Thursday, January 6, 2011

Dear Time --- I’m asking for everyone to please bring in their most recent Reading Around the World.  My document went corrupt and I have a back saved as of November 1st.  So I need to update my document.

Project Time -- students are really researching and working well on this project.  Clearly the American Revolution is the most exciting topic so far.

Math:
Prepare and review for the Chapter 11 test on Tuesday.  Today was a review key concepts and get ready for the Tuesday test.
Here is the practice test that will be due on Tuesday morning:http://www.box.net/shared/static/t5eyh8yc7n.pdf
**quiz tomorrow :
There will be a quiz on Friday (tomorrow) where the students must solve two problems but show they can use the three ways taught in class:
1.  make the mixed numbers into improper fractions and then subtract
2.  use a number line to figure out the difference
3.  decompose numbers to make subtraction easier
Here are our notes:
http://www.acoe.org/acoe/files/EdServices/Math/SubtractingMixedNumbersV2.pdf

Theme 3 study guide and discussing how to best allocate our time to insure that we work enough time and most effectively on the theme test, grammar packet and the 5 paragraph essay.

We have 18 students that can be driven on the 18th for our Field Trip.  Please make sure that your insurance paperwork is completed and/or faxed into Mrs. Bastida.   We don’t have all of the paperwork back so there is hope that two more cars will volunteer and get us to 24 students.  

21st Learning at Dublin Elementary
Dublin Elementary is offering all of the 5th graders an opportunity to submit an entry that meets the theme “21st Learning at Dublin Elementary”   It has to be a presentation or media that is between 2 to 2.5 minutes.  The time guideline will be tightly enforced.  Students may work together with other students(K-5).   
All projects submitted on time will be displayed at our project fair and disseminated to our DES community.  The top 3 projects will have be shown at our April Dublin Elementary Night in front of the Dublin Unified School Board.
I have attached ideas and the brainstorm that all three classes created during our kick off meeting today:
http://www.box.net/shared/kzuzln26dy
Deadline to enter is:  Monday, March 7, 2010

Kind regards,
Mr. Hubbard
Homework for the week:

Math:
264-265 1-14 all due on Friday
Math Practice Test due on Tuesday 1/11th
http://www.box.net/shared/static/t5eyh8yc7n.pdf
Quiz on subtracting mixed #’s and use all three methods (see above).  
Chapter 11 Test will be on Tuesday, 1-11-11;

Grammar Packet -- due on Monday, 1-10-11

Free Write due on Friday --
“The best duo ever is.....” or “The best buddies ever are....”

5 paragraph essay
Final draft will be due on Friday, 1/14
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/TCR/0743932080_075.pdf
http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/userfiles/file/Outline%20graphic%20organizer.pdf

If you can spare a box or two of tissues, that would be great.  We have run out of nice tissue and are about to begin using government issued blister causing tissue.

Spelling Test is on 1-11

Theme 3 test is on 1-12
Here is the on-line link for the theme 3 study guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hocseGYpjFpIY51K4cFfZwF81xyOus_v3Xs7cu3TVM8/edit?hl=en

Theme 3 Projects will finalized and shown to the class on January 19th.

Wednesday, January 5, 2010

Library time w/ Ms. Klein.  
Students spent a great deal of time checking out books concerning the American Revolution.

We then spent the rest of the morning working on our theme 3 projects.  You can tell the students are really interested in the projects since it was deafening quiet in our room, except for the occasional student asking me a question, for a solid 60 minutes.  Students are in the early stages of researching and putting together their project game plan.

Math:
We discussed another two ways to subtract mixed numbers from our guys in Alameda.
Here is the examples and script that we used:http://www.acoe.org/acoe/files/EdServices/Math/SubtractingMixedNumbersV2.pdf
There will be a quiz on Monday where the students must solve two problems but show they can use the three ways taught in class:
1.  make the mixed numbers into improper fractions and then subtract
2.  use a number line to figure out the difference
3.  decompose numbers to make subtraction easier
Here are our notes:
http://www.acoe.org/acoe/files/EdServices/Math/SubtractingMixedNumbersV2.pdf

21st Learning at Dublin Elementary
Dublin Elementary is offering all of the 5th graders an opportunity to submit an entry that meets the theme “21st Learning at Dublin Elementary”   It has to be a presentation or media that is between 2 to 2.5 minutes.  The time guideline will be tightly enforced.  Students may work together with other students(K-5).   
All projects submitted on time will be displayed at our project fair and disseminated to our DES community.  The top 3 projects will have be shown at our April Dublin Elementary Night in front of the Dublin Unified School Board.
I have attached ideas and the brainstorm that all three classes created during our kick off meeting today:
http://www.box.net/shared/kzuzln26dy
Deadline to enter is:  Monday, March 7, 2010

Kind regards,
Mr. Hubbard
Homework for the week:

Math:
262-263 1-15 all due on Thursday
264-265 1-14 all due on Friday
Math Practice Test due on Tuesday 1/11th
Chapter 11 Test will be on Tuesday, 1-11-11;

Grammar Packet -- due on Monday, 1-10-11

Free Write due on Thursday --
“In 2011 I will.......”

Free Write due on Friday --
“The best duo ever is.....” or “The best buddies ever are....”

5 paragraph essay
Final draft will be due on Friday, 1/14
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/TCR/0743932080_075.pdf
http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/userfiles/file/Outline%20graphic%20organizer.pdf

If you can spare a box or two of tissues, that would be great.  We have run out of nice tissue and are about to begin using government issued blister causing tissue.

Spelling Test is on 1-11

Theme 3 test is on 1-12
Study guide was given to some students at the end of the day, the rest will receive on Wednesday morning.  
Here is the on-line link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hocseGYpjFpIY51K4cFfZwF81xyOus_v3Xs7cu3TVM8/edit?hl=en

Theme 3 Projects will finalized and shown to the class on January 19th.

Status Update for Theme 3 Project....

Here is your status update:
https://spreadsheets0.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEtnaWJJS1c0TXpOUUthdks4TEZxc0E6MA#gid=2

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Happy Tuesday...

Today, as always on Tuesday, was a super quick day.

Computer lab -- monthly STAR test (I’ll send home on Wednesday afternoon), 20 minutes of typing, proposal for their theme 3 project and finally begin studying and collecting notes for their project.

Math:
Subtracting fractions.
Here are the notes of the four problems that we did as a class:
http://www.box.net/shared/static/g99coh2yfj.pdf
The big idea is converting the mixed fractions into improper fractions so the students can easily subtract the two fractions.  
Tomorrow we will work on decomposition numbers so they can subtract.  
Students had 30 minutes to work on tonight’s homework.

5 paragraph essays:
We watched the Brainpop on 5 paragraph essays
Used our clickers to take a quiz on effective writing.
We then discussed how to “hand off” or “transition” between the body paragraphs.
Here are some great links that we looked at today and can be helpful going forward:
Transition phrases for many situations:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/writing-composition/vocabulary/1780.html

Links on graphic organizers for completing a 5 paragraph:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/TCR/0743932080_075.pdf
http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/userfiles/file/Outline%20graphic%20organizer.pdf

They then had PE at the end of the day.  

Students should have brought home:
1. The permission slip for our field trip AND paperwork for people who can volunteer to drive and chaperon.    Please get your paperwork into Mrs. Bastida ASAP so she can clear you as a driver.
2.  The 15 page grammar practice packet.  This packet is due on Monday.  We had a loooong talk about not waiting until Sunday night or trying to do all of the pages at once.  Grammar is what is hurting students in our theme tests and on our May testing.  Therefore we had a long talk about mindfully completing and learning from the packet.  

FYI - the after-school typing program is starting up again in mid January.  The sign up sheets will be going home this week.  Last class filled up and they had to turn people away.   Typing is a necessary mandatory skill that this group of kids will need as they go forward.  Please considering signing up when the application comes out.

Kind regards,
Mr. Hubbard

Homework for the week:

Math:
262-263 1-15 all due on Thursday
264-265 1-14 all due on Friday
Math Practice Test due on Tuesday 1/11th
Chapter 11 Test will be on Tuesday, 1-11-11;

Grammar Packet -- due on Monday, 1-10-11

Free Write due on Thursday --
“In 2011 I will.......”

Free Write due on Friday --
“The best duo ever is.....” or “The best buddies ever are....”

5 paragraph essay
Final draft will be due on Friday, 1/14

If you can spare a box or two of tissues, that would be great.  We have run out of nice tissue and are about to begin using government issued blister causing tissue.

Spelling Test is on 1-11

Theme 3 test is on 1-12
Study guide was given to some students at the end of the day, the rest will receive on Wednesday morning.  
Here is the on-line link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hocseGYpjFpIY51K4cFfZwF81xyOus_v3Xs7cu3TVM8/edit?hl=en

Theme 3 Projects will finalized and shown to the class on January 19th.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Welcome back!! Happy 2011.

We started off the day with 30 minutes of silent reading.  We also discovered that the County of Alameda that supplies all of our Internet connectivity was having some connectivity issues.  So the gang of students wanting to take AR tests and see where they left off in math could not do that.  I also had to kick it “old school” with the teaching, well not totally the dark ages since the Smart Board still worked fine.  Just we had no access to Internet/email during the day.

Students then did an in-class free-write about............you guessed it, “what did you do over your 2 week holiday?”  
We then discussed again how to write a great 5 paragraph essay.  We spent time today discussing the introduction paragraph and the conclusion paragraph.   The notes should be in their notebook, if not, we captured our ideas on Smartboard.  I attached the link with all the notes right here:http://www.box.net/shared/static/4ukbo6voyu.pdf

Tomorrow we will cover the 3 body paragraphs.  How to stay on topic, how to “hand off” to fellow paragraphs and about putting this all together.  
The final 5 paragraph essay will be due on Friday the 14th.  I prefer  that the final draft is typed out.

Newest Theme Project -- we just completed theme 3 when the holiday began.  Therefore the over the next two weeks students will be researching, learning and putting together a presentation related to the American Revolution.  Presentations will begin on Tuesday the 18th.

We began reviewing the theme 3 review test.  Students and I discussed view point, perspective and opinions.  We also went over what else the rest of the theme test will cover.   The handout which will be similar to our discussion and note taking today will come out tomorrow.
Also their grammar packet regarding the grammar review will come out as well tomorrow.

Math--
We reviewed the math lessons that we covered and did prior to the 2 weeks off.  We did examples on the board and discussed the concepts (e.g. Venn diagram and the bubble method).  
Since it was review and concepts they hadn’t worked on for two weeks, students were given 35 minutes to work in class on tonight’s review homework:
266-267  Sections A,B,C and D -- all problems.
Here are our notes -- http://www.box.net/shared/static/4ukbo6voyu.pdf

Plan for the week and write in our day planners....students did this the last part of the day.  

****We have a field trip on the 18th!!****
It is the awesome field trip to Lawrence Livermore Lab.  If you can drive and be a chaperon that would be highly appreciated.   Sorry we don’t need chaperon only people.  The labs are super super small and the Lab asks that we take a minimum amount of people.  
We leave promptly at 8:30 a.m. and drive to the Lab;
We return prior 12:30.   
You can possibly only take a ½ day at work if you need to work it out with your employer.  
If you can just drive to and from that is fine as well.  The field trip takes place in a self-enclosed visitor's center and then in a real lab.  So if you only get away to drive us to the lab and back, that would be fine as well.
Regarding field trip paperwork, I will send home the permission slip tomorrow.  I will also include the driving paperwork.   If you have not filled out the paperwork this school year, you will need to do so again.  Also often the insurance paperwork is usually only good for 6 months or less, so you may need to send in your most up to date insurance paperwork as well.  

Homework for the week:

Math:
260-261 1-30 all due on Wednesday
262-263 1-15 all due on Thursday
264-265 1-14 all due on Friday
Math Practice Test due on Tuesday 1/11th
Chapter 11 Test will be on Tuesday, 1-11-11;

Grammar Packet -- due on Monday, 1-10-11
*will be handed out on ¼

Free Write due on Thursday --
“In 2011 I will.......”

Free Write due on Friday --
“The best duo ever is.....” or “The best buddies ever are....”

5 paragraph essay
Final draft will be due on Friday, 1/14

If you can spare a box or two of tissues, that would be great.  We have run out of nice tissue and are about to begin using government issued blister causing tissue.

Spelling Test is on 1-11

Theme 3 test is on 1-12
**Theme 3 study guide will go home on ¼

Theme 3 Projects will finalized and shown to the class on 1/18.  

Kind regards and Happy New Years.

Mr. Hubbard

Advanced Vocabulary for Week 3

https://spreadsheets0.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFFORURKRHBuMHB3bThLeHZMSjRQeUE6MA#gid=0

Thursday, December 16, 2010

I just discovered that www.delicious.com/iamron is being shut down.  Apparently our friends in Sunnyvale were let go.  So I am in a partial panic because I have about 7 years of great educational links saved on there.   I may have an email out in January explaining to find my helpful links go to www.diigo.com or something.  

So tomorrow is a HALF DAY.   The day ends at 12:30.

Students may choose to wear pajamas or extra comfortable clothing.  It just must be appropriate for a school environment.  More importantly it must be appropriate for the upcoming rain that we will be receiving on Friday and Saturday.   I’ve heard up to 10+ inches of rain will be hitting us.  

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/16/MNKO1GR5FG.DTL

Therefore students need to wear shoes and bring a change of clothes in case of puddles or monsoons.  

**No pillows, no stuffed animals and definitely NO electronic games of any kind.  

Today:
Dear time -- we had 45 minutes to read whatever we wanted, to work on homework due today or tomorrow and/or work on our on-line math.  

Character Attribute Assembly:
All winners are selected and voted on by the students.  I do not break ties or vote.  
Respect -- Derek D
Responsibility -- Megan S. and Matthew W.
Caring -- Nicki B
Congratulations to both the individual winners and to the class for some wise selections.

Math:
We reviewed last night’s fraction addition homework.  
Tonight’s homework:  Complete the addition with unlike denominators artwork.
Students had 35 minutes to work on the 11 problems and the minimal art requirement.
This is due tomorrow.   They do NOT have to complete the art + math work on subtracting unlike denominators.

Grammar  --  adjectives and more adjectives

Social Studies -- we found all 12 Bill of Right infractions from yesterday’s reading and homework.

Spelling and Vocabulary test......
**Those doing the advanced vocabulary have until tomorrow to turn that in and take the on-line exam.

Cargo and Wilmott rotations.
Art work with cool snowflakes and science quiz on the periodic table.  

Kind regards, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Years!!
Mr. Hubbard

Homework for the Friday:
Math:

1. Handout that is math + art --- adding fractions with unlike denominators
2. Complete the 1st part of the year math review (56 questions began at school on Tuesday)

Free-Write due on Friday:
“To make the world a better place the world could use more......”