Tuesday, December 13, 2011

God Bless Us Everyone!




...The oh, so famous last line of A Christmas Carol, spoken by none other than Tiny Tim. As we culminating this novel this week and seeing the play, as well as the movie on Friday, we certainly expect the lives of our scholars to be forever changed. We have focused on service, caring for others, and those that are less fortunate for the entire month. I plan on keeping these lessons fresh in the minds of the scholars as we go throughout the rest of the year. Our very best to you and yours this holiday season!

Our time has been busy and will continue to be through the holidays. Last Friday night we were at the Barnes and Nobel Book Fair performing duos for the crowd. Both were well done, and we are proud of the work these scholars have put forth in order to perform. This week we are finishing up service projects and getting ready for our party day on Friday. Please contact Mel Bloker if you're not sure what to bring or prepare.

We are going to be getting together over the break to finish up with one last service project on the 27th of December. We currently have 6 students and 2 adults attending the Feed my Starving Children project at Alpine Church in Layton on the 17th from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. If you would like to join us please feel free to drop an email, parents and scholars alike! We will then head to Mrs. Goers' house for pizza and scholars can be picked up by 7:30 that evening. If you need an address please consult your email.

Thank you all for all of your help with instructing your scholars and growing and stretching their abilities this year. So far we have learned much and will continue to strive for excellence in all we say and do!

Cheers!
Mrs. G

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Enjoying our Elders!














The scholars had a pleasant visit this week with the elderly at Mountain View Retirement Home. We enjoyed playing checkers (getting beat severely by some) and playing Christmas music on the piano. The duo teams presented their pieces and we enjoyed fresh baked hot cookies. Thank you to all the moms who volunteered to get us there and back. Enjoy the photos!

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Hundreds of Cards, and the Holidays!







Busy as elves these scholars are, as we began today producing 108 holiday greeting cards for our friends at the retirement home. The scholars are busy with this citizenship project for our visit there next Monday, and then we will be producing Christmas Cards for a local family currently at St. Jude's Hospital with an 18 month old suffering from a rare cancer. We are hoping to put a little happiness into their holidays! We are still in need of drivers for the trip on Monday. If you can drive please contact Melody Bloker.

Today was Book Report Project Day....what should have taken a total of an hour and a couple minutes turned into over TWO HOURS!!!! We had a laugh as I HAD to cut off a number of students at 6 minutes of presentation! This is the exact opposite of our first book report projects where I could barely get students to present for 30 SECONDS! We all were amazed at how their speaking skills have grown...and how much more comfortable they are speaking to a group in less than four months! Well done Scholars!

The Math Team will be meeting on Wednesdays after school until 4 p.m. until the competitions begin. If you scholar has a conflict please contact me as soon as possible.

December 9th is a Friday and our Duo Teams from the Forensics Team will be presenting their duo presentations at Barnes and Nobel in Layton beginning at 6:30. We will be following the choir. Please come out and join us and cheer them on! They will be performing for the public!

We will be finishing up our novels this week and starting some new ones....remember the Dickens play in December. Please let your scholar know if you are planning on attending. We need a count by the 7th.

Thank you all for your help and support to making our year a memorable one!

Have a restful evening....enjoy the photos!

Monday, November 28, 2011

Dickens in December!

Hello Families!
We have exactly three weeks of time to learn, serve, and reflect before taking a two week break for the holidays.
Here is what will be happening in the suite:

Please note: I need to know ASAP how many people will be attending the production of A Christmas Carol at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse on the 15th of December at 7:00 p.m. The cost of tickets will be $7 per student and $9 per adult. THIS IS A VOLUNTARY EVENT and students are not required to go, nor will they be graded for going. It is a family outing opportunity to complement the reading of the Novel which will be finished that day in class. Please let me know no later than the 7th of December so that we can get a head count to the gentleman at the theater.

Tomorrow the scholars are presenting their book report projects. They have a 3 minute presentation in order to accumulate points for NJFL. We are looking forward to hearing them.
Then for December:

2 - Essay, Spelling Test and Vocab Test, Number the Stars project due
5 - Visit to the retirement home. Please contact Mel Bloker if you can drive
7 - Science Test on Energy Unit
8 - Latin Test
9 - Essay, Spelling Test, Vocabulary Test
14 - Math Test Unit 4
15 - A Christmas Carol 7:30 p.m. Terrace Plaza Playhouse
16 - Christmas/Hanukkah/Dante's Birthday Party

Along the way we will be having final quizzes for Number the Stars, Prince and the Pauper, and Math, Science and History.

We are looking forward to being very busy these next few days.....before we know it we will be on break again! :)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Birthdays and Sagacious Speech Events!










Heading for the postings!.....Where am I?





The week before Thanksgiving found us celebrating our November Birthdays and getting ready for out Speech Event that was to take place on the 22nd. All of the scholars who participated earned NJFL points and if they have brought in their sign up money, the points will be sent in this coming week.

The event ran smoothly and we were pleased with the results. All of the scholars got the taste of competition, and the adrenaline rush of performing for a judge. Hopefully they have gotten the bug and will look forward to the debate competitions coming up in the winter and spring quarters.

Thank you to all the volunteers, judges, and parents who were there to support their scholars and their instructor as we walked through this enlightening exercise. All will get to partake of the duo interpretations at our coffeehouse coming up in February!

This coming week the scholars have two big projects coming due. The book report projects are due on Tuesday, with their three minute presentation as part of the grade. The Number the Stars projects are due on Friday December 2nd.

As soon as we are aware of the date for the Retirement Home, we will get an email out concerning drivers to take us there and back. We are hoping to be participating in that citizenship project sometime next week.

I hope all had a restful break, and the scholars are ready for three weeks of hard work before breaking for
Christmas! :)


Congratulations go to: Oratory:
First Place: Grace Bailey
Second Place: Madison Covington
Third Place: Andrew Antczak

Impromptu:
First Place: Grace Campbell
Second Place: Grace Bailey
Third Place: Jade Connelly

Duo Interpretation:
First Place: Oaklen Weyland/Jade Connelly
Second Place: Emily Johnson/Sierra Williams

Congratulations to everyone that participated in the Competition! :)

Friday, November 18, 2011

The Smells, Tastes, and Sounds of a REVOLUTION!!!!








The definite highlight of the day on Thursday was the studying of the beginnings of the French Revolution and the three estates. The scholars were randomly broken up into proportional quantities of clergy, aristocracy, and peasantry by mid-morning.
The aristocracy and clergy had a pretty good situation; or so they thought!
By the time we rambled through our history unit, most of the poor peasants were homeless because of having to pay taxes to the clergy and aristocracy for simple rights like speaking, getting an education, and needing everyday items like pencils. We even had a couple situations where the poor peasants had to live in crowded housing (four to a desk) and then when they couldn't pay their rent to the ruthless aristocrats, they often found themselves paying in service (footrests, etc.)

HOWEVER, even though the clergy and aristocracy were allowed to go to lunch first, the poor bourgeoisie stayed behind to plan a revolution. After recess they quickly surrounded the few aristocrats and even though the clergy TRIED to escape, they were all introduced to Madame de Guillotine.

In the end the bourgeoisie, who spent the majority of their time trying to figure out how to overthrow their ruthless government, had to come up with a new form of government that would work or their country.....and so the saga continues. See pictures of the day!

Scholars are getting ready Friday, Monday, and Tuesday for the tournament on Tuesday evening. I will be updating the blog Friday night to ask for more volunteers if needed. Please note that this tournament is the only required tournament for our scholars since our school is hosting, and since it is a speech event. They will not be required to compete at the debate event in April if they so choose.

Book report projects are due the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Monday they will have their spelling and vocabulary test for this week since Friday is Grace Bailey's birthday.

Birthday celebrations for November take place Friday at 12:45.

:)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Counting Down to the Tourney!

Students are starting to get excited about our Tournament this coming week. On Friday all students competing in Oratory or Duo need to stay at school for practice from 1:00 to 3:00. Then the students who are going to Brighton High School for Lincoln Douglas training will be heading out with Mrs. Connelly. Cullin Johns, our LD coach will also be heading down there for the afternoon. The students will call when they are half an hour away from school and parents can pick them up at school.

Those who did not earn an 80% or higher on our last math unit exam will be retesting this Friday for a second time. This will be a similar test to the first one they took. I will take the higher grade and use that in the grade book.

We are working through packets of review and the rest of the class is also working on the first three units of review so that we're all ready for our next unit on ratio.

In Science we have moved into our energy unit and are learning about everything from "poop" power to wind turbines. Today the scholars read about solar ovens and drew their own in their packets. If our weather cooperates next spring I would love to take one of their plans and actually build a solar oven and cook in it!

We are continuing with the Prince and the Pauper which will be completed before the second of December, along with Number the Stars. The students have a project book report due on the
29th and their Number the Stars project due on the 2nd of December.
Busy, Busy, Busy....that is what we are! :)

Stop by the upstairs and check out the Attitude of Gratitude papers your scholars wrote....many of them will bring tears to your eyes!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Singapore Sagacious Solutions! Science and Speech Arts!

Wow!!! So many scholars with so many logic issues last night!....Tonight's homework; more real life problems for the scholars to work on, 5 to 8 minutes each, and all I am looking for is their mental PROCESS!

please allow your scholar to experience creative struggle as they spend time working with the numbers and parts of information in the real world problems. They are simply math riddles that are the "stuff" life is made up of, and they need to practice it REGULARLY in order to become sagacious in math processes.

I am not concerned with "right" answers, I am concerned with training their brains to think logically and quickly in matters of fractions and fractional parts. The steps they take are more important than the final answer.

Feel free to head off to the Singapore link on the right of the blog if you are feeling defeated as a parent and need a brush up! :)

Also, students have received packets of information regarding the science fair. Please be thinking about it NOW with them so they can be gathering ideas and materials. All scholars will be required to have a three fold cardboard display of their experiment and it will require all the parts of the scientific method. We will be talking about it more in science class, but please be starting that conversation now.

The date for the coffeehouse has been moved. Please adjust your calendars! It has been moved to February 17th as the Regional Math Counts Competition at Weber has been moved to February 11. Again...please adjust your calendars!

The Speech Arts Competition is scheduled for November 22 at 4:30 at GFA. I am needing at least 4 parents who are willing to judge the competition for us and would be able to attend a judge's meeting at 4:00. Judging is not difficult, but we need judges to judge other schools for us. Please contact me as soon as possible if you will plan on being there and would be available to help judge. We hope to have the competition done by 7:00 and awards by 7:30.

Thank you for being a part of your child's education, and looking to build the sagacity of the sixth grade.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Polymer Paideutic














Our day started out with our new vocab and spelling lists for the week. Please remind your scholar that they should be writing those words out EVERY EVENING in cursive on a piece of practice paper. It even helps if they say the spelling out loud while they hand write it. After four nights they should be able to write that word in cursive easily on Friday morning. For some students syllabication helps if they need to learn the words in parts. Also the definitions are on Spelling City and we work on them every morning....let's see if some of them can increase their spelling/vocab grades this quarter! Vocabulary is a main key to literacy, which in turn is a key to academic success.

The scholars had a discussion on male/female chivalry Monday morning and how we in turn should treat one another in the suite, outside the suite, in the world in general. Hopefully these nuggets of information will stay with them forever!

The other highlight of the day was science class and our polymer experiment. No doubt most parents got to play with the bag of silly putty brought home by your scholar. Please have them tell you EXACTLY what happened with the chemicals in the bag and define a polymer chain! Today's pictures are of our science class. A big thank you to Mrs. Mercado who came in and helped with the experiment today.