Beyond The Desk – Page 117 – The Class Blog for Mr. Hancock's Grade 5/6 Class

Stephen! Are you reading this?

January 13, 2009 eoin24 Comments 1 comment

Just checking!!

I’ve been hearing lots of great things about the spelling city. The students seem to really be enjoying the activities and the ability to practice their spelling words. Here are the spelling words (m-6) for the week for you to print out if you like. They are also on the box.net widget on the side.

M-6

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I am thinking of a way to reward the students for using the spelling city site to encourage them to use it. I will let you know about what I come up with soon. Speaking of tests, we forgot about the 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10 times table test today. We will instead be doing it for Friday. That gives the students a couple more days in which to practice.

Mrs. Caswell has passed out the recorders for the students as you may have noticed today (and I am sure you have noticed!). There is also a note that was to go home with it as well. The students will be bringing the notes home tomorrow. You can also get the notice in the box.net widget on the side.

The memory verse for the week is from Ephesians 4:29:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Thank you working so hard on voting for the site. We came a long way and from far behind. We didn’t make it but had a good run nonetheless. Thank you for your support. I have not been able to write as much as I wish I could. I am still adjusting to having a baby at home. However, I am going to really make sure I get some more posts out during the week to help you stay better informed. Thanks!

First Spelling City List

January 9, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Last year, before the Christmas Break, I found this great site where students can practice their spelling words, and play word games with their spelling words. It is a great site and I am sure that the students will love. The best thing is that it is free.

There are three sections to the site. The first one is “Test Me”. This part of the site will test the students on how well they know their spelling words. Students can have the word read to them and then hear the word in a sentence. Once they are ready, they simply type the word into the blank. When they are all done, students can check to see how they have done, print a report and print a certificate.

The next section is the “Teach Me” part. The site will read, spell and give each spelling word in a sentence for the students.

The last section is “Play a Game”. Using the spelling words, students can choose games to play to help reinforce the spelling words. There are a number to choose from. There are also handwriting pages with the spelling words to help practice their spelling and handwriting at the same time.

To get to the spelling list for each week, simply click on the picture below and you will be taken right to the spelling list for this week.Each Monday you will see that picture and be able to click on it.

First Week Back

January 8, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Well, even though it was a short week, many things have been happening here in grade 3. Along with the news about being a finalist in the 2008 Weblog Awards, I have been looking out for new ideas and sites to add to our array of technology use in the class. Though I love technology, the massive number of applications and internet sites now available can be overwhelming at times. It can be very hard to choose the best sites to use that will have a longer lastin g educational impact on students. One of the hard things is also the fact that the students have not been able to get into the computer lab. That, however, will change this term with some time being given to the class to get into the computer lab.

We are also looking to incorporate some technology in terms of our social unit and our spelling. Later on, at the end of our mapping unit students will be learning all about longitude and latitude using a gps device to create “geocaches”. I think this will be a lot of fun for the students as well as something new for them. I have also found a great site to help inspire some interest in working on spelling words through the week. I won’t give it away now but I think the students will find it a lot of fun.

Today I introduced the students to a new site in Art. The site is called bomomo.com, It’s an art site where students can guide brushes of differing sizes and styles to create abstract art. Students can then save their art work to show others later. The site is alot of fun though the saving part might be a little difficult to do. Parents, you may have to help them to save the files if the students are wanting to print them out.

The voting blitz is still on for the 2008 Weblogs Awards. You can vote every 24 hours by going to:

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-education-blog/

and voting. One of the students said that he didn’t see anything when he clicked on the link. In that case, you may have to click on the link below to update your “flash”. On the next site, click on the yellow button with the words “Agree and Install” on it to download and install the new flash program. After that, you shouldn’t have any problems.

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/?promoid=DXLUJ

As tomorrow is Friday, we will be having our class meeting. If you are not aware, our class meetings happen every Friday that there is school. I use class meetings to talk about the good things that classmates do to encourage character development and positive citizenship. We also discuss, anonymously, any issues that the students may be having in the class. The goal is to give students skills and ideas on how to solve problems involving relationships and building lasting, caring friendships. My goal is to help students to move away from always having to have an adult solve their problems and rather, give students strategies and skills to know how to navigate the difficult area of dealing with problems on their own. As I tell the students, I am not always going to be with them and they need some ways to solve problems on their own. We will have lots to talk about as we deal with some normal issues from this week and focus on ways to remind each other that vacation is over and we need to get back to the business of learning.

Speaking of the business of learning, students have a test next week on the 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, and 10 times tables. Practicing those times tables with flash cards would be very helpful in preparing students for the test on Tuesday. You can also use the ideas and worksheets on Math Fact Cafe and Multiplication.com to help them prepare.

Best Education Blog Finalist

January 7, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

I’ll write more later, but I just wanted to let everyone know that our class blog is one of the finalists for Best Education Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards. This is very neat and exciting for our class.

I didn’t even realize that we had been nominated until I started to notice tons of traffic coming to our site. I checked out where all the traffic was coming from and saw they were all coming from the weblog awards site. Checking it out, I noticed that we had been named one of the finalists. I was extremely honoured and excited. I work very hard to try and make our site an source of fun and information for parents, students, friends and families so I was very pleased to see our nomination.

However, we are still in the voting process. You can vote as well. If you go to this site (click on the blue link) you can vote for our class. Here is the link:

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-education-blog/

Once you get to the site, look for our class blog and click in the circle beside it to vote. I believe that you are only allowed to vote once, but keep checking to see.

Polls close Tuesday January 13, 2009 at 10:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is 5:00 p.m. (EST) and 2:00 p.m. (PST).

Thank you and vote away!!!!

Merry Christmas

December 21, 2008 eoin24 Comments 8 comments

This will probably be my last post before Christmas with everything going on and leaving for Edmonton to celebrate Christmas with my family. However, I just wanted the chance to thank everybody for a great last week at school. I especially want to thank all the parents that came in to help with the crafts and the very thoughtful gifts the children gave. I have felt very blessed to be your children’s teacher this year.

Though apparently it is not good manners to put more than one video in a post, I just found a couple of great videos I wanted to share as a last Christmas gift to all of you.

The first is a holiday video sung by the Christian group “Sixpence None the Richer”:

The second is a great video done by a guy who thought up the idea of traveling around the world with his girlfriend and taking videos of himself dancing in these foreign places. Now, you may think that that is crazy but he has had over 30 million views and has received sponsorships from Stride Gum and Visa. Having said all that, the videos themselves are great and certain to bring a smile, if not a laugh, to your face.

Finally, fitting the season, here is a scene from the Nativity Story. If you haven’t seen the movie, it is really well done and my family and my wife’s parents all sat down together last weekend to watch it together.

To part, my family would like to wish your family a wonderful, safe and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Onwards Toward That Good Weekend

December 13, 2008 eoin24 Comments 8 comments

I love weekends even more now. I get to spend lots of time with my daughter!! I have had lots of requests for more pictures. I’m sorry but with one thing and another I just haven’t had time to get them off the camera and onto the computer. That is one of the things to do this weekend (besides catch up on sleep and sleep in a little . . . oh wait! I can’t do that anymore (sigh)) Oh well . . .

Anyway, we got to play some smartboard games today on a Christmas theme. I put one of the games/activities on the side links for the students.

Otherwise, it was a good day with the students working hard. We got to see the high school students put on their Christmas play which was really well done. The students had a spelling test and we had a very good class meeting.

Next week will be crazy busy with crafts from Tues to Weds. I have some wonderful moms coming in to help for those days. If you are still interested in helping, let me know. We are going Tues (10:30-12:15), Weds (9:15-10:15) and Thurs (10:30-12:15). We are also going to be doing a secret Santa with students picking a secret person in the class to give a gift too. However, I do something a little different. At the end of the week, the students will be giving their Secret Santa the craft that was done the best. This is a much nicer way I feel, than having to get parents to buy yet another gift. This is something the children have made and worked hard on.

Tuesday is the last day for the toy drive. So bring any toys that you feel may be suitable for then. On the toy topic (but slightly different) here is one of my favorite songs for the season which is strangely enough, from the Muppet Christmas Carol. You can listen to it here:

muppets-one-more-sleep-till-christmas

Finally, to end off on a Christmas note, I found this speech written last year for the Christmas Season and thought it to be very true. So I thought I would post it again here. Enjoy!

I keep seeing in the newspapers that it might not be a “good” Christmas because while visits to stores are up, purchases per visit are down very slightly.

There is also some fear that it might not be a “good” holiday season because fears about the housing correction will scare shoppers into keeping their wallets zipped.

I’m fascinated by this, because I have looked through a Concordance of the Old and New Testaments and I do not find the word “shopping” even once.

I’m not sure when the idea got to be dominant that a “good” Christmas was about total spending, but here respectfully are some alternative suggestions:

Maybe a good Christmas for this most blessed of nations would be when we as a nation and as communities made sure the homeless had a warm, safe place to sleep.

Maybe a good Christmas would not be about buying your kids the latest gizmo for listening to obscene lyrics, but about teaching them that if they are fortunate enough to have extra time or extra money, they can help out at the old age home or at the local animal shelter.

Maybe a good time would not be buying your parents sweaters they will never use, but taking a trip to see them and telling them how much you appreciate that they spent the heart of their lives taking care of you, feeding you, teaching you, putting a roof over your head, warming you with their love and concern.

Maybe the best time of all would be telling your husband or your wife that you would be lost without him or her and that you’re sorry for the selfish things you did that year, and you’ll be better next year.

Christmas presents rarely fit and rarely are to your taste. They sit in your closet and collect dust forever.

But gifts in this special, sacred time of love and caring to your family, your friends, and your neighborhood – those are never forgotten. They bring peace of mind for years.

And I seem to recall from my vanished youth that this is the holiday of the prince of peace, not the queen of diamonds.

A Busy Week

December 11, 2008 eoin24 Comments 1 comment

It’s been a busy week here in Grade 3. Plans are underway for our concert on the last day of school. Students received their report cards today and Parent/Teacher interviews are on Monday. These are just a few of the things that we have been doing or are gearing up to as we count down the days to Christmas and Christmas vacation.

In terms of school work, for Language Arts, we have been working hard on our paragraphs. We have started using the word “because” as a way to connect and elaborate on ideas. Each paragraph must have at least 3 “because” words in it.

For Social Studies, we have finished our look at communities and have been working on mapping for awhile. Today, we introduced the idea of a bird’s eye view. I even allowed the students to stand on their desks to illustrate the idea. I told the students that this would be their one and only chance to stand on their desks. The students were enthused and had fun. We then took a tour around Google Earth to look at the various levels of Bird’s Eye views we could explore within the program noting the amount of detail we saw as we moved further and further out towards space. We then talked about map legends.

In science, we are starting our major project in the building unit. Students have been given a choice of three projects: A bridge, two car garage or a tower. Students have also been given a budget which they must stay under as they purchase their materials. It should be a great project and I am working on putting our budget sheets onto the blog so you and the students can keep track of their expenses as well as progress on each of the projects from home. I will update you on how that will work as we get into the project. I have told the students that I will not just let them build any old thing. An engineer must have a plan and keep track of their expenses (though we won’t use the Olympic buildings as an example, eh?). It should be a lot of fun and the students have been looking forward to this for a long time.

Well, it’s been a long night and I am just about to go to bed but I just thought I would make a mention of our toy drive again. Please keep bringing in those toys! Also, cans!!! More Cans!! Yeah!! Also, I have had some wonderful moms volunteer for the craft days next week (Tues, Weds Thurs). If any other moms are interested and want to spend some fun times with the students making crafts, please let me know. The more the merrier!!!

Speaking of the concert, I though I would give you a sneak preview of one of our concert pieces. The students here are doing an amazing job and I think you will love seeing this piece performed at the concert!

A Whole Bunch of Things

December 8, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

First of all, here is the spelling for this week. You can click here spelling-m-5 or you can print it out below. It is also in the box.net area.
Spelling M 5

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

Students also have a memory verse and poem to memorize. The poem is for the concert next Friday. The memory verse is due on the Thursday of the next week. The memory verse is Luke 2:10-12:

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

The poem is in the students planners. We would like them to have the poem memorized as soon as possible.

As mentioned last week, the elementary is holding a toy drive. We are looking for used toys or books in excellent condition that could be donated to those children who don’t usually get a whole lot for Christmas due to various circumstances. I am also sweetening the pot by giving away four tickets (2 each) to the two students who bring in the most items.

We are also still looking for opportunities/ideas for service projects for the class. If you ahve any ideas, post a message on the blog or come and talk to me.

Crafts: Next week, we are going to be doing Christmas Crafts as a class. If you are interested in helping out, we are going to be doing the crafts from Tues-Thurs next week. On Tuesday, we will start at 10:35. On Wednesday and Thursday, we will go from 9:15 to 10:15. Please let me know which days you might be interested in helping out if you can. You don’t have to commit to all three days. If you just want to come in on one of the days, that would be great. If you can make two or three days, that would be great too.

Finally, here is a little video that reminds us in this busy time what the season is all about. Enjoy!!!

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