Dr. Johnson's Reading Blog

Hi Families - We have finally made it to the last week before Christmas Break. Here is a few things you need to know about this final week. 1) This is our week for gathering (Dec. 16-21). Since Friday is a half day, our gathering will be on Thursday at 2:20 pm. We will be sharing about our study of Jamestown, our weather unit, and some students want to share poems they wrote. These three things will easily take up our 20 minutes of gathering! 2) As I already mentioned, Friday is a half day. I told students that Friday will be an optional pajama day. We might do a movie, play games, extend explorations time, and enjoy ourselves before the break. This final week will be about finishing projects before we go to our break: 1) In reading, we completed reading  Blood on the River.  Now we are almost through When You Reach Me . This book won the Newberry Award several years ago. I read this book because it has many details that must be paid attention to in order to understand the cl

Thank you to all the grandparents who were able to join us on Friday. I have included some of the pictures of the kids and their grandparents.

I just saw how long it's been since I last posted. I am so sorry! Here are some updates from our classroom: We have a social studies quiz on Wednesday . It will be covering our explorers unit and the Columbian Exchange. We discussed the quiz today, and students took notes on the vocabulary words, essay questions that will be asked, and the matching questions. We will spend time in Tuesday studying for the quiz. If you want to see what needs to be studied, ask to see your child's social studies journal. Friday is our zoo trip. I will be sending out an additional email with information on the trip. Our next gathering will be the week of December 17. Yep, that is the last week before Christmas Break! Dr. Whitecotton and I are working on doing an evening trip to the Melton Observatory in lieu of a Curriculum Night. This evening should be Monday, November 26th at 7:00 pm . Once the evening is finalized I will send an additional email. Math - You probably noticed we ha

Yesterday we did a demonstration that showed how warm air rises. We placed a thin layer of dish soap of the top of a bottle. We placed the bottle in warm water so that it will warm the air. As the air rises, the thin layer of dish soap expands creating a bubble (the dish soap captures the warm air).

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend Curriculum Night. For those who were not able to make it, this is a presentation I shared outlining things like our class schedule, homework, etc.

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to Friday gathering. Because of the week off due to hurricane Florence we really had to cram to get ready for gathering. Now that gathering is over we will continue moving forward in our studies. Don'g forget that this Thursday, September 27 is Curriculum Night from 7:15-8:00. I will be outlining our daily schedule and sharing a few things we are working on in class. In social studies we are moving into our study of Native Americans and how the different regions of the United States effected how they survived. In math we will move into geometry. I like to start with geometry to build confidence in math and to get kids thinking about using their knowledge of geometry to construct during explorations. This also gives me a chance to introduce students to computer programming through Scratch. In reading we will continue to read poetry, discuss different characteristics of poetry, then use that knowledge to create our own poems.

I hope all is going well as you prepare for the upcoming weather. Hopefully things will not be so bad and we can return to a normal schedule next week. Even though we are expecting some rough weather due to Hurricane Florence, this experience will provide your child with hurricane knowledge as we dive deeper into our weather unit when we return to school. So I am asking for a few things: 1) Even though you are already doing it, please allow your child some time to watch the weather on the news. One of the things we will be studying during our weather unit is how to read weather maps and how to stay safe during hurricanes. The news will provide a good bit of this information, 2) When the bad weather hits, allow your child, in a safe manner, to take pictures or video of the weather at home. I would like to compile these pictures and videos so that we can study this weather when we return to school. While scary, this hurricane offers us a unique opportunity to study severe weather

I hope that everyone is having a restful Labor Day weekend. 1) Remember that T hursday, September 6 (6:30-8:00 ) is Opening Picnic . We purposely hold Opening Picnic after Labor Day so that students become acclimated to school and feel comfortable showing you around the classroom and school. After we all gather for the picnic, students and parents will head into the classroom. I'll give students the chance to show you around before I spend a few minutes talking about a few items you as parents will want to know such as homework and discipline policies. Other than that, I'm more hoping to get to know all of you so we can quickly start relationships that will benefit the academic success of your child. 2) On Friday, September 21 at 2:20 will be our first 4th grade gathering. We will most likely be sharing about current studies such as student poetry, our study of Native Americans, and weather. 3) MAP testing in math will be this Wednesday, September 5th . 4) Have student

I quickly wanted to get an email out about our first day. Here are a few pictures from throughout the day. Today was about everyone getting to know each, especially about me getting to know the kids. We talked about things like how I want students to choose books for independent reading and explorations and read aloud expectations. At the end of the day we also played some "Would You Rather." It was a nice way of completing the day! Early morning before school Early morning before school Explorations time Explorations time More explorations Explorations Explorations Morning gathering KEVA block brain builders KEVA block brain builders KEVA block brain builders

I thought I would send out a quick update as to some of the things going on in class. Yesterday, we discussed Newton's Second Law of Motion which states that the acceleration of an object is determined by two variables - the amount of force placed upon the object and the mass of the object. In other words, if an object has lots of mass, it takes more energy to move the object than a less massive object. And if you want an object to move farther, you need to use more energy to move it. To demonstrate this law we played shuffleboard using different coins. Depending on the mass of the coin, students had to change how much force they used to move the coin. Blending shuffleboard with music from the 70s proved a good time by all! 😁 5th grade Passion Projects are moving along well. Several students already completed parts of their project. A large group of students spent time composing emails to various organizations so they can get more information on their projects. One way you ca

Since we are expecting some big storms to come through, seems like a good time to update everyone on things going on in class. I have updated our class calendar with important time for the remainder of the school year. You can check these dates by going the class blog and taking a look at the calendar located on the right of the blog. 5th grade "Passion" projects are going well. Everyone has a Future topic. In class we are working on getting contacts, either email or phone number, so students can contact any organizations they are working with to get more information. I'm hoping that by the end of the week, students will know the Past portion of their project. For instance, one student plans on working at an animal shelter so she wants to do the Past portion of her project on Jane Goodall. Another students is raising money for foster families who take in DACA children who are displaced from their families. That student is creating a questions & answer presentatio

Impact Projects You may have heard your 5th grader talking about a major project that we will be using to cap off our experience at the Center for Inquiry. The teachers have envisioned this as a project that will be rooted in your child's personal interests presently and the future they wish to build as they grow older. As we prepare for this project, we have asked them to consider the ways in which they seek to have an impact on their community, school, family, and self. Over the past several weeks, your fifth grader has been meeting with their teacher developing potential topics for these projects. Many of these topics are related to a service they find to be of interest like pet abuse or homelessness, but some of these topics are personal interests like plastics, Mexico, or children with special needs. Dr. Whitecotton and I are currently in the process of helping them narrow down their topics. Once a topic is chosen each fifth grader will develop a Past, Present, and

Thank you to everyone who was supportive of our Camp Kanuga trip. I believe the trip was a success and lots of memories were created. On Wednesday, we spent our outdoors activities while it lightly snowed. Thursday was windy, but no one complained about being cold. And Friday, no one will forget our bus break down. This was just a delightful trip. I believe everyone had a great time, challenged themselves in some way, and learned a little bit about ponds and streams, and mountain ecology. I have uploaded a few photos from my camera here . I think I have a few more photos that did not upload. I will also try to get more photos from the other groups and upload them here. Have a restful weekend. See everyone on Monday!

Today we continued playing around with balanced and unbalanced forces. So today we an activity in which students sat laid down on chairs with their heads on another person's lap. The chairs were pulled out. If forces were balanced, students should be able to stay up (not for long).  Here are some pictures of students laying down in chairs then having the chairs pulled out while balancing.

This morning we were looking at balanced and unbalanced forces. We decided to engage in this activity which we felt illustrated both balanced forces (when it works right) and a group challenge.

Some new information has come up so I wanted to write a new blog post about some of our upcoming events. Thursday, March 15 (7:15-8:00) - Instead of having a traditional Curriculum Night, we will have our Camp Kanuga informational meeting. While this is a parents only meeting (we'll have a separate meeting for students), we will have room available for students. Monday, March 19 and Tuesday, March 20 - On these dates we will be MAP testing. Monday will be reading and Tuesday will be math. Wednesday, March 21 - Friday, March 23 - Camp Kanuga trip Science - We are just beginning our last unit on Forces & Motion. We spent the day building on what we already knew about force and motion and relating this knowledge to balanced and unbalanced forces. Math - We are playing a game called "In Between." This game helps students order fractions and get a better sense of converting fractions to percentages. Social Studies - We have finished our study of WWII and

Today, students made their own version of lemonade out of water, lemon juice, and sugar. They had to come up with their own recipe for lemonade before using that recipe to make lemonade. Unfortunately, students could not drink their own lemonade recipe. Student were randomly chosen to drink someone else's lemonade and rate it on a scale of 1 to 3. Tomorrow we will use language such as solution, concentration, dissolve, solute, and solvent to describe the lemonade they drank.