9/29

HOMEWORK

History - Chapter 6 beautiful notes (finished in class)

Math - Lesson 24 evens

Vocabulary - Unit 3 of worldly wise. REMINDER this was assigned on Monday and is due tomorrow!

I noticed, during carpool, a handful of students had very little completed.  If your child starts bumping up against the 50 minute work limit, you have my support to allow them to stop working.  However, this could also be a valuable opportunity to discuss with your child the importance of planning ahead and spreading out their work into manageable chunks instead of procrastinating!

(Better to figure these things out in 5th grade than in college! :)

Blessings,

Josh

9/28

HOMEWORK

Math - Lesson 23, odds

9/26

HOMEWORK

Math - Lesson 21: odds

History - Chapter 7: Part 1 cornell notes

Vocabulary - Unit 3: A-E due FRIDAY

9/23

HOMEWORK

Math - Lesson 20, odds

History - Beautiful Notes for Ch6 due at the END of Monday

9/22

Homework

Math - lesson 19 odds

History - read second part of chapter 6

Writing - work on grammar and  punctuation edits

Vocabulary - creative project due tomorrow afternoon

9/21

HOMEWORK

Math - Lesson 18: odds

Literature - Mark three to five instances in Blood on the River, Chapter 18, that display one of Sam's character traits.

Vocabulary - Creative vocabulary project, due Friday


TODAY

Literature - I have been discussing "meta-cognition" with the kids.  That is, "thinking about our thinking."  Yesterday we discussed how to do Real Reading and created a Real Reading Salad.  As I read a story about Autism to the kids, we would add Text Tomatoes (red paper) into a salad bowl when I was focusing on the Text, then I would pause and share some of my thoughts at which point we would add Thoughts Lettuce (green paper) to the bowl.  We then discussed how we get the most out of reading when we focus equally on reading the text and paying attention to the thoughts we have about the text.

Using a concrete visual, like this Real Reading Salad, is an accessible way to begin introducing the idea of being strong, meta-cognitive readers.  This is the first part of an overarching strategy to bolster reading comprehension.

Today we created a Venn Diagram illustrating how text and thoughts combine to create Real Reading:

Lips are hard to draw...

Special Olympics - Also today, Mrs. Murphy came to talk to the kids about special needs and special education!  She was able to answer a lot of questions, discuss the different abilities the pen-pals will have, and got a feel for how best to pair up her students with ours!

9/20

HOMEWORK

Math - Lesson 17: odds

Vocabulary - Present the vocabulary words in a creative way on Friday (This is just a fun project.  Some of the students asked if they could make plays using the vocabulary words, so I thought we'd all try to make something fun.  Students may make games, pictures, videos, poems, stories, or any other creative way to showcase this weeks vocabulary words.)

History - Cornell notes for Chapter 6, part 1.  (Mostly done in class)

9/19

HOMEWORK

Math: lesson 15 odds


TODAY

Writing - The main push with class time today was talking about revising for Main Idea.  We read through numerous student examples of personal narratives and check for how well they taught the lesson or conveyed the main point.

Specifically, we used a hi lighter to hi light the concluding sentence, THEN read through the entire paper, hilighting sentences that reinforced, led to, or in some way contributed towards proving the paper's main point.

After going over these in partners, then again as a group, students traded papers and went through eachothers personal narratives.

After seeing the results, students brainstormed a few ways they could spruce up their work.  We'll try to implement those ideas tomorrow.

9/16

HOMEWORK

Math - Lesson 15: odds

Writing - Completed first draft of personal narrative (I am reading over whatever students have done currently, and they will have my comments to work with on Monday.  I couldn't be more pleased with the direction they've gone with these!)

9/15

HOMEWORK

Writing - First Draft (If I had your child fill out an outline first, then they may come in with just an introductory paragraph completed)

Math - Lesson 14: evens

History - Beautiful Notes for Chapter 5 (not due until the end of the day)


TODAY

Sometimes I like to build rapport with students by sharing my interests with them.  Today I showed them one of my favorite scenes from Les Miserables.  The criminal, Jean Valjean, is welcomed into the home of a poor bishop to eat spend the night.  In the night, Jean Valjean steals the bishop's silverware, though he is shortly caught and returned.  The bishop has mercy on Jean by telling the officers the silverware was a gift.  He then extends his mercy farther, displaying the compassion of Christ by giving Jean Valjean a very valuable silver candleholder as well.

Here's a link to the scene:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MEJ7KmgOfwo

We discussed possible messages from the scene.  Ella compared it to the verse where Christ calls his followers to give their shirt to a man who takes their cloak.

9/14

HOMEWORK

History - Cornell notes for Chapter 5: part 2.


CHANGE IN WRITING DUE DATES

Writing - New first draft due Friday morning

We will work on revisions this Friday at school

Additional revisions should be made at home over the weekend

We will revise and edit on Monday and Tuesday

We will start making published copies on Wednesday and Thursday

We will present our personal narratives to our class (and maybe other classes) on Friday


WHY THIS CHANGE IN SCHEDULE?

I finished going over the personal narratives last night and felt like, for the most part, we missed the point of what a Personal Narrative should be.  The way I put it to the kids, "These were entertaining and well written stories, but we're not actually personal narratives.  They relate events, and adventures, but don't really discuss a journey of personal growth."

That's not to say ALL of the pieces were like that, but most were.  Which makes me conclude I did not fully explain to students the purpose and critical components of a personal narrative.

So today, I remedied that.  I read a few more examples of personal narratives written by students.  We learned the importance of writing a narrative that conveys a moral or presents a final thought.  And we brainstormed ideas for personal stories that have some sort of lesson to conclude with.

I feel like this all went quite well.  I am excited by the ideas I heard coming from the students today!

• One student has a story about using a painful experience to comfort someone else going through the same thing.

• Another has a story about daring to try new experiences.

• Another talked about controlling anger.

• And yet another had a wonderful story about learning to laugh at yourself instead of being embarrassed or ashamed.

This what I was hoping for when I first assigned personal narratives, and I am so happy we're getting there.  God knew these children intimately, even before they were born.  They are important to Him, and they live lives of consequence, filled with important stories to tell.  I can't wait to see how God is reflected in them and their writing this year!

We are saving the first attempts.  Many of them are fine stories and might be turned into fuller pieces later in the year.  Some WERE fine personal narratives.  I'm still asking all students, even those who nailed it the first time, to go ahead and write another, as we all have more than one story that's worth sharing :)

I tried very hard to communicate this is NO punishment, nor am I in any way disappointed!  There is nothing wrong with not getting something right the first time!  I invite you to join with me in putting a positive spin on this with your children.  Encourage them to think of their lives and their experiences as important gifts from God, and something worth sharing in their writing!

Blessings and best regards,

Joshua Murphy

9/13

HOMEWORK DUE WEDNESDAY

Math - Lesson 13 odds

History - Beautiful notes for chapter 4 (Henry Hudson and Samuel Champlain)

Writing - Make revisions to your personal narrative draft.  (I had time to go through about half of them today, and students made comments on eachother's papers.  I sent an email today with some guidelines I use for making paper revisions, so you can use that method at home if you wish)


DUE THURSDAY

History - Read and take notes over the second half of Chapter 5.

Writing - Finish revisions and start making edits.





TODAY

History - This week we're watching an nicely made BBC drama/documentary that covers the chapter students reading about the rise of Tokugawa as Japan's Shogun.  It's a well made piece, derived from written records of the time and filmed in authentic castles from the period.  You can view it here:

https://vimeo.com/18702695

9/12

HOMEWORK

MATH lesson 12 odds

HISTORY read and notes for chapter 5 part one (this was pushed back from being due today)

Writing:  Pre-writing and 1st draft due in tomorrow.  May be typed (we set up our classroom accounts) but may also be turned in handwritten

9/9

HOMEWORK

I listed a number of assignments on the board today.  Many are due later in the week.  I've broken down the homework section by day due. (Only the Tuesday Writing assignment was listed on the board.  I wrote the rest of the week's writing assignments here for your benefit :)

Due Monday
History - Read Chapter 5 pt. 1 and take Cornell notes
Math - Survey presentations (We conducted surveys on Thursday.  Each student was assigned to present their results in either a bar-graph, a frequency table, or an information sheet/cover page
Vocabulary - Lesson 2B

Due Tuesday
History - Chapter 4 Beautiful Notes (we took notes over the chapter, students need to transfer these notes over to "beautiful" pages I printed out for them)
Writing - Personal Narrative: Complete First Draft (may be fictional, real, or a mix of both)

Due Wednesday
History - Reach Chapter 5 pt. 2 and take Cornell notes
Writing - Personal Narrative: First Revised Draft

Due Thursday
Writing - Personal Narrative: Second Revised Draft

Due Friday
Writing - Personal Narrative: Editid Draft (should have been looked over by at least 2 adults)
History - Beautiful Notes for Chapter 5

Due Monday (19th)
Writing - Personal Narrative: Published Copy


TODAY
Bible/Literature - In our book, Blood on the River, a secondary character, James, was killed in an attack by Native Americans.  Sam, the protagonist, blames himself for James's death.  Sam regrets many of the things he said and did to James, things that stopped James from trusting Sam during the attack.

Today, on the radio, I heard an interview by the man who was at the ticket counter on the day of the September 11 attacks.  Much like Sam, he blamed himself for taking the hijacker's tickets,  though, unlike Sam, he had not actually done anything wrong.

We listened to that interview today and compared Sam's experience with this man's, and discussed guilt and redemption.  We supplemented the discussion with the Bible verse Matthew 12:36-37.   Here is a link to the radio interview:

http://www.npr.org/2016/09/09/493133084/on-sept-11-he-checked-hijackers-onto-flight-77-its-haunted-him-ever-since

9/8

HOMEWORK

Enjoy the Cardinals Game!

9/6

HOMEWORK

Math - Lesson 10: odds

Grammar - Practice Book pg. 11

Writing - Lesson 4: Exercise 2 (students are writing sentences with the provided words, then re-writing using synonyms found in the thesaurus)


TODAY

Busy day.  Students took their first vocabulary and math tests today.