Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Happy Tuesday!

Tomorrow is the big day for our Wax Museum presentations.  We begin at 10:45 and go through 11:30.  

You “technically” could show up between 11:30-Noon, however that is the time when we are also allowing the DES 5th grade students to go around and tour the other 5th grade presentations therefore there is a 50% chance you could miss your son/daughter perform.  

Please check in with the office and sign in prior to coming to the Wax Museum.

Once again -- your family did not or does not have to go and spend copious amounts of $$$ on a costume.  At a minimum have your son or daughter dress appropriately for a performance.  

You do not need to stay for the entire time.  You can photograph or video record your own child and take off if you want.  

Every child will be performing every 1 minute or until someone walks by to hit their “red button.”  Therefore your child in theory/statistically speaking could be performing their 1 minute presentation 80+ times.  

Today a small group of our students were able to go and support our special needs students at the Special Olympic event that was held at Pleasanton Middle School.  The six girls have & continue to chosen to spend their morning recesses with the special day students.  Therefore today they were able to go root on and spend time with their friends as they competed.  

Students have been given time to look at their Engrade accounts and analyze what areas do they need to focus on to improve their scores for the end of the trimester and prior to our Thursday “party.”  Not really a party rather students with “M’s” will have 75 minutes to work on missing work while others will have the opportunity to do special art projects or do some team building/exercises outside.  

Friday is “read-in” day for the entire school.  Since we had our big read-in day during the reada-thon where students wore PJ’s and brought in pillows & stuff - we are going to keep it pretty mellow on Friday.  We will still have our Friday spelling and vocab tests and a short Scootpad math test.  We do have Dr. Greir showing up on Friday morning though.  He sometimes reads something to the 5th graders and then he takes some of their questions about Wells Middle School.    

We took an important research and writing exercise this week regarding hurricanes.  Students read two articles and watched a National Geographic video all concerning hurricanes.  They then answered questions and did a two-part write up on hurricanes.  From quickly looking over their work, I am pretty excited.  

We did a big team building exercise on Friday afternoon.   Students first completed a survival analyst sheet independently, then in a random group of three, then a random group of six and finally in a large group of twelve students.  In each of the four scenarios they had nine minutes to decide and prioritize which fifteen tools/devices they would bring if they had only moments to decide before jumping onto a life-boat.  The class as a whole has not been exhibiting great listening skills recently. Therefore I felt this team building exercise was necessary and students would find it edifying.  At a very superficial level I will tell you the teams of three and teams of six worked pretty well.  There was a challenge with one team of six and we had a long discussion about what happened and what could change.   However when the teams were expanded to twelve team members -- it became like an episode on a cable-news network where people just start talking over each other, yelling, and no one was listening and no one was convincing anyone to change their minds.  

We did do a follow up discussion regarding the six and twelve team experiences on Monday morning.  We discussed what went well, went went no so great and what could happen in the future.  If you have time, ask your son/daughter what they got out of the experience and what they learned.   

What I can tell you is that we had our best listened and best respectful circle time as a classroom in ages.  Students seemed committed to learning and listening to each other and they were not trying to talk over each other.  It was great to not hear the same four or five voices piping in throughout the circle time and others students were able to share their thoughts and feelings.  

Speaking of circle time, one of our students and his soccer team earned this super large trophy for a state cup victory on Sunday!!

Kind regards,

Mr. Hubbard

“Stop and Listen.  The first steps in teaching.  Relationships THEN content.”

Jeff Charbonneau- 2014 teacher of the year

Homework for the week:

Bring costume or dress nicely for your wax museum presentations.   You will have time during recess to change.  

Wednesday is eat lunch in Mr. Hubbard’s class.  Students get a reprieve once a week during lunch time to eat in a quieter environment.  

Math:

2/24/2015	Due on Wednesday	117-118	9-24 all original problem -estimated numbers & answer/ solve for the real answer (do at least 5 guess check or stacking)	5	5
2/25/2015	Due on Thursday	141-142	9-30 all -- estimate to help you solve this problem/follow directions in book	6	4
2/26/2015	Due on Friday	56-57	1-17 all -- show your work	2	chapter review

Non-Fiction reading and writing -- Gold, God and Glory/Colonization North America

Spelling (spelling #13)and Vocabulary (prefix words)test on Friday.

Vocab Homework Tuesday and Wednesday evening.  The paragraph write up with the vocab words are due on Thursday.  

Less homework as students should focus on completing missing work found on Engrade prior to Friday’s end of trimester.  

February 17, 2015

Happy Tuesday.

Today:  We had used the opportunity to discuss $$$, GMO vegetables/fruits, the dairy industry, the Choose My Plate initiative and how the ripening of fruit is a chemical reaction.

The students did have PE today.  They played some epic long games of kick ball.

We did visit the library so they were able to return and check out new books.  

The vocabulary words this week are all related to music and we spent some time discussing examples of the challenging words.  

Math today is all about multiplication and decimals.  A strong emphasis again on using estimating prior to multiplying therefore it would be logical & reasonable where to place the decimal.  

Other things of note:

We spent a great deal of time on Friday morning discussing on-line safety.  The students had many questions and I was able to discuss scenarios regarding how to stay safe.  From reading much on this subject I emphasized to the kids the following four keys:

1. Never friend or reply via chat, text, instant message, social networks with anyone that they have not met physically in person.    They should only interact with people that they know exist in real life, they have shaken hands with and they know are “real.”
2. If they should find themselves having communication with anyone that they do not feel safe with, bullied or uncomfortable -- in all cases they should find an adult that they trust and tell that person.  In no case will “they” (the 10 or 11 year old) get in trouble for seeking assistance or help regarding a communication/friendship that has gone sour.  In some scenarios the students feel guilt or fear that they began a communication/relationship with someone they should not have and they are fearful to seek assistance; they fear they will get in trouble.  
3. Written communication placed onto the internet is like getting a tattoo.  You can “try” and have it removed/deleted however if what you wrote was screen captured or indexed by Google  what you wrote is not going away.   Unless you live in Spain?
4. On-line communication that happens even outside of school that has a negative detriment on student’s/school’s learning -- by law has to also be addressed by the school district.  Students often believe that what they say on their own time and outside of school can not be used against them within the school arena.  Many courts have found that is NOT  the case, especially in cases of on-line bullying or hate speech.

Our wax museum for the Dead American reports….the final stage is this week.  

Students are working on their 56 to 66 second memorized speech.   

We discussed the expectations for their wax museum presentation.  It is similar to their poster or google slide presentation from last week.  It should focus on the very most superficial and epic parts of their famous American’s life.  It should appeal to 2nd through 5th graders therefore it should not be chocked full of details and specifics like in their report/research section.   

Related to their speech and performance - they should be also looking to put together a “look,” “dress-up as” or props related to their famous American.  We are not asking students and their families to spend $$$ on their costume however just give some thought to how they can at least resemble or symbolically resemble their famous American.

They should have brought home their Wax Museum invite last week.  They will be presenting next Wednesday the 25th from 10:30 to Noon.   Parents are more than welcome to come and check out their performances.  Just remember to please sign in with the office!!!

Kind regards,

Mr. Hubbard

“Those who do not walk for fear of making a mistake make the most serious mistake.”   Pope Francis

Homework for the week:

Math:

Math laid out everyday until March 23rd

Date of Lesson	Day it is due	Pages	What is expected on the homework	Chapter	Lesson #
2/17/2015	Wednesday	138-139	1-24 all original problem -- estimate to help you solve this problem/follow directions in book	6	3
2/18/2015	Thursday	46-47	1-27 all original problem/estimated numbers & answer / solve for the real answer	2	6
2/19/2015	Friday	70-71	8-38 EVENS original problem/estimated numbers &answer / solve for the real answer WITH 7 GENERIC AREA MODELS	3	5

Spelling -- week 12

Vocabulary -- Regarding Music

Week 12 of our  reading and writing practice  

Related homework: watch this Brainpop before doing this week’s reading

Write and memorize your dead American speech and begin putting a dress plan in place for next Wednesday’s presentation.

Dublin Elementary School's Math Night for Parents....

If you would like to receive a copy of tonight's math notes, please complete the survey at this link.  

Tuesday, February 10th

Happy Tuesday!!  

I’ll try my best to capture Monday’s and today’s actions.  

This week 5th graders throughout the district are taking some pre-testing assessments so we can analyze as a class and as individuals areas to focus on as we move towards the late April/early May testing.  The assessments are not used in determining report cards however the students are strongly encouraged to practice best learning and inference skills.  So that has taken up a significant amount of time both days.  Tomorrow we will have one more day of completing the assessments as a class.  

Math -- we are really hitting home on the idea of “estimating” before calculating their final answer.  Especially with both fractions and decimals students can become confused where a decimal should be placed and learning how to quickly & effectively estimate will ensure that they are computing reasonable answers.   Right now we are snaking between larger multiplication, division beyond writing “remainder” and multiplication & division w/ decimals.  As with many common core math concepts this does come with some new nomenclature and strategies that were not the norm circa 1980’s/90’s.  So you may hear “generic area model,”  “stacking method,” “guess and check” and divide/multiply by drawing your arithmetic as a box.  

Math night is tomorrow night.  Once again I get to team up with Mrs. Coupe/Shaw and teach or discuss with the parents tomorrow evening.  My talk and lesson will be focusing on “fractions.”  The evening begins at 6:30 and I begin my presentation at 7:15.  The parent academies will be taking place in my room at C-5 and the other C-Wing rooms will have math activities available for the students.  

Dead American -- Google Slides and/or Poster.  This week the students should be spending time in the evening working on their slides (i.e. Powerpoint) or poster.  They should also be giving some thought to their dress and look for their Wax Museum performances.  

We have all experienced the slow movement of time as you watch a overly verbose powerpoint slide.  Therefore we have spent the last two days doing mini lessons regarding how to speak with symbolic photos or words.  Students were explicitly asked to NOT copy and paste their research report and NOT to have long sentences on each slide.   They were challenged yesterday to think about “at least” five epic things that their dead American did.    Another way to think about it in their time period -- # (hashtags); hashtags are often used to concisely get a point across about a feeling or opinion.  Therefore students want to capture their idea concisely and also capture people’s attention through minimal word choice and/or symbolic photos/drawings.

Examples discussed:  

FDR -- a slide with a wheel chair and the words “overcoming physical disabilities”   and a slide with an eye catching photo from WW2 and the words “our leader through the great war”

Theodore Roosevelt -- a slide with an adorable photo of a teddy bear #themanbehindtheteaddybear  --- a slide with a breathtaking photo of a National Park #themanthatpreservedourparks  

Their research was already done in the larger research project.  The slide show and/or poster is to grab people’s attention regarding their dead American during a Wax Museum presentation where 90+ students will have set up shop and are eagerly wanting to perform.  They need to sell their person and capture someone’s attention when competing against 90 other presentations.  Slides with paragraphs of information is not going to get anyone’s attention.  

As the internet can attest -- yes, cute adorable kitten or fluffy white innocent seals do grab everyone’s attention however students were instructed NOT to use those type of photos to garner attention.  They need to be symbolic of their dead American.  

We continue to plug away with the non fiction reading and written response.  Here is this week’s reading/writing.   Students can only meet 5th grade standards and answer the questions correctly by referring explicitly to the passages read and writing with complete thoughts.  

Valentine’s Day:

The kids earned a pizza party for the entire class since they kicked so much reading butt during the December/January readathon.  Therefore we are going to have our pizza party on lunch right before our Friday afternoon Valentine’s Day party.   So unless your son/daughter does not like pizza, they do not have to bring a complete lunch on Friday.

Regarding Valentine’s Day:

1. Either bring a Valentine’s Day card for everyone or don’t bring any. Some students don’t even personalize the cards rather they autograph each one and that saves them the time of having to write out everyone’s name.  

2. A reminder that we do have a nut free classroom.  If you are bringing in candy to go with the Valentine’s Day card please keep our classroom a safe place.  

The Intel Field Trip --

A special thanks goes out to Mrs. Freitas.  All the teachers were wondering why were getting so much low volunteer drivers for this awesome free field trip.  She pointed out that we go on a Monday where the school day ends at 2:00 p.m. however we will not return until 3:00 p.m.   In reality we leave Intel at 1:30 and it all depends on the traffic Gods as we travel 680 North.  However no matter what we will return later than 2:00 p.m.  Therefore we have worked out the following plan in the hopes of getting 15 more driving spots:  

Parents with younger siblings (1st-4th) may have their child go directly to Mrs. Cargo’s classroom (C-7)  Mrs. Cargo will watch over and protect those kids until our return from the field trip.  All you have to do is tell us which kid(s) to expect and which classroom they are in.  We are going to utilize her 5th graders to assist in the herding of the younger ones back to room C-7.  

Therefore if you were concerned about having a safe place for your 1st-4th grader(s), until we return we have that covered.   Therefore if you can drive on the Intel field-trip please click onto this survey and let me know the details.  

Kind regards,

Mr. Hubbard

Homework for the week:

Math:

70-71	7-39 ODDS original problem/estimated numbers &answer / solve for the real answer	3	5	day 1
93-94	7-35 ALL original problem, estimated numbers & answer / solve for the real answer	4	5
114-115	9-30 ALL Original problem, estimate numbers & answers/ solve for the real answer.	5	4

Dead American Google Slide and/or Poster

Non-Fiction reading & written response  due Thursday  

Spelling Test and Vocab test due on Friday

Daily Vocab -- Thursday a “paragraph” based upon the vocabulary assignment is due.

Science with Ms. Katzman -- more brainpop and a reading/writing response