Skyping with Students in Canada

Halloween costumes, YouTube sensations, and a love of the restaurant Subway --- though 6th graders may live across North America, they still seem to have many inerests in common. My 6th grade students got the chance to Skype with 6th grade students in Canada today.

 

We discovered that more students in my class eat Canadian bacon than Canadian students. Our Canadian friends speak French and English and love a food called poutine (french fries with melted cheese and gravy), though they also enjoy pizza and cheeseburgers jut like us. Catholic schools in Ottawa, Canada, which is north of the state of New York, are paid for by the government. The students chuckled as a student from Canada did the "Gangnam Style" dance from YouTube, and several of my students joined in.

 

I'm thankful to the Global Read Aloud project for bringing these students together to celebrate reading! I would love to expand our connections even more next year if we do the project again.

 

And a compliment for the Kansas kids: Mr. Fischer (the teacher of the Canadian class) shared how he often uses my students' blogs as an example of what blog posts should look like because of the deep thinking and writing students were putting into them. Way to go, students!

 

Students got a kick out of waving to one another! Look at those smiles. :)  

 

We brainstormed questions ahead of time about things we wanted to know.  

 

Moderators asked our questions and also helped answer the questions the other class had for us. Due to technical difficulties, we made a laptop screen work!  

 

 

 

 

I love how intrigued they look! Hopefully the students enjoyed their time in English class today.

Reading Fiends

Check out the totals for the Pages Party! In May, the class with the highest number of pages per student (meaning I divide by the number of students in the class to make the total more equal) will receive a party in my class. All six classes are competing against the others, and we're off to a good start with our reading from quarter one.

 

Frequent readers often subconciously pick up setence patterns and vocabulary, which ultimately makes them better writing. Thus, more reading equals more quality writing, which is my goal. Please encourage your students to write any pages they read on their reading logs.

 

I even had a few students between 5,000 and 9,000 pages for the quarter. Wow!

 





Conferences Update

Thanks to all the parents who came to conferences. It was wonderful to meet you and discuss what we can do as a team to help your student! I thank God that I was sent to Sacred Heart where there are so many wonderful people. Thanks also to all the parents who took items off my wish list. This first-year teacher really appreciates you!

At the start of this week, I also wanted to make you aware that your student has free access to the Kansas City Star through a program called the Kansas City Star in Education. Take advantage of this wonderful resource to get your student reading good examples of writing and learning about the world around them! For log-in instructions, click the "KC Star" tab at the top of the page.

Have a great week!

-- Miss R.

Great Work

Parents,

Be sure to check out your student's blog (Click on the "Blogs" tab above). They wrote about their bucket lists, and they have quite the collection of big dreams! The students wrote with much better grammar after we talked about how best to present our writing! What's on your bucket list?

For my 6th-grade parents, all the students collected adjectives while we read about Ivan last week. Look what we created! The largest adjectives are the ones most listed by the students. I thought they did an awesome job!

6th grade -- Lab work for today

Sixth graders,

Today we get to do some fun things to connect with others about The One and Only Ivan. For starters, click here to enter your adjectives, so we can make our class connection.

Once you have finished this response, close out of the form and we will move onto our other activity of the day and blogging.

Thanks!

Miss R

Feeling the Love

I feel so lucky to be at such a great school. Thanks to all the parents who contributed to the book fair because these books were all given to me. What a blessing as a first-year teacher! All of these will go into my slowly increasing classroom library. If you ever have books at home you don't want/need anymore, I would love them.

Blogs Redefined

Parents, some of you might be wondering why your students have not been blogging these past few weeks. After discussing the importance of producing a polished product and thoughtful comments, students were still using lots of text lingo and incorrect language on the blog.

 

We used a day last week (instead of going to the computer lab) to analyze how we could use the blogs. Each class made resolutions, and I think they're ready to use the blogs more meaningfully! The students voiced valid concerns about embarrassing themselves or turning the blogs into a popularity contest, so we came up with some solutions.

 

Students are always welcome to blog from home, which was a question they had. Our blogs are still a work in progress, but we're learning, growing, and thinking more as we continue!

 

Students answered questions in pods and chose the best advice their peers had to offer to share.

 

Each class generated a set of resolutions, which are hanging on the wall.

 

I was impressed with the mature, introspective thoughts students generated.

 

Great goals will guide us forward.

The One and Only Ivan

Hello, especially to my 6th grade parents. We're trying something new in my 6Y and 6Z classes for the month of October. I tell them they're my guinea pigs, but they say they would prefer to be called hamsters!

There is a program called Global Read Aloud, which a teacher started in 2010. If you're interested in its origin, watch this video. The program started with 60 classrooms, and now in its 3rd year of existence it has about 26,000 students!

I showed the students this map today of classrooms reading the same book, The One and Only Ivan. The commercial for the book is above. You can find us in Shawnee, KS, as number 226 out of almost 250 classes! I will be reading the book aloud to them in class at the same pace as other teachers across the nation. We hope to interact using our blogs and Skype.

The students are not required to purchase the book, but if you would like to, you can follow along at home. I have found that this is a book with meaning that transcends age.

The kids seem pretty excited to start and so am I!

I'll leave you with the quote that starts the book: "It's never too late to be what you might have been." -- George Eliot