The First Day of School!!

Welcome to our 180 day adventure!!

This morning our room was overflowing with supplies, parents and students ready to get back to the business of learning.  It was great to everyone and thank you for everyone that stopped by to say hello.

Here is how these emails and/or postings go, I will tell you what we learned today and address homework assignments.  Why?  So much  learning can happen during an everyday conversation.  Therefore if these emails can lead to you into tricking your son/daughter into “teaching” you what we did today, it is the ultimate “win/win situation.   Also it helps me reflect on what we did and did not accomplish today as a learning community.

We started the day completing a quick getting to know you card and a student survey  survey.  These are helpful as they allow me to put a name to the faces and also discuss pasta & pizza with the class.

We then spent time discussing the class behavior system.  Here it is in a quick nutshell:
stage 1:  1st orange card -- simple warning
stage 2:  2nd orange card -- student leaves class for 5-6 minutes and completes a “refocus” form; this form(s) will be sent home on Friday
stage 3:  1st red card -- call home to the parents before or after a discussion with school administrator
Every day a students starts over from scratch so we all begin a new day ready to rock and roll.  

We then discussed our monetary system within our class.  We will hold one  and maybe two auctions throughout the school year.  Students earn classroom money by going above and beyond.  Therefore extra credit assignments, research topics based on classroom discussions or certain district/administrator forms quickly returned earn classroom money.  

Math:
Our first lesson of the year concerned....mostly discussing why a notebook should be your best friend.  I discussed myelin and oligodendrocytes and how repeated actions opened up passage ways to assist us in retrieving information within the white matter part of our brain.    So the discipline of taking consistent notes on a daily basis and using the notebook to prep for tests all should be incentive to bring this notebook back and forth everyday.
Regarding tonight’s homework:   It is place value w/ billions, millions, thousands and hundreds.  
We did examples of standard form, expanded form and written form.  
Here are our notes on the class procedures and the math that we worked on:
CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S NOTES

The students then had physical education (PE) from 11:45-12:30;  P.E. will be on Mondays however the specific time is still being worked out.  

The end of the day consisted of me giving them a biography description of my life, what values that I stand for and how I chose to become a teacher.    

Students then received four handouts.  

1.  Homework about homework:  due on Wednesday

2.  “Getting to Know You Better” a.k.a. The Reading Survey -- Due on Thursday with COMPLETE thoughts and sentences.
CLICK HERE IF YOUNEED THE GETTING TO KNOW YOU BETTER SURVEY

3.  Handout requesting students to please volunteer to work as parking lot valets and greeters.  Due ASAP

4.  My welcome to Mr. Hubbard’s class and 5th grade letter -- to be given to parents.
CLICK HERE IF YOU NEED THE WELCOME LETTER

Final thing, we have an apprentice-teacher in our class through October.  Her name is Lisa Silva.  She is in her 4th semester of mastering and at the end of October she will have earned her K-6 Multiple Subject Credential.   She will be actively teaching during the day with me and she will take over responsibilities for a two period.   She has two children who have went through Dublin Elementary, she has substitute teaching experience and she has earned her stripes with some prior long-term substitute situation.   So we are blessed to have an additional educator within our classroom over the next 10 weeks.  

Kind regards,

Mr. Hubbard