it’s such a great way to highlight the amazing things out students are doing here in room 19.

Today we did a writing assessment in the Treasures program to begin our day. We discussed the rancho period in California history. We started talking about the Mono Lake ecosystem and the students made mobiles to illustrate who eats what up there in the High Sierra.

We started on an art project on monochromatic colors. We’ll finish that tomorrow.

Homework: (1) Write spelling words 16-20 ten times each and do a sentence for each. (2) Do the spelling crossword. (3) Do the Life on the Ranchos study sheet. (4) Do the Multiplying Fractions 4 practice sheet.

Just the Homework for Now

We had a great day, but since I’m preoccupied with putting up student work on the walls and the bulletin boards right now, let me just note what the homework is….

Homework: (1) Write spelling words 1-5 ten times each and write a sentence for each word. (2) Do the spelling jumble. (3) Do “Phonics,” page 155 and “Vocabulary,” page 156 in the Practice book. (4) Do the “Mexico Gains Independence” study sheet. (5) Do “Solids,” pages 207-209 in the math book. (6) Do the Subtracting Mixed Numbers 1 practice sheet.

We are having our field trip to UCLA Stunt Ranch Nature Reserve in Calabasas Thursday. We need some parents to help out. You will need to drive there and meet us. Please let me know if you can do this.

A Tweet Life

Although by Seattle standards, I am sure this would count as a sunny day, we were on rainy day schedule here at Third Street. Not every teacher’s favorite, I’m sure you know…. But we made the best of it and tried to have some fun, anyhow.

We started by having the students list in their journals the things they were NOT thankful for. This proved to be a surprisingly hard thing for some of the nicer kids. For those with souls like their teacher’s, it was not only easy but fun to make such a list. And yes, homework appeared on every one!

Another way we made the best of our rainy schedule was to have the students write their summaries of Dear Mrs. LaRue as tweets. Here are some samples from Ike’s twitter feed.

@welikeIke

Did not listen to Mrs. LaRue. Ripped her ratty coat. Ate her chicken pie. #did_not_listen

@welikeIke

Mrs. LaRue sent me to obedience school. Not good, It’s like a prison. Writing to Mrs. L. #obedience_school_is_prison

@welikeIke

Trying to run away. Really worried about Mrs. LaRue. Miss her. #running_away

Very creative! Next they want to do Facebook pages for characters. Where will it all lead? O tempus, O mores! (and oh what smart kids!).

The students finished their food webs today. They are really quite good. Here’s a particularly nice one.

By noon, blue sky was showing through the clouds but we were still on rainy day schedule. Grrr! So I took the students out for a little “physical education” after lunch. They needed to burn off some energy!

Tomorrow, in addition to the usual Friday quizzes and activities, the students will have a history test. The social studies homework tonight is not only good preparation, but they can use these notes on the test. All the information and skills they need to get a perfect score on the test are on these sheets!

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 16-20 ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each word. (2) Do the spelling word search. (3) Do “Future Tense,” page 153 and “Punctuation,” page 154 in the Practice book. (4) Do Adding Mixed Numbers 4. (5) Do Portola’s Expedition/Tallow Candles. (5) Do the history review pages.

Mrs. LaRue

It was a dark and stormy day. OK, it wasn’t stormy, but it sure was gloomy, wasn’t it? Fortunately, things were pretty sunny inside room 19.

The students started the day with their journals, and then I gave them a lot of time to try to get finished with their mosaics. Most of them are done, and they sure are great!

We read one of my favorite stories today in the book, Mark Teague’s Dear Mrs. LaRue.

It’s a great story about a dog who is sent to obedience school. Is the Igor Brotweiler Canine Academy really the prison Ike describes … or is it more like a spa? The pictures are just a fabulous as the text.

We looked at the radius and diameter in math. In Science, we worked on creating food webs. We’ll finish these tomorrow.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 11-15 ten times each and write a sentence for each one. (2) Do the spelling crossword. (3) Do the Think and Compare questions on page 319 of the Treasures book. Copy the questions. The summary is NOT assigned today. (4) Do pages 149 and 152 in the Practice book. (5) Do the Adding Fractions 3 practice paper. (6) Do “Circles,” pages 204-205 in the math book.

Eaters and Eaten

We started the day in Tech Center. The Prezis are mostly finished, and I’ve never been prouder of anything the students have ever done in Tech Center. We spent a while going over and discussing the homework. We look at the various kinds of quadrilaterals in math. In Science, we explored food chains and food webs using some picture cards supplied with the Foss program. Students had to math the eater and the eaten to learn about the flow of energy through an ecosystem.

And we finished the day with our reading buddies.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 6-10 ten times plus a sentence for each word. (2) Do the spelling jumble. (3) Do pages 145 and 148 in the Practice book. (4) Do Adding Mixed Numbers 2. (5) Do Quadrilaterals pages 202-203 in the math book.

Back to Normal

Well, after a good week of conferences, the schedule at school gets back to normal – well, for a week. I think all of us are looking forward to that Thanksgiving Week break.

We started the day, as usual with journals. The students explored telling the last Treasures story from the point of view of the librarian. Point of view is an important part of this week’s story, Mark Teague’s “Dear Mrs. LaRue.”

We went to music as we usually do on Mondays. Today, in a kind of culmination, we met in the auditorium. The students had a chance to really polish a couple of the pieces they had been working on during the semester with Ms. Moran.

The students also had a culmination of sorts with Mr. Pratt. He stopped by and after some review, tested them on some of the concepts and vocabulary that have been so important during our theater class. The students generally did quite well. The results are posted on the grade book.

We read about the missions in social studies. In math we worked on classifying triangles.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 1-5 ten times each in cursive. Write an original sentence for each word. (2) Make a table or chart sorting the spelling words by the silent letter patterns. (3) Do “Silent Letters,” page 143, and “Vocabulary,” page 144, in the Practice book. (4) Do the Life at the Missions” study sheet. Be sure to answer in complete sentences! (5 ) Do Adding Mixed Numbers 1. Either show your work on the paper or attach scratch paper. (6) Do “Triangles,” pages 200-201 in the math textbook.

Washing Up

We started off the day with journal as usual. I was searching around for a topic when I remembered an incident from my undergraduate days when I had to explain to a clueless rich girl how to wash dishes. So I turned that into our topic for the day. The students not only gave the directions flawlessly, but are mastering the art of sarcasm as well.

A couple more students finished their turkeys. These are going to be excellent!

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We started work on the District math assessment, and we looked at lines, rays, and angles in math.

Homework:  (1) Do the final draft of the dog or cat opinion piece. This MUST be in cursive. (2) Do pages 196-197 in the math book. (3) Do Subtracting Fractions 3 practice sheet. (4) Do “Reading a Time Line.”

Spaniards, Turkeys, and Perpendicular Lines

We had a very productive day today. We started out with a simple story starter sentence. For some odd reason, many of the responses were about Santa and Christmas. You can tell what the students are already thinking about! When they finished, they worked a little more on their mosaic turkeys. One student is already done.


We then went on to correct last night’s math and to finish the final paragraph of the district language arts assessment. After that, I gave a short presentation to the students providing them with an overview of the Spanish settlement of California. Inspired by the great work the students had done in Tech Center, I also used Prezi.

We started our unit on geometry today. This is usually a pretty easy unit for the students.

Homework:   (1) Do the Settling Alta California questions. (2) Do the Subtracting Fractions 2 practice sheet. (3) Do pages 194-195 in the math book.

Curses, Foiled Again!

Four short days in one short week. Things are going to go by quickly! Today certainly did. We started out in Tech Center today. Most of the students are finished or almost finished with their Prezis. Mr. Riko will be posting some links soon so you can see how fantastic these all are.

After that, students worked on both their Thanksgiving mosaics and I worked with small groups during this time on their melodramas. I wanted them to be just about perfect for Mr. Pratt. And they were!

The stories were the classic melodrama about the wicked banker who is about to foreclose on the hapless old people – actually, a surprisingly modern tale, when you come to think about it. There is a young maiden, of course,

a handsome hero, and

a dastardly villain with a snickering sidekick,

And the hero saves the day, foils the villain’s evil plans, and marries the beautiful young heroine.

These kinds of plays not only illustrate the basic elements of story, but they were the kind of entertainment that nineteenth-century Californians loved to watch. So, it’s a little bit of history, too.

Homework:  Do the Subtracting Fractions 1 worksheet.

Another Quick Post

Just the homework for now….

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 16-20 ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each word. (2) Do the word search. (3) Write a half page summary of “When I Went to the Library” and answer the questions on page 285. Be sure to write at least two or three sentences for each question. (4) Do pages 140, 141, and 142 in the Practice book. (5) Do the Adding Fractions 4 practice sheet.

November Nostalgia

Fall brings just a touch of color to Third Street School, enough to give wisp of nostalgia to displaced easterners. The colorful trees are a beautiful sight, but a sad reminder in the East that the bitter winter is coming.

But we had no time for tristesse in room 19 today. We were quite busy and productive. We began with our journals. Our topic today was, “If you wanted to scare somebody – but not hurt them – who would it be? What would you do?” As you can imagine, we had some great stories. This was an example of what teachers call “frontloading” because it helped get them ready to read our main Treasures story of the week, “When I Went to the Library,” a humorous tale of a student who send an ophidiophobic librarian to the hospital. We started work on our district writing assessment. We completed our short unit on adding and subtracting fractions. We started work on a Thanksgiving themed art project. More on that later!

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 11-15 ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each word. (2) Do the spelling crossword. (3) Do pages 133, 136, and 137 in the Practice book. (4) Do the Adding Fractions 3 practice sheet. (5) Do “Problem Solving,” pages 261-262 and “Test Prep,” pages 264-265 in the math book.

Three Headed Monsters Here!

Our day began in the Tech Center. Most of the students are either finished or nearly finished with their Prezis about Native Californians. Ask them to show it off to you! Mr. Riko is quite impressed with what they have done and will be putting it on the Computerwise Kids website in the future.

Theater class was our other big event of the day. Mr. Pratt, as usual, helped the students to master the language of theater arts.

The students did a number of theater games and activities today including one of my favorites, the three-headed monster. In this game, the monster is asked questions and each head can only say one word at a time. It really makes the students listen to each other!

The students also rehearsed their melodramas.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 6-10 ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each one. (2) Do the spelling jumble. (3) Do the “Early Explorers” and “Routes” activity paper. (4) Do Adding Fractions 2 (even numbers only). (5) Do “Subtracting Fractions,” pages 258-259 in the math book (odd numbers only).