Beyond The Desk

First of all, thank you for all your support in helping your child to keep up with their reading this week and in being involved with the Home Reading program.

As we went through the week, one thing popped up that I just wanted to make a note of. In the evenings, after your child has read, please make sure that they are putting the amount of time read that evening on the calendar page associated with the month we are on. Also, please make sure you are signing it so that I know that you are aware of the time spent reading as well as to make sure students are not just writing times down and not actually doing the reading. The time and signature should be on the calendar page; not where the homework is written.

Over the weekend, students need to take a book they have read over the week or weekend and write a personal response to it on the reading response pages in their reading logs. There are suggestions for topics on the Reading Response page in the reading log. Students only need to fill in one box with their response. This will be due on Monday.

Please know that if this is unfamiliar to you or you have not seen any of this coming home, all information and pages are available in the menu at the top of the blog under the title banner.

On Thursday, there are a number of fun things going on in the intermediate department.

In the afternoon students will be doing some fun fall activities out and around the school celebrating the beautiful fall weather and season God has given us.

In the morning, students in our class will be partnering with Mrs. Goosen’s class to do some pumpkin math. We will be estimating and measuring the size of our pumpkins, estimating and measuring the seeds inside, weighing our pumpkins, and talking about polygon shapes. It should be a fun morning full of pumpkin math!

We are looking for any parent helpers willing to come out and help with the morning pumpkin math fun. You will be there to just have fun with us and help with the groups as they work through the math tasks. If you are interested in helping us out, please stop by and talk with me or send me an email at ihancock@highroadacademy.com

We are off to a busy start already this week! Today your child will be bringing home the final component of their homework. The home reading log will help students with tracking their daily reading at home and encourage them to think of reading as an activity that doesn’t just happen at school! I have embeded a copy of the reading log here so you know what to look for.

If you look under the title banner of this blog, you will notice a new link about the Home Reading Program. Clicking on this link will take you to all the information about the Home Reading program and how to do it with your child. Please note that I understand that our daily lives are busy and filled with many activities. I have told the students that it is okay if they can’t read every night. However, it shouldn’t be a pattern of non-reading or only reading once a week. We should try to read for as many nights as we can during the week.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Home Reading 2015 by ihancock

Here is the spelling for this week:

P5 by ihancock

Here is the link to Spelling City. Remember to bring in your completed pre-test to get a bonus mark on your spelling test.

The memory verse for this week is long so please do not leave it to the last moment!

Galatians 5: 25, 26 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

We had a great day today. Lots of projects being worked on. Check out our Twitter Feed to see more of what is happening.

Your child should be bringing home a note on the Engrade Marking system. This site will allow you to access your child’s marks as they are put in. I am slowly digging myself out from under a pile of marking so there may not be much there right now. There will certainly be more things added as we go on towards the end of the month.

Next week is the first of two Scholastic Book Fairs happening at Highroad. Starting on Tuesday, you will be able to view the books in the front lobby of the school. Students will also get a chance to view the books throughout the day on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend!!!

Here is the spelling for the week:

P4 by ihancock

Here is the link to Spelling City. You can also get to it by going to spellingcity.com -> clicking “Search” -> searching by teacher name and putting in “Ian Hancock” for the teacher name. Remember to bring in your completed pre-test with 100% to get your bonus mark on the Spelling Test!

Our memory verse for the week is:

John. 1:12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

So, today we kicked off our Genius Hour. It was a great assembly and the kids were all excited and inspired to start Genius Hour. During the next week, we are going to be going through the process of helping students figure out what they are most passionate and curious about using a number of different sites and brainstorming together. You should have received a note today form your child talking more about how Genius Hour works. It was a great kick-off to Genius Hour.

But not quite as exciting as this!!!!!

A new trailer for the Star Wars movie!!!! Huzzah!!!!!

Hi! How was your Thanksgiving? Excellent! Can you believe that it is almost the middle of October already?

It’s been a bit crazy these last couple of weeks with everything going on! As you may know, we have been using our chromebooks like crazy and really enjoying them. While our projects with them may not always go according to plan (Ahem. Science on Tuesday.) We are learning lots, experimenting with using the chromebooks lots and getting great things done with them. In Science, we have started our unit on Habitats and our big project right now is to use the chromebooks to help us answer and record our thoughts on these two big questions:

What are the different habitats/ecosystems living things live in?

How are the habitats/ecosystems different?

Once students are done finding their information, they are going to use the information to build a shared powerpoint displaying information about the habitats the whole class discovered, which will be displayed on the tv screen. Following that, students will use the information gathered to create posters about their habitats, which they will display around the tv screen. It’s a big project and we are moving right along!!!

Some notes:

• As you may have guessed, there is no spelling list this week.
• I will be hearing their memory verses from last week tomorrow.

Here is the spelling list for the week. As it is a short week, followed by another short week, we will be doing the spelling test on Tuesday.

Spelling P3 1 by ihancock

Here is the link to Spelling City. Remember to bring in your pre-test with 100% to get a bonus mark on the spelling test!

As it is a short week, there is only one verse for the week. Again, I will hear the memory verse on Tuesday:

Ephesians 2:8,9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.