NO SCHOOL

WEDNESDAY, 2/22-FRIDAY, 2/24

THE SCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED FOR OUR MID-WINTER BREAK.  

THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BEGIN WORKING ON YOUR 2ND MILESTONE, WHICH IS THE OUTLINE FOR YOUR SCRAPBOOK.  I WILL BE POSTING AN EXAMPLE OF THE OUTLINE WITHIN THE NEXT WEEK.

                                             WELCOME TO MADISHON-

         Madishon joined our classroom community this past week.  Students welcomed her with a bead greeting during morning meeting - each student handed Madishon a bead, introduced themselves, and said "Good Morning". Madishon then went to each student, handed a bead, and said "Good Morning".  I am so proud of the kids - they have brought Madishon into our "family", showed her the routines, and ropes.  Kayla will be helping her with catching up on the college project, and her table mates have already filled her in on exhibitions, math challenge, and other pertinent information.  

Madishon has put herself right into learning, sharing, laughing, and enjoying our days.

The following students passed Milestone 1 and participated in Fun Friday - many students brought their milestones in early - which I always encourage.  They were prepared with enough time to make corrections if needed.  

Morgan, Lauryn, Micah, Brianna, Madison, Khalila, K'myiah, Cameron, Kayla, Moses, Devin,and Darnishia.

I'm looking forward to seeing Milestone 2.  Students had awesome information already, based on what I saw from their research.

Devin and his Mom for bringing in snacks for the entire class.  They lasted for several weeks & were really appreciated:)

EXHIBITION REMINDER:

Milestone #2 is Due Thursday, March 22nd

This milestone is the outline for all the pages for your AMAZING PEOPLE scrapbook.

Each page will correspond  to one of the Roman numerals of the outline.  Within the next week I will post an example of the outline with information on an amazing person.  

Below you will find 2 power points of AMAZING PEOPLE scrapbooks done by former students of Mrs. Tiggs.  The Duke Ellington power point is split into 2 power points. Students are encouraged to take their scrapbook to the next level - creativity, lots of information, playing music of musicians, explaining/interpreting artwork of artists.  This is one of my favorite exhibition projects (maybe I'm a little biased since I'm a musician). Students learn so much about these amazing people and, hopefully, what they learn will influence them along the way in their own lives.

Vincent v. gogh scrpbk

View more presentations from sgwagner.

Duke #1 9

View more PowerPoint from sgwagner

Duke #10 13

View more PowerPoint from sgwagner

Narrative (Report Cards) and MAP Scores

Inside of the envelope will be the narrative with a percentage for each subject area with comments and your child's MAP scores on a report called, Student Progress Report. If you need help understanding it, there are explanatory notes at the bottom. If you need more clarification of what the MAP test is, please see theNWEA Parent Toolkit website(http://www.nwea.org/support/article/930/parent-toolkit).

DESPERATE!!

We are in desperate need of healthy snacks!  We appreciate whatever you are able to donate.


As always - thank you for your generosity.

Milestone #1 for our Amazing People Exhibition is Due February 9th.  I've been encouraging the students to bring them in early in order to correct any errors before February 9th.  This milestone requires 3 book sources and 3 website resources.  Any student who completes the milestone in time, with all correct information, will participate in Fun Friday!

Our students’ first narrative for the 2011-2012 school year was scheduled to come home today, January 27, 2012.  However, due to technical difficulties we will send them home next week.  The expected date I Monday, January 30, 2012.

COLLEGE PROJECT UPDATE

I’m so IMPRESSED WITH HOW THE STUDENTS HAVE WORKED ON THEIR COLLEGE PROJECTS.  THE FOLLOWING STUDENTS HAVE ALREADY COMPLETED AND SENT THEIR BUSINESS LETTERS:

              Morgan

              Lauryn

Micah

Madison

K’myiah

Kayla

Devin

Darnishia

Joshua

Now we need to wait for all the packages from the colleges to come in. That is always exciting to see what is sent!

We have started Phase 2 of the project this week.  We have looked at Feature Articles and the characteristics of the articles.  Some of these are: a title, captions, pictures, maps, graphs, paragraph chunks.

Students do not have the information yet to actually write the articles.  So far the only homework assignment was to bring in an article and find some of the characteristics.

The following 2 steps are needed to complete Phase 2 of the College Project:

Phase 2

Compare the information about the three colleges with assigned criteria on the Facts and Figures sheet.

Write a feature article comparing two colleges and picking the best one out of the 3 colleges that they sent letters to)

This will be written mostly in class, however information on how to access it on Google Docs will be forth coming.

 

UPA is participating in fundraiser to help Leukemia patients. The students have collection boxes that they should have brought home already. They can collect pennies and bring them to school for our class' box. The class that raises the most money gets a pizza party from the organization.  We have one more week left to collect.  This is our second community service project and the kids are really excited about helping other children.  

CONGRATULATIONS TO MADISON!  MADISON WAS THE FIRST ONE TO TURN IN HER MILESTONE #1.  IT IS GOING TO BE AN AMAZING EXHIBITION!

College Letter Project

Students have been completing their Phase I of the college projects.  The next phase is composing business letters to each of the 3 colleges of their choice.  The kids will be learning how to use google docs this year for various writing projects.  Their college letters will be composed in google docs. I have a letter template and a how-to video posted below.

IT’S COLLEGE PROJECT TIME!

On Monday we began a new project that all 4th and 5th graders will be completing. This is probably my favorite project of all time! The project consists of letter writing, a field trip, a college fair conducted by students, and making a commercial with a group. It's really exciting because students receive mail at school from the colleges. Sometimes there are boxes with lots of fun souvenirs sent by the college.

There are several parts of this project that we will be completing in school and some parts will need to be completed at home. Every student has chosen 3 states and is working on finding 1 college or university from each state.

In April, we will visit the campus of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to see what college can be like. All phases of the project must be completed on time in order to go on the field trip. Teacher approval is required to move from one phase to the next.


The website to find colleges for all the states is in the "Websites for Students" tab at the top of the page.

Phase 1

•   Choose 3 colleges with programs (majors/academic programs) that are interesting to the child.
•    Find the Admissions Office addresses of all three colleges/universities
•   College ABC book with terms and vocabulary related to going to college
•    Write a letter to each college asking for information (& souvenirs) about the college and wait for responses. We will write & send the letters out from school.

Phase 2

•  Compare the information about the three colleges with assigned criteria on the Facts and Figures Sheet.
•   Write a feature article comparing two and pick the best one. This will be written mostly in school.

 Phase 3

•  Field trip to U of M (cost TBA)
•  Create a poster or tri-fold board advertising the best college for you (out of the 3 students sent letters to).
•  College Fair in school

 Phase 4

•  Commercials and website creation-the commercials will advertise colleges and universities across the country and help student around the world choose a college! We will publish the commercials on the Internet!
• There will be other multimedia components that are added later for those students who work ahead.

  

Second Trimester Amazing People Project

We finally have the dates for the Milestones for our AMAZING PEOPLE project:

Milestone 1:  Due Thursday, February 9^th

Milestone 2:  Due Thursday, March 22^nd

Milestone 3:  Duet Thursday, May 17^th. 

Below you will find the Form for Milestone one, along with an outline example for Milestone 2.  I will also send home a hard copy to be returned with a parent signature to acknowledge you have seen the form.  

Second Trimester Amazing People Project

HAVE A WONDERFUL, FABULOUS HOLIDAY….

SEE YOU ON JANUARY 9^TH

*Just a note – you should start researching for your AMAZING PERSON as Milestone 1 will be due at a date to be determined (sometime in the first week of February)

AND HERE'S OUR HULA TEACHER...

Here's Lauryn teaching us how to Hula:) 

DELICIOUS! YUMMY! FABULOUS! PART 2

Try our slideshow creator at Animoto.

DELICIOUS! YUMMY! FABULOUS!

Thank you to all for our successful Ice Cream PartyJ. We had everything we could want to celebrate the accomplishment of learning our math facts.  Every student that participated in the party made a huge effort to reach their personal goals.  See the video below of the party – happy faces, full tummies, dancing, singing, and lots of fun!

It's finally here!  Our long awaited ICE CREAM CELEBRATION! The kids have worked hard on their multiplication fact families and are adding ice cream scoops to their cones.  It's really exciting to see all the colors building on our wall, and the speed with which they are reciting and writing their facts.  

Thank you to all who are bringing in our fudge, toppings, ice cream, spoons, bowls, and juices.  What a great way to end our first semester!