Satchel Paige Reading Response

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Room 20 Classroom Notes October 14-18

Good Week! We had an awesome time creating our class song, "Why." Aaron Meyer and Tim (musicians we worked with) said it was one of the best songs they have ever worked on! Wow! It sure is a powerful song! Our field study down to Johnson Creek has changed to the week of October 29th. We do not need lunches. We will eat at school. Our purpose there is to conduct a field study of the water, plants, and living insects in the stream to measure how healthy our creek is. Please remember to dress appropriately, including warm socks. Make sure to dress in layers, including a weatherproof jacket. If you do not have a jacket at home, we have some at school- let me know ASAP if you need one. I will send a specific time soon- Noah, our friend with Johnson Creek Watershed Council, has had a shake up with his schedule. I will start accepting homework club students after school from 3:00-3:45 every Wednesday starting October 23rd. Students need parent permission to be a part of homework club. This is a good time to have a concentrated time to do homework or get a bit of help from yours truly. This week, we start gardening with Kathleen. We also continue our work with Michael on our play. Please pencil in our performance date October 30th!!! Students must arrive by 6:00pm! Come support your class!!! For writing, we are working on personal narratives and will begin developing a personal narrative for a work sample I will be showing parents at conferences. This week we will include using graphic organizers and including dialogue in our writing. In math, we continue with large multiplication number sense and introducing the algorithm for short cutting big multiplication. In reading, we read a short story about the baseball player Satchel Paige on Monday and Tuesday and continue with "Island of the Blue Dolphins," Wednesday-Friday. We also started a humorous and quirky read aloud called, "Fortunately, the Milk," by Neil Gaiman. In Social Studies, we are working on our Create-A-State maps and in Science we will continue on our planet research projects. This week we also have Run for the Arts! In our new read aloud, one of the characters has a time machine. For homework, I would like students to write an essay about if they had a time machine, where would they go and why? What would you do once you were there? How would you get back? Also, we will have Home Connections 13-16 and spelling words based on "Satchel Paige." I also posted a Spelling City link for the spelling words on my blog. You do not need to login. Please use the free activities.

Spelling Resource

Hi All,
You may go to the following link to work with spelling words. You need not login. We will use the free activities. Part of our work this week will be using this site: http://www.spellingcity.com/view-spelling-list.html?listId=498259

My personal favorite is the game, "Sentence Unscramble." :)

Our Class Song!!!!

Why?

Room 20

Verse:

Always ask the question why,

Every day I shoot for the sky,

And spy a beautiful light and then cry,

I wish the wars would go and die,

Such a beautiful cry,

W to the H to the Y...

Chorus:

I feel like saying why…

Why can’t we live in a world where nobody dies, cries, sighs, and nobody lies,

Verse:

Always ask the question why,

Why are the planets in the sky?

I see with my eye: Why am I shy?

There’s no need to cry,

To Mr. Marchyok and his bow tie,

I fly my helicopter in the sky,

I feel like saying why…

Why can’t we live in a place where there is no such thing as a war, we can all soar, and nobody ignores,

Verse:

Always ask the question why,

I rarely sigh,

but every day I can try,

Why must I try to lie,

When it makes people cry.

W to the H to the Y…

I feel like saying why…

Why can’t we live on a planet where we all live in peace, kindness in the streets, and no war in the Middle East,

I feel like saying why… (pause) (pause)

Why can’t we live in a world where nobody dies, cries, sighs, and nobody lies,

Tableau Vivant at Reed

We posed using togas and expression as people of old did for entertainment. Families and friends would gather in Parker's and pose- so simple!

Room 20 Classroom Notes October 7-10

We had a wonderful time at Reed College's Cooley Gallery, including creating a tableau vivant, or a living picture scene using togas and freezing our expressions, much like people did before all this technology started entertaining us! This week, students will continue creating their own states. We will sketch maps and begin creating travel brochures. The students' imaginations are amazing! In science, we will begin a planet research project that will be due at the end of next week. We also continue working with calligraphy every Thursday. In math, we are in unit two starting to multiply large numbers. Having our 1-12 multiplication facts down to face larger numbers is very important. I'm asking students to try and practice every night for at least ten minutes. We also will be working with large multiplication visually, building arrays and finding the dimensions of the arrays. In writing, we begin a personal narrative based on memories from a special place. We have already drawn maps of a special place in our lives and placed X's next to memories. Now, we develop one of them into a narrative. We also are working with our artist in residence Michael, who is helping us with drama. We also work with a musician this week. Aaron Meyer will work with our class on Wednesday on our class song entitled, "Why?" In reading, we continue with "Island of the Blue Dolphins," which we started last week. The book is an excellent story about the influence of European culture on native populations and the fall out when these two cultures clash. It brings up many important conversations about native people's rights. It also dovetails into our next Social Studies concept: Native Americans. Essay of the week is short: "We just finished, "Frindle," which got us thinking about words and where they come from. Please create your own word this week and write about what part of speech it is, a definition, use the word in a sentence, and then write three reasons you think this word should be used instead of the word it replaced. Is it more descriptive? Is it more useful? Finally, write down three synonyms and three antonyms for your word. Students will receive a graphic organizer to help them start out. All homework due Thursday, October 10th. Any Camp documents must be returned! Also, please sign up for conferences!!! Geography Quiz on Western, Midwestern, and Northeastern States and capitals on Thursday.

Gregory's Visit

Gregory came today to talk about the exhibit we will view on Thursday called, "Will Return."