Beverly Cleary SchoolOld Updates
November 28, 2011
Hello Parent/Guardians,
I hope your Thanksgiving break was restful and full of joy and food. I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the next 14 days until Winter Break, but who's counting! A couple of miscellaneous items before I let you know what's going on in our class this week with content. I've noticed that supplies such as pencils and paper are running low and many students need to replenish their own stock. Music is ending in 2 weeks. On Monday, December 12, our class will have an informal performance along with grades 2-5. Our class will perform with the other 5th grade classes at 10:45--11:10. Although, I'm bummed that music is ending, many of you heard we hired a .5 art teacher. This means we have art once a week starting this week on Thursdays for 45 minutes. Yay!
In class, we're starting Unit 3 in Scott Foresman. The overall unit concept question is "What do people gain from the work of inventors and artists?" Great question. The question for this week is "How do inventors inspire our imaginations?" Besides reading a play using context clues to find the author's purpose and look at the story structure, we'll use this unit to look at scientific method. Students will also create an invention and an illustration. This week's reading log focuses on author's purpose. I want student to go deeper than the purpose being: to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to express ideas. I'd like to see them be more specific about why the author was writing their novel and give examples from the text (with page numbers). Until I see the students mastering the ideas from Scott Foresman in an applied way using literary analysis, we'll continue to support the district curriculum and alternate between that and class novels and literature circles.
In writing, we're wrapping up our class Seedfolks book. The final copy vignettes (2 copies) is due on Wednesday. I sent home directions about expectations for our published piece prior to the conference break. Our spelling post-test is on Monday, December 5. We have one list this week. If students scored less than 10/20, I'd like them to write the words 5 times for practice and turn this in by Friday. If students scored 16 or better and they'd like to challenge themselves, they can add the 5 extra words (see the website). If students scored 18 or better and would like more of a challenge, they must choose 10 of the words from this week's list AND find 10 new words that follow the "schwa" rule and submit these to me by Wednesday. All students have a vocabulary story due on Friday. 4th graders should incorporate 10 words into the story. 5th grade should incorporate at least 14 words. Challenge: incorporate all 20.
That sums up the week in a broad brushstoke.
Sincerely,Liz
November 14, 2011
Hello Parents/Guardians,
A full week of school and then a wonderful week of family time, traditions, and resting. Please remember students have no school next week, however, we do have conferences on Monday and Tuesday. Forgot your schedule time? Please refer to the website. I'd love to have your child join us. This is also a good time to check out our Book Fair with your child before or after your conference. Book fair starts today and goes until Tuesday, November 22. You can donate a book to the library or classroom library in addition to your own home collection. Another way to help our library with new books is the Book Change program. Donate any change or money by tomorrow. Scholastic gives us $1.50 for every dollar we raise. The class that donates the most change gets to help choose what books the library purchases.
This week in class we have a presentation by Metro on Earth Choices on Friday afternoon. We'll have a presentation in January and March from Metro as well. Please remember the second group of 4th graders will go to Whitaker Pond on Wednesday, November 16 from noon until the end of the day. Please have them dress weather appropriate. It doesn't look like they will get the fantastic weather the group last week had. :-(
This week in class we're wrapping up our Seedfolks unit with our own class book. Students will list and identify traits about a character they are developing using a web before drafting a rough draft. Then students will apply what they learned about similies, culture, and community to their rough drafts. We'll peer conference and review the six traits of writing before writing our final drafts. I'd like final copies to be typed out since we are publishing the book. The final copy due date will be decided as a class by the end of the week. My preference is Tuesday, November 29th or Wednesday, November 30th. Students are also creating an oil pastel illustration to go along with their writing for our book that we're completing this week. Today, we had a vocabulary/spelling quiz on the last of our Seedfolks vocab words. Our next reading unit will be Scott Foresman Unit 3. I anticipate starting the read aloud "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" I haven't read the book, but I'm going on the recommendation of our librarian, students, and fellow colleagues. If you have any opinions, please let me know in the next week.
We'll continue with our science and social studies this week in bits and pieces. Still working on the same units as last week and tying up loose ends before next week.
I look forward to seeing you next week. Enjoy the break.
Sincerely,
Liz Kobs
Hello Parents/Guardians,
Please remember we have no school this week on Thursday and Friday due to teacher planning and Veteran's holiday. I'm sending home a written reminder about your scheduled conference time with your child today and I've also posted the schedule by child's last name on the website. Please remember to be respectful of the 20 minute time and being on time. I highly recommend your child comes with you, actually I prefer it, so they are in on the team communication. Also, I like them to know how wonderful I think they are! It's no secret what we talk about at conferences.
Last week we finally got to some much needed science! Yay! 4th graders started to dissect their owl pellets and 5th graders worked on building foam mountains and learning about topographic maps. We'll continue this for the next 2 weeks. Fourth grade will focus on skeletons, classifying bones, and the function of our bones/joints. Fifth grade will focus on contour lines and intervals, aerial photography of regional mountains, landform vocabulary, and making their own landform maps.
The fourth grade field trip to Whitaker Pond is this week and next. The following students are going on November 9: Owen, Remy, Sasha, Aidan, Sophie, Eleanor, and Abby. The following students are going on November 16: Jack, Grant, Graham, Caitlyn, Nora, Montana, and Hannah. Students will eat lunch in the classroom before they depart at noon. Students should come dressed in appropriate outdoor clothing and shoes. They will not return to school until the end of the day. If you'd like to join your child on the field trip, it is much appreciated. Please let me know by Wednesday and show up to our classroom by 11:50 the day of the field trip.
We have a couple assignments due this Wednesday, the end of the 1st quarter. A published writing piece from personal writer's workshop time and 6 community service hours (5th grade ONLY). There is no reading log this week. We do have vocabulary strips for our last set of vocabulary words from Seedfolks due on Monday, November 14, the same day as the vocab quiz.
I've sent this email without a blind copy for our room parents, Meghan Ruona (mruona@hotmail.com) and Annette Stroud (4nnette.stroup@gmail.com) so they can see all the addresses for their own list serve. They will need to send out some group emails regarding our auction/art project in the future.
Enjoy the 4 day weekend!
Sincerely, Liz Kobs
Hello Parents/Guardians,
Happy Halloween! Have a safe and fun evening. I didn't give any homework this evening in math or reading. Reading log is only 90 minutes this week and due on Friday. In class this week, we're working on our writer's workshop published piece in the computer lab tomorrow and next week as well.
We're continuing with Seedfolks and studying similies, hyberbole, and analogy. We're also comparing and contrasting characters this week and answering reading comprehension questions. We took the vocabulary quiz today over the words from last week. I'm having the class redo the first vocabulary quiz because many students didn't show passing progress. This is redo quiz is on Friday this week. We're also looking at culture and this will lead into our next writing project....our Personal Culture books.
Passport check is this Friday. That's about all that is new this week...the rest is continuation from last week. Our Spooky Splat booth was a hit on Friday night. Thank you to all the volunteers that helped set up, during, and clean up. The kids loved it!
Have a great week. Can you believe it's already November? Remember there's no school next Thursday or Friday.
Sincerely,
Liz Kobs
Dear Parents/Guardians,
What a beautiful start to the week. Sunny afternoons. :-) Here's what's going on in our classroom this week and other announcements.
Reading:
This week we're starting our class novel, Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman. This is a wonderful book about a neighborhood in Cleveland, a vacant lot, and one little girl that creates a community through one action and starts a garden. I chose this novel with several goals in mind. The main goal focusing on reading skills from Scott Foresman. The reading skill focus is comparing and contrasting while enforcing what we've learned from Unit 1. I'm also using this novel to teach point of view and inferential comprehension. I really like this book because of its multicultural perspectives and the focus on community. I'll use the concepts of relationship and change. The significant questions for the unit are:
- How does one person’s action cause change?
- How do barriers affect our relationships? What are barriers?
- How do relationships build community?
I'll also use this novel to teach figurative language, specifically metaphors and similes. Another reason I chose this book is the focus on the community garden. We have plot 7 in Beverly Cleary's garden this year. Yay! In the computer lab this week, students researched different crops to plant, where they grow best, how they grow, and other inquiry questions they came up with around our garden. Speaking of our garden, I'd like to have some volunteers help us with our fall planting. If your interested, please email me. It would be nice if we chose a few dates for students to help afterschool if possible, so those who need to earn community service, can use that as an option.
Writing:
Our next writing assignment revolves around scary stories. This week I've read scary stories and we're brainstorming elements of a scary story (setting, characters, and suspense) By the end of the week we'll write our rough drafts. My anticipation is we'll finish this just in time for our scary story writing celebration on Monday, October 31. Speaking of that date, students are NOT allowed to where Halloween costumes to school this year. However, they are allowed to where them to Spook-o-rama on Friday, October 28. Since Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I'm bummed that we can't dress up, I'm suggesting that we show our school spirit by wearing orange and black. No, this isn't a hidden agenda to get Duck fans in Beaver colors. :-) Our class will sponsor a booth at Spook-o-rama this year and we're brainstorming what it will be. I'll let Annette Stroud know and she'll coordinate as our room parent. Thanks Annette!
Other miscellanous items:
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5th grade community service--don't forget 6 community service hours are due by the end of the quarter.
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Please remember to initial the planner each night.
Enjoy the week,
Liz Kobs
October 12, 2011
Hello Parents/Guardians,
It's nice to be back from Outdoor School! It was a great experience, but not the same as a full week. Having experienced both programs I can tell you the 2 night experience is not as nearly life changing as the 5 night program. Not even close! I really hope the school board, businesses, and the greater community will find a way to bring back the full program for the students in my class next year and the year after. It's not just academics like soil, animals, plants, and water the students learn about but a bigger picture of what it means to be part of a community and how a community needs everyone to care for each other to make it successful. Things like manners, citiizenship, jobs/duties, and making connections are also part of outdoor school. Enough of my soap box. Want to do more....feel free to write a letter to the school board or visit the friends of outdoor school site to see how you can help.
On Monday, we walked over to Grant Park and found some items for our Andy Goldsworthy inspired creations. The weather held out. Groups brainstormed when we returned about their creation. I asked each group to choose at least one element of art (line, shape, or color) to focus on. We'll create these on Thursday after lunch in the grass courtyard outside our window on the south side of the building. I'll take pictures of these creations. When picking up your child after school, feel free to see if there art is still there. Today we brainstormed a list of further inquiry questions about relationships, art, or nature. The list of questions was unbelievable. List of questions. Next week, we'll reflect about our whole process. My plan is to tie the concept of relationships into many other content areas like science, social studies, and reading.
In writing, we're wrapping up our scar stories. I asked students to finish their rough drafts last week and have an adult give ideas on revision. Today we started our final copies and these are due on Thursday. Students asked if they could type their stories and this is ok with me as long as they type it. :-) However, this is not required.
Tuesday I sent home midterms for students. I filled out one for each student. This is a progress check for you to see how they are doing so far. I highlighted habits and behaviors that are contributing to their success and possibly something they can work on. Please sign these and return by Thursday. There's a place to write any comments or questions you may have. Be proud! We have a fabulous class and these students rock. I think this starts at home. :-)
There's no spelling this week. However, there is a reading log due on Thursday. Reading for this week is only 90 minutes instead of 120 and the weekly reflection is about author's purpose. Remember there is no school on Friday this week! Enjoy the extra weekend day.
Smile Always,
Liz Kobs
October 3, 2011
I think fall has arrived! Our classroom is on the chilly side, so please make sure your child has a sweatshirt and/or layers to help keep them warm. Lots going on this week. As many of you probably remember or heard from your child, I will be gone Wednesday through Friday this week. I'm taking Ms. O'brien's class to Camp Namanu for outdoor school. I planned with Ms. O'brien last week and I'm very confident that the students are in excellent hands.
In math, she will cover reinforcing what I've already taught with prime factorization and order of operations. We'll also wrap up some end of unit sessions like mental math, analyzing data from our coin toss, goldbach conjectures, quilt squares, roll 5, 15 tac toe, and reviewing math computation skills like long division, 2 digit multiplication, and multiplication tables in general.
There is no reading log this week, however, students should still read!!! Some students need to make up a reading log and will use this time to do that. We do have spelling this week and both lists are posted online.
Last week I introduced an artist named Andy Goldsworthy, who works with nature. Some would say he is an environmental artist or sculptor. His work is pretty amazing. If you get a chance, please You Tube some of his videos. There's also a documentary. We are looking at the concept relationship and the significant questions "What is the relationship between art and nature?" and "How does nature inspire art?". This week in the computer lab we'll do some inquiry into questions we wrote Friday and today and try to find those answers. We'll also develop some more questions we think of after our research. Next week, we'll take a walking field trip to Grant Park on Monday, October 10th to find materials for our own Andy Goldworthy inspired creation. I'm also using this as an introduction into art vocabulary/ideas such as composition, line, shape, texture, and layering.
We're finishing our "scar" stories and doing a mini-lesson on ideas and content and elaboration tomorrow. Then we'll get peer feedback about our ideas. I'm asking students to take home their rough drafts to have parents give feedback. This is due by Monday. We'll compose the final draft in class next Monday. Then we'll start on our scary story unit.
Are you interested in nominating your child for TAG??? The deadline for TAG nominations for the fall is November 28. There are new forms this year and these are available in the main office. I'll have a few copies during conferences if interested.
I introduced the Community Service Project for the 5th graders last week. They are required to get 6 hours per quarter. We went over ways you could earn your hours. Basically, anything they do to help out and they are not getting paid to do i.e. chores. There's a form that has to get signed for credit. I'll post these on the website eventually, but for now, students have a paper copy.
Tonight is a fundraiser for PTA at the Kennedy School from 5 pm until close. Please mention BCS to your server. Any reason to not cook on a busy weeknight and raise money for school, sounds like a win-win. Unfortunately, I won't be there. I forgot and made some yummy Guiness braised beef short ribs in the crockpot. :-) On Wednesday, it is walk/bike to school day. After lunch, we looked at a map of the neighborhood to see safe routes, bike lanes, busy intersections, etc.
Have a great week. I will not check my email while away. Since it is such a short time frame and I don't want to carry my laptop into the woods. If you have something urgent, please don't hesitate to contact Lisa O'brien or Melissa or Teri. Otherwise, I'll answer any emails when I return on Monday. I appreciate your understanding.
Cheers,
Liz
September 26, 2011
Please remember that tomorrow (Tuesday) is PICTURE day!!! I sent home picture forms on Friday and students should return these with their payment tomorrow as well. We have a busy week ahead of us and I'm surprised at how fast time is flying by. Next thing I know it will be June! Okay, maybe that is wishful thinking!
Today we had music class with Mr. Nelson. On Mondays until December, our students will get 30 minutes of music a week! Yay. Our class is attending with the 5th graders and learning songs about the US. In fact, you may hear them humming "Yankee Doodle" this evening. Spelling words are posted online. Next week, I'm asking all 4th grade students to challenge themselves and study the 5th grade words. I'll have another list of words that are higher than 5th grade for a greater challenge to those who wish to or need to. In reading, my plan is to continue with Reading Street for another 3 weeks to finish Unit 1 and then move onto a whole class novel. We will continue to practice all the wonderful reading skills we're learning and strategies while doing a whole class novel. Reading Street is giving us a good foundation and review.
In writing, I'm starting to teach the writing process starting with pre-writing. There are several options when pre-writing and for this writing piece, we're brainstorming using lists and a couple other graphic organizers before we start drafting our piece. Our narrative writing stories are "Scar" stories. Another pre-writing strategy is to research and interview. So if you find yourself answering some questions about your thoughts, reactions, feelings, and recollection of events when your child acquired your scar, they are being good authors. I imagine we'll finish drafting the piece sometime this week. On Thursdays, I'm running a "Writer's Workshop" where students get to work on a "choice" piece. Each student will probably be in different places in the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, revision, conferencing, editing, and publishing) but they will need to publish at least 1 piece per quarter. These published pieces may end up on our class website. This is in addition to our class writing.
Last week in social studies, I conducted a couple pre-assessments to see where each grade level was at. For 4th grade, I gave students a blank map of Oregon and had them label it with any thing they knew about OR geography including cities, rivers, mountain ranges, lakes, etc. This week I'll start with Oregon geography before we move into other historical events about Oregon, etc. For 5th grade, we did a KWL for US history covering big, broad topics like Declaration, government, Constitution, rights/laws, colonies, etc. (K--what do you Know, W--what do you Want to find out...think inquiry questions, L--What did we Learn? Obviously, this will get filled out after the unit). This week I'll start with the geography of the 13 colonies.
I haven't started science yet, but I did receive the 5 giant boxes from the district for the science kits. My anticipation is that we'll start skeletons and land/water this week.
While the 4th graders go to counseling with Mrs. Thomas on Wednesdays, I'll have the 5th graders use this time to do different projects, design challenges, and inquiry. They'll switch places with the 4th graders at semester (about January) and then I'll have the 4th graders do the same thing that the 5th did. I'll also use this time to teach age appropriate health.
We started our "Star of the Week". This week our star is Macey. We'll learn more about her on Thursday. Also, once a month (last Friday) I'll do a birthday lunch celebration. This Friday is celebrating August and September birthdays. Students will eat lunch in the class and get a special treat from me.
I hope you had a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Liz
September 21, 2011
It was so nice to meet many of you at Back to School night. Thank you for taking the time on a busy weeknight! At back to school night, I had a sign up for conferences. If you don't have a time slot yet, please contact me with your preference for Monday or Tuesday and morning or afternoon. I also had a sign up for room parents. Apparently, I must have at least 3 room parents and each will have a different role. This includes auction package coordinator/liason, Art (auction) liasion/coordinator, and a general PTA liasion. I have 1 room parent so far. Thanks Annette Stroud! I need 2 more. Please contact me if interested. On Monday, I introduced the weekly homework assignment regarding the nightly reading. This homework is referred to as the Reading Log and it is due every Friday unless we have a short week. I've outlined my expectations for the assignment on the webpage along with the weekly reflection question. Just in case your kiddo didn't get it copied down. Basically, students should read a total of 120 minutes a week, that's about 30 minutes a night. This week in class we started our social studies curriculum. I'm starting with Oregon for the 4th grade and the 13 colonies for 5th grade. As a whole class we are learning about the 5 themes of geography. We went into depth about location and place and will continue the other 3 next week. I'll introduce the Cornell Note Taking method through this content and our computer lab time this week was used partner researching the location and place of a city, state, or country of choice to reinforce the 5 themes. I've received the science kits and will start Land & Water for 4th grade and Bones and Skeletons for 5th grade. Our reading skill this week included Cause and Effect (5th) and Author's Purpose (4th). When your child is reading at home, please feel free to ask them about their novel/chapter book or other choice reading and what the skill is. Identifying and practicing the reading skills along with comprehension in all contexts will help them. Also, since we are focusing on fluency I mentioned that some students may want to read their selection out loud or listen to audio books while they are reading to hear good fluency. These are suggestions to help improve your child's reading fluency. Our writing time this week has been setting up the Writer's Workshop and what it is. The parts of the process and what it looks like so we can start to practice the workshop in class. My goal is that one day a week is devoted to a true Writer's Workshop where students can work on choice pieces and they may all be at different parts of the writing process and workshop. This is in addition to our daily/weekly writing time. So far many routines and procedures in our room and the schedule are falling into a nice routine. Please keep signing those planners each night. Next week on Monday we are lucky enough to start another "specials" until December and that is music with Ralph Nelson. I apologize for the delay in the email weekly updates, until I have input all addresses and created my class list serve the updates are on the website. My goal is to have the list serve created before next week's update. :-)
Sincerely,
Liz
September 13, 2011
I hope the first week of school went well for your children. It's always such a tough transition from summer to fall, especially difficult with hot, ninety degree summer weather. We survived our hot classroom and the students did very well despite the heat. Many of the elementary routines are new for me and one of these includes the end of day dismissal procedures. The pick up location after school for our class is out the west side of the building in the back by the playground. Students who ride the bus will walk to the bus. Please send in a note if your child walks or rides their bike on a regular basis. I will not take a verbal from a student for safety reasons. However, if something comes up last minute and there is a change in pick up I will take a verbal or email from an adult. Also, please be patient on the time of dismissal. Students are getting used to lockers and cleaning the room before we dismiss. Any students not picked up by 3:05 will be in the office. Thank you for a wonderful first week. It was nice to meet many of you and I look forward to seeing you at Back to School Night this week. A reminder letter went home with your child about that today. Please remember this is an adult only evening due to limited space. If you can't attend BTSN, please drop me a note or email. I will cover curriculum, expectations, volunteer opportunities, and conference sign ups along with other information about our class and our year ahead. Last week we covered basic get to know you activities, procedures, routines/schedules, and some pre-assessments with reading and writing surveys and a mathography. We started our new math curriculum and I really like the materials and lessons. As far as math goes, there is an option for some 4th graders to receive 5th grade math instruction. As a grade level team, we'll take a look at their Spring OAKS test score, a current Fall assessment, and classroom observations/homework from this week and last. Students affected by the move will be contacted by Friday, September 16. Any students moving to Mr. Robertson or Ms. Caron's class will start on Monday, September 19. I sent home some forms last week on Thursday that were due back yesterday. I really appreciate the time it took to fill out the parent questionnaire. I love reading these because it gives me so much insight into your whole child. Thanks again for a wonderful start. See you on Thursday!
Cheers,
Liz Kobs
September 6, 2011
Welcome Back to another school year!!! I am pleased to welcome you to the only blended classroom at BCS. I feel very lucky to be a part of this wonderful community of teachers and parents. The staff is so welcoming and eager to help me learn the ways and answer my questions. I hope you had a restful summer. It just seemed like it started, but maybe the weather finally turned to summer. This is going to be a wonderful and successful school year and I'm eager to meet your family.
Each week I will e-mail and post on my web site a classroom update. The purpose is to serve as a communication device between students, parents, and myself. Each classroom update will contain information about upcoming events, field trips, or assignments/projects, where we're headed academically, and any important school announcements and the like. I will send a paper copy home with your child if you do not have access to e-mail or the web site.
The first week of school I'll send home several information sheets that I'd like you to fill out and return at your earliest convenience, no later than Monday, September 12th. Some of these forms provide me with information that is helpful in case of emergency, if problems occur, if wonderful things happen, or in case we need to chat. I also like to learn more about your child, what you have to say about them, and ways I can help them reach their goals. Please read the class handbook thoroughly because the information contained in it will help you and your child have a successful year.
If you have questions or concerns, don't worry, many of them will be answered and addressed at Back to School Night on Thursday, September 15th from 6:30 to 7:30 PM. Please remember this is an adult only function due to limited space.
I look forward to meeting each and every one of you.
Sincerely,
Liz Kobs
503.916.6480
