Rectangles

Rectangles

Stone Soup 2

This week we are reading the classic tale of Stone Soup, for our lesson and as a review we are going to view the following:

http://www.youtube.com/user/pecsea
I hope this is a good introduction to the holiday season, a time that we can all come together and make a difference.

For December 17 - 21, 2012 Week 17

Halloween Costumes

The Halloween Week

It seems that in the educational world, you never get a chance to recover from what happened yesterday, because all your energy is being spent on the next lesson, the next motivational technique, or on the next day, or even on helping each student succeed. The month of October has been filled with lots of learning, and lots of activities and this week feels like we have stuffed everything into a tiny pumpkin. My apologies, if there has been something that we have forgotten to finish or announce.

The students have been able to get out of homework on Monday, because the end of the day came too fast. I have forgotten to announce The Pumpkin Walk, even though it has been on my lesson plan in big bold letters, "Announce: Pumpkins Bring them on Friday!" The little activities that make it so important to a child, seem to have been pushed out of the way, that is one of the reasons I decided we needed a break, we are going on a mini-field trip tomorrow. We need to see real learning. We need to get out of the four walls that are filled with essential learning and a very dedicated curriculum, and place our focus on applying that learning to the real world.

Our walking FieldTrip will be about a mile long (approximately 1:40-2:20 p.m.), as we walk around Bear River City, checking on a couple of Geocaches.  So what is Geocaching, it is a sport that everyone and anyone can do. Geocaching is a real world outdoor treasure hunting game. Here is an explanation found on the www.geocaching.com website:



So is it the real world? Well it will be the start to a whirlwind of fun activities on Friday, which for your information looks like this:
8:10 - Morning work
8:30 - Assembly
P.E. will be canceled again (Soccer - with a real game)
Recess
10:00 - Spelling Test, and Reading Test
10:30 - Reading Buddies
11:00 - Finish Tests, and "Author's Chair"
Lunch
12:15 - Read Aloud (I have to finish the book I have been reading so we can start a new one on Monday).
12:30 - Costume Parade (with some twist to the traditional route) Best place to view the students will be outside along the sidewalks.
Break
1:40 - Halloween Party (If you would like to contribute send a treat), I plan on doing some games with them, taking their pictures with their wonderful costumes and in general having fun with the students. There will also be some time to take their pumpkins out for the Pumpkin Walk.

“It’s the way you ride the trail that counts.” - Roy Rogers

Week 7

Everything is happening this week. Parent Teacher Conferences, Reading Groups start Monday, our centers will have to be ready by tomorrow morning, new spelling list, more vocabulary, new writing assignment and lessons, plus at some point in the next three weeks we will be working with GPS units (more about that later).

Daily Grams: Why do I place such an emphasis on learning the language?

I thought it might be helpful for you as parents to know what we do everyday. I will start with an example of our Daily Grams. We do this every morning first thing when we sit down as the students wait for the school announcements, and I take attendance. I feel that the English language needs to be practiced and used so we can understand it better and utilize its tools in our reading and writing. This week I have outlined basically what the students will see on their Daily Grams. For example, a recent assignment had the following:

1. A part of a friendly letter, (Dear John,)
2. exclamation marks in sentences, (Wow! We did it!)
3. Sentence Types (Give your sister a pencil. - is an example of a command).
4. the use of pronouns (Me and Garret or Garret and I went home.) , and
5. Combining two subjects into a compound subject. (Kiora ran in a race. Kauri also ran in a race. = Kiora and Kauri ran in a race).

Daily Grams and the parts of the grammar that are emphasized each day also correlate with the new common core http://www.corestandards.org/ The Language Standards - Grade-3: L.3.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

1. Capitalization (part of a friendly note, proper nouns, do not capitalize plants or animals, Titles).
2. Punctuation (Exclamations, Initials, Comma after town, Possessive nouns, Abbreviations).
3. Parts of Speech and Sentence Structure
   
   • A. Sentence Types (statement, question, command).
   • B. Adjectives describe, and they often tell what kind
   • C. Prefixes / Roots / Suffixes - Some words are made by adding a prefix before the main word (root). Example: bicycle
   • D. Subject of a sentence tells who or what the sentence is about. The verb often shows action.
4. More Parts of Speech and Sentence Structure
   • A. Pronouns take the place of nouns (Use I as the subject of a sentence).
   • B. Nouns (plural nouns, most words add s, however add es to words ending in sh and ch).
   • C. Verb has to agree with the subject. A boy rides / ride his bicycle.
   • D. Prepositions and how they work in a sentence.
5. Sentence Combining (Combining the subject, combine a list, use adjectives to combine).

Thanks, I hope you can see why I practice the language a lot. The students need that practice so they can feel comfortable reading and writing the English language. 

Mr. Fisher


Next post tomorrow night: Guidelines for Parent Teacher Conference. (In other words I will give an outline of what I plan to share with parents, that way you will know what to expect when you visit on Wednesday or Thursday night). Conferences are 3:00 - 6:30 p.m. each night.

Weekly Assessment

I am just finishing grading the students' Weekly Reading Test, and I have to say they have all worked hard this week and it shows in the scores. Way to Go! I have found that the students have drastically improved their writing this week, especially in responding to the question concerning the story. I will be happy to report that they are remembering to use a capital letter to start their sentences, and using the proper punctuation at the end of their sentences. We are getting better and soon we can say we have mastered it.

Thanks, my class is great!  Hope everyone has a great weekend see you Monday.

Classroom Survey

Please take this survey (My students are learning how to type some basic things in a form). Feedback (Mr. Fisher way too long - but the kids liked it just make it shorter). Now I know my students a little better. Thanks, students for trying this out. You're Great!

Mathematics

Mathematics so far has been working with practical math that we can use in our classroom. For example, "Teacher, when is Lunch?" or "Teacher, what is today?" So how successful was the class at mastering these concepts (We took the first test on Tuesday). I would like to say that I have successfully taught them these concepts, to the point of mastery. As a teacher, I can see I need to be more specific in teaching these concepts, but that said, I also need to keep moving forward with the rest of math or we won't learn every concept that should be taught in third grade. Parents, please help me fill in some of the gaps.


Here are the concepts from the past two-and-a-half weeks:

1. Month and Years
2. Counting Patterns,
3. Reading a clock to nearest 5 min.
4. Number Line, 
5. Fractions of an hour,
6. Addition, 
7. Subtraction,
8. Addition and Subtraction Fact Families,
9. Unknown Addends, 
10. Adding 3 Numbers,

To fill in some of the gaps. Yes, you as the parent are the mortar in the freshly laid row of bricks, now if you could fill it in with some love and motivation I think we might be able to help the students finish learning these concepts. Don't worry there are a few concepts we will be reviewing in class, until we get it right. The students will be bringing home the chapter test, and a worksheet to practice what they missed. Please take the time to work with them on these, as it re-explains the concept, and then they practice it one more time.

Keep in TOUCH

Keep in TOUCH

Arcademic Skill Builders

This website is all about increasing the student's skill levels in using and applying their math facts.

http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/

The two basic skills we learned today (Thursday)

1. How to use mouse (hand-eye coordination - Small Motor Skills) to paint and draw using MS Paint.
2. How to use the internet (how to find the URL Address and change it).

Of course we went over some basic rules, and emphasized internet safety and protocols within the computer lab. I did mention that the students would be doing a project using one of the myriad of programs. Next week we will see if our files that we saved are still there, and take a small survey.

First Day of School

HOT, HOT, HOT

It was officially HOT, in our classroom today. I got home and found out I have a heat rash across my chest from today's heat. I believe, even with three fans blowing constantly we have the hottest room in the building.

I have one solution, but I would like to hear from others some viable solutions. My solution is to get some window tinting for my southern exposed windows. We did it at the charter school and it did reduce the temperature by a few degrees. Unfortunately the district did not approve of such measures, but if you look at it from the students perspective anything is better than roasting instead of learning.

I couldn't find an appropriate school link, but for those that were from the late 80's early 90's Buster Poindexter's "Hot, Hot, Hot" certainly crossed my mind several times, it was a "hot" topic today, (Pun intended). Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Box Elder County Fair

Every year, I wish that school would start before the fair, so we can have more Christmas Vacation. . .

That is until I visit the fair, and I wish it would never end, because then summer is over. Here's to another great Box Elder County Fair (The BEST Fair in the entire state, no the entire Intermountain West, no The Best Fair in the whole country).  I saw many former and soon-to-be students. I saw their projects, and made sure to visit their animals. I think my family was out there all five days, we participated in 4H, we entered creative projects, we had a "Fair Burger" (with the best tomatoes), walked the booths, ran the "Fair-Fun-Run" (14th year in a row), and wished we could have had a ticket to the rodeo. Now it is off to the State Fair, the second best fair in the state.

And School starts ;)

Mr. Fisher's Schedule

Here is Mr. Fisher's schedule for the coming year. Just a warning though, it will be subject to changes, especially this first week of school when we settle down and sometimes have to re-arrange our schedules.

In Basic (Third Grade Logic) Format:
Monday: Physical Education and Computers
Tuesday: Music
Wednesday: Art, and Early Out!
Thursday: Library and Computer Lab
Friday: Physical Education.

Welcome Back to School

Tonight is Back to School for Century Elementary, that means I get to see all of my students. Time to press my shirts, straighten my ties, and shine my shoes.

Sorry two videos, one that is posted on YouTube, and one that is seen universally

SMART Response Presentation

BESC-Ronald Fisher

View more documents from Ron Fisher.

Box Video Project

Phantom Tollbooth Wordle

Phantom Tollbooth

Phantom Tollbooth, The best book ever.

2nd Grade Program

Click to Play

Mrs. Stewart and the 2nd Graders put on a fine show.

SMART SEE Application

Click to Play

SMART Exemplary Educator Program - This video demonstrates how Mr. Fisher uses SMART technologies within his classroom.

Last Friday's Mystery Motivator

Hope you enjoyed it! Our Mystery Motivator was a blast!


Mr. Fisher