Professional+Reflective+Journal

Wax Muesum Parent Letter updated and student outline modified. Science Biome Project updated. [|Biomes project, Travel the World.docx] Created detail Unit A Math Expressions Lesson's Plans [|Math Expresssions, Lesson Plans Unit A.docx] Pioneer Life--we had an interesting discussion about what they would bring along. Debates about what was important for the 2,000 pound wagon weight limit was very interesting. As a whole class we are reading "Across the Lonesome Praire." A great class book. Students are really into it! Persuasive Writing on environmental issues was a great idea. The students really got into the idea. Judgde the district science fair. My students were well prepared to present. BOB Blowout today. Perhaps because they have one less week, we should lessen the amount of points for that month. Updated the sinking and floating lessons for science. [|Sinking and Floating.docx] Used district digital video recorder for hand video. Next year, I need to figure out how to convert the files. Started Kickball Tournament. [|Kickball Guidelines.doc] Introducing Sinkng and Floating about Titanic created interest. I want to look for a quick 5 minutes clip about it as well. Egg Drop today. In the letter, we should let parents know the time of the drop. I had several parents who wanted to come to watch. Making Judgements for reading needs some more content to work with for reading. Need to try to find some cross-curricular information. Science Fair Projects--students are struggling with coming up with good questions. Need to figure out a way to get them to think about testable and repeatable. All of Unit 3 for Math Expressions is in Smart Notebook format All of Unit 2 for Math Expressions is in Smart Notebook format All of Unit 1 for Math Expresssions is in Smart Notebook format Scanned all of book 2 of expressions in pdf format. Scanned all of book 1 of expressions into pdf format. Math placement test today. Students were a little worried about it but they were easily convinced that it would be ok. Reader's journal for the leveled readers are working but the students need more room. Next year, add an additional page. How-To Power Points. Great idea. Students are able to focus on presentation skills and not on their materials. Health-Bike Safety and Fire Safey. We should try to find a community member that would talk about fire and bike safety in the community. Vertebrates and Invertebrates test need to get rewritten. English-subject/object pronouns, need to find something that further helps students identify subject pronouns that are found in the back half of the sentence, after a linking verb. This is a confusing concept. Math-Students did not to well on Chapter 10 test. They needed a general over view of when to cross multiple, when to move decimals, etc. In Math, ratios/percents. It's not longer in math series. Remember to skip this next year. Need to create a 'text' or 'resource' to go along with invertebrate/vertebrate worksheets. Follow-up human growth and development-as a team we briefly met about odds and ends. Chapter 4 Health-Only 5 lessons. Talk to Jamie about collaberating with gym class. Took a look at Sinking and Floating Unit. Organize lessons to determine the 'big idea' for the unit. Students are creating a How-To Power Point. Instead of demonstartion speeches we are going to focus in on our speeching/presenting skills. On you tube there is an "animal idiom" song that the kids really enjoy. I would like to show it in years to come. School tube, user name and password on in email account. It works well for digital photostories. Created a template for students to follow for their Invertebrate PowerPoint. [|Common Name of Invertebrate.pptx] Idiom Books Project. Some students just had to create a book of idioms, while others wrote a story were idioms truely happened. Instead of demonstration speeches. Students created how-to power points. We will focus on presentation skills. Presented our puppet shows to the kindergarteners. The students did a nice job. Leap day activities went well. Students enjoyed the frogs. Students finished their class recipe book. Students each recieved a copy of it for their family. Math students were given a 'Dream Room' project. They were to create a bedroom using proper ration of porportions. [|Math Project Dream room.docx] Kingdoms needs a little more rigor for next year. In Sour Milk activity the students really enjoyed making for the week. 3 stories from Wayside is a good play for below level reading. Next year, just do that one. Added Vocabulary Readers for following week to the Connect 4 board for below level reading. History Fair went well. Bussing went smoothly and transporting the projects in our vehicles was easy. I think that their should be some presentation during the fair to capture the audience. Safe handling lesson went well. Safe Food Handling Below level readers I will charts and reader's journal are working out well. [|I will Reading Chart.docx] [|Theme 3 below level journal.docx] [|Theme4 below level journal.docx] Need to determine the guidelines for students that are being 'monitored' through progress monitoring. Do we continue to test them? If so, for how long, before we determine they are ok? Safe food handling lesson went well. The class cookbook brought a real-life connection to the lesson. Math-using student created story problems was a good warm-up activity for today. Valentine's Day Party-For math we formulated algebra questions based on a small box of candy hearts. They students really liked this activity. Math-For integers, also, using 'if the signs are different, find the difference and use the sign of the larger number' helped as well. Math-students really understood integers when I should the safari montage video, and used the phrase, 'it's like adding its opposite'. History Fair Week-Need to keep some of the good/bad projects for student samples. Fifth graders don't know what 'backing' is. This would be a good time to have a presentation rubric for students. History Fair Week-We should have a 'mock' fair here at school and have the studnets rehearse being asked questions of their project. History Fair Week-need to have students site sources during their research, not just at the end. History Fair Week-some students had their project done already. Need to find a suppliment activity for those students. The book "Replay" is not a good teacher read aloud. It's a good book, but hard to get the 'daydreaming' moments in the book. Evening Conferences--went well. Commas-need to find a resource that gives students a brief rundown on what they should use Coloinal Week Prep--next year, I want to find the 'hoop' game as well. At the BOB blowout, I modeled how questions will be given and answered for the 4th grade students. I reviewed the importance of the author's, and trying to remember a little bit from each story. Colonial Days prep--Colonial packet, cut string for whirlygigs, cut cloth for school books. Digital Photostories-The LMC computer lab is not a good location a voice recording. The students voice overs are very quiet and it is difficult to hear they on the playback. Theme 3 Theme Test-need to review how to write directions. Students can write direction, but they struggle to list only the important events. Students had to write a paragraph describing one place in their story. I had to use good word choice. They were very well drafted. Candy Cells-went really well this year. Students had to tell me the function and purpse to each organelle before they collected the candy to put on the cell. Introduced digital photo stories to the students. Starting their main characters in art class helped the students develop a visual to help them with their main character development. Walking field trip to high school for students to listen to their deep thinking questions answers from the advanced english compositition class. We should try to have students bring a sample of writing to share with the high school students next year. Knight of Columbus Math Competition Great safari montage for Martin Luther's movie, "Martin's Big Idea" Created a history fair powerpoint. I want to add photos of previous projects for students to get a better understanding of the event. [|History Fair.pptx] Story writing--Adding problem solution chart to writing packet will hopefully help the writing process. Student's in math need an day on just finding the cross multiples of numbers. It would make multiplying fractions fun a little smoother. Candy Cells Project-works well if you only allow students to do one organelle at a time. They are have to come to you at the table and tell you what organelle they're doing, and it's function. The timeline project was a success. The students did a great job creating timelines, as well as presenting. I need to create a rubic for their project. Don't forget to give student enough time to bring in candy to create their cells. Business letter are going well. I need to have the studnets peer edit these for grammar. Need to create a checklist of common grammatical mistakes made in a business letter. Chapter 6 in math was way to easy for fast track math, Be prepared to assign challenge/enrichment material as well. It was be a good time to begin another project. __**December 21, 2011**__ Just make cookies at the December Blowout. There's not enough time to complete a game/fun activity as well. __**December 20, 2011**__ Second page of the Chapter 1 Health test from the book needs to be rewritten to hard for the time we put into health. __**December 16, 2011**__ Remember to ask for a back to be added to the student's calandars that they are making for their parents. __**December 15, 2011**__ The week before Christmas we choice week in reading. The students loved working on and presenting Christmas themed 'reader's theatres' __**December 14, 2011**__ __**December 13, 2011**__ Students did a great job on the Chapter 3 English test. They did the best on the editing portion of the test. Verbs are easy to pick up when they are wrong. __**December 12, 2011**__ Need to think of something special for the class to do for their kindergarten buddies that they can add to their gingerbread houses. __**December 9, 2011**__ __**December 8, 2011**__ Students enjoyed Mrs. Dickenson's animoto for their wordles. It would be a cool format to use for the poetry unit. __**December 7, 2011**__ Need to find more practice on predicate nouns and predicate adjectives. It's on theme 2 test, but our reading series doesn't provide any practice. __**December 6, 2011**__ Students need a lot of guidance on 5 paragraph--Introduction, Conclusion, Body Paragraphs, Topic Sentences. I need to revisit topic sentence, supporting details, concluding/transition sentence. __**December 5, 2011**__ Invention and Inventors Science Unit--Ideas started developing when I stress the 'need to solve an everyday problem'. I think the kids were intimidated by the idea of having to something major or elaborate. ([|Invention Rubric.doc]) __**November 17th**__ Sprayed the cornicupias in art room day. We have enough cans of glaze for next year's project. ([|The History of the Cornucopia.docx]) __**November 15th**__ A letter home with opening conference times worked out week again this year. ([|Conference sign up.docx] __**November 14th**__ Attitude of Gratitude for the lockers was a nice touch for parents to see. ([|An Attitude of Gratitude-template.doc]) __**November 13, 2011**__ The student input guide sheet was very helpful this year again. __**November 11, 2011**__ Review more advanced/complicated number lines. __**November 10, 2011**__ Smart board lessons on structured responses. Not only samples to review, but more practice with them. __**November 9, 2011**__Rember to print progress reports before the end of the marking period. After quarter is over, yet lose the ability to print those reports. They would have been nice to have for conferences. __**November 8, 2011**__ Need to figure out if I want to do body systems in health, in science, or both. Do them seperately or at the same time? __**November 7, 2011**__ Students enjoyed the 'Compound Train' game. I need to try to get more of this week's spelling words included in the game. __**November 4, 2011**__ Modified the science test. Broke the unit into 2 sections. Hopefully this will help students master the initial concepts before moving on to the difficult concept of convection, convention, and radition. __**November 3, 2011**__ Rti meeting today. Need to start thinking about that we can do other than grouping to reach the needs of the struggling readers. __**November 2, 2011**__ Started newspaper article writing. Students were excited. Need to asked those individual that studnets want to interview if that's ok. __**November 1, 2011**__ WKCE Testing-remember to organize room, pencils, pink erasers, and snacks. Need to cut the tubbing for the marbles next year. The marbles didn't fit. __**October 31, 2011**__ Great discussion about everyone's 'fear place'. I need to remember to have the students write journal entry #9, after the discussion and reading of this story. It asks the students what is their 'fear place.' __**October 26, 2011**__ I read the 'Facts of Bats' article. It was a great conservation with students about rodents that they find in their houses that are unwanted, but still important to the food chain. __**October 25, 2011**__ In writing students are creating poetry books using Microsoft Powerpoint. There a minor changes to PowerPoint that I need to sit down and explore to strengthen my ability to support students. __**October 24, 2011:**__ Health test today went well. Next year, I need to have the students use the four steps to resolving conflicts/problems in sample situations. __**October 25,** 2011:__ Students struggled with the question during WKCE with the question about what part of the story makes it a true folk tale. To prepare for testing I need to go over the genras and key elements from each. __**October 26, 2011:**__ During WKCE review, when we were studying poetry students struggled with the poetric elements that gave human traits to objects. __October **20, 2011**__ Today we had a talent show in class because our reading story, 'La Bamba' takes place during a school talent show. Not many students participated in the event, but those that did we able to shine. It was a good idea and I want to do it again next year.
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 * __October 18, 2011__** In English, I need to find a stronger way to explain the plural endings of words. There is no consitancy in whether one should add 'es' or 's' to words that end iin constant & o. I need to create a game or activity to expose students to as many of those wrods as possible.