Testing tomorrow

Hello,

Poem in your Pocket day went really well.  Everyone shared in the front of the class.  It was impressive, especially when I thought back to the beginning of the year when many kids were not the least bit enthused to do something like get in front of an audience and speak.

There was great variety in the poem selections, but humor ruled the day.  I was especially impressed with Kipp's recital of I AM BOOM! by Jack Prelutsky.  He read with  rhythm and expression this poem about a dragon.  Here it is:

I Am Boom!

I am Boom the thunder dragon,
Taller than the tallest trees,
I stir whirlwinds when I whisper,
Mighty cyclones when I sneeze,
Fishes shiver in the ocean
When I tread upon the shore,
I make earthquakes and volcanoes 

When I roar roar roar!

I am Boom the thunder dragon,
All the earth is my domain,
When I flap my wings in fury,
I create a hurricane,
Lions vanish at my footsteps,
Eagles tremble at my glance,
And the mountains start to rumble
When I dance dance dance! 

Giants fly into a panic
When I rear my massive head,
When I snort my searing fires,
Fearless ogres faint with dread,
If you ever see me coming,
You had better give me room,
I am Boom the thunder dragon,
I am BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Jack Pretlutsky 

We had a visit from MAD Science this afternoon. It was a good introduction to our upcoming force and motion unit.  Of course, they were ridiculously entertaining with CO2 cartridges, jet packs, marshmallow guns, and even some flames.  I'll be able to refer to some of their tricks when we get into that unit.

Harry Potter Club met after school to watch the first movie.  We didn't finish, so we'll meet a few extra times next week during lunch.  Popcorn and juice was served.  My room smells like Jiffy Pop which is pretty nice.  I gave out some prizes for correct trivia answers, but I think that I will stop that tradition.  Kids get all worked up about getting a prize and lose sight of everything else.  

Our first MEA test is tomorrow afternoon.  There was no homework tonight except for reading logs. Please make sure your kids are well-rested for tomorrow.

Have a great night.

Mr. Shea

Poem in your Pocket Day tomorrow

Hello,

Tomorrow is Poem in your Pocket Day.  Your child should be either bringing a poem in, or they already marked one in a class book for me to make a copy.  Ask them about their choice.

Keep A Poem In Your Pocket

By Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

Keep a poem in your pocket
And a picture in your head
And you'll never feel lonely
At night when you're in bed.

The little poem will sing to you
The little picture bring to you
A dozen dreams to dance to you
At night when you're in bed.

So - -
Keep a picture in your pocket
And a poem in your head
And you'll never feel lonely
At night when you're in bed.

We also have a poem wall that I hope will get filled with student original poetry soon.

Lots more work was done on dioramas today. Here's a funny conversation I had with a student about an animal they had made out of clay.

Me: So what animal is that again?

Student: a giraffe.

Me: (after a long pause) And what are giraffes known for?

Student: They have long, skinny legs.

Me: (nodding) And what else?

Student: A long neck. 

Me: (nodding) Huh.

Student: Oh, man! I forgot the neck!

Ms. Sherrill, the librarian, came in and did an activity where students made inkblots and then tried to describe what they could see out of them.  The kids made some unique splatters.

In math, we continued with geometry.  Weekly challenges are due tomorrow instead of Friday. Because of MEA testing, we won't have math class on Friday.  I don't think the challenge was too difficult this week, so they shouldn't need the extra day.

Homework will be limited to reading logs over the next few days due to testing.  Our students will test at 2:05 on Friday, 10:20 and 2:05 on Monday, 10:20 and 2:05 on Tuesday, 10:20 and 12:50 on Wednesday.  We will also have In-Class Performance Activities related to the testing at 12:50 on Monday, and 9:05 on Wednesday.  Please make sure your child gets a good breakfast and plenty of rest on and around those days.

Thank you for reading,

Mr. Shea

Diorama day

Hello,

We spent lots of time on our biome dioramas today.  We should see more of that tomorrow and Thursday, although the teams need to focus on the poster-diorama duo.  I think the dioramas are more fun, so they gained the early attention from most of the groups.

MEA testing started in the school today.  The computer lab and laptop carts are unavailable for the foreseeable future. Since we start NWEA testing just after the MEA testing, the computer lab will be out until June 19.  That throws a wrench into our research papers that we have yet to do, but maybe we'll go with hand written reports based on traditional book research. Our generation lived through those, right? Maybe I'll break out some encyclopedias.

All kidding aside, our tech department deserves a ridiculous amount of credit for setting up multiple rooms for these MEA tests.  Laptops are hardwired throughout the school to give our kids the best chance to do well. Most of this work occurred over the April break, and these unsung individuals deserve a pat on the back.

Math homework tonight is more work from Count Zoid's castle.  Last night's work wasn't as easy as many kids thought.  There were a lot of "oh's" and "ah's" in class today as kids recognized shapes that they missed.  I steered the reactions from ones of disappointment for missing, to ones of discovery.  I heard a lot more positive noises once we talked about not beating ourselves up for missing something.  They get another chance tonight to be more observant.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea

Welcome back

Hello,

It was an easy day back. We jumped right back into geometry.  A fun Count Zoid's Castle poster is their math homework. We will continue our discovery of quadrilaterals tomorrow.

Students were treated to bicycle safety in P.E. class.  Local rider, Bicycle Bob, taught them the rules of the rode.

Wally the Walrus had a fun time at the Banks household over the weekend.  The Wilson's need to get ready for him this coming weekend.  He's a polite house guest.  He's quiet and doesn't eat much.

Our reading and writing log competition went over pretty well.  Over 12,000 minutes of reading and writing were logged in!  Big congrats to Sid for putting in a ridiculous amount of minutes both reading and writing.  I look forward to reading his story about Pearl Harbor.

The winning team chose to watch The Goonies.  I can't remember if they voted for an after school movie viewing or watching it over a number of lunches.  Either way, I think it is rated PG so a permission slip will be coming home soon.  The winning team did vote to allow members of the losing team that logged over 360 minutes the privilege of also seeing the movie. Nice work.

We are going to be doing a lot of biome work for the rest of the week.  Most of the research should be done to start posters and dioramas tomorrow.  Pat will be in to help.

The new MEA testing starts school wide tomorrow. The art/music room is full of laptops, so I think our art class will be in the gym tomorrow afternoon. The library is also full of laptops ready to go. Ms. Sherrill will be a traveling librarian in the coming weeks. She is graciously taking her library skills class on the road and will be coming to our class Wednesday morning.  Our first MEA test is Friday afternoon at 2:05.

Have a great afternoon.

Mr. Shea

Have a great April break

Hello,

Our reading log will become a reading and writing log for the upcoming vacation.  I hope everyone gets a chance to spend some time outdoors and some quality time with their loved ones.

The school year always speeds by after this vacation.  Our top priority will be to continue to develop individual thinkers.  Thank you for your support in that.

Go Sox.

Mr. Shea

CREA

Hello,

I love our friends from CREA.  Whether we're going to them or they are visiting our class, our kids benefit from their entertaining way of educating. Sarah visited us today to talk about adaptations. The kids learned that every single living plant or animals has adapted to their environment.  She dressed up Aiden in a silly get up as she explained the many adaptations of a beaver. She also led the class in a hands on demonstration of how birds in the Galapagos Islands evolved to have different beaks based on the food available.  Her visit will be a big help for our students as they research animals from their chosen biomes.

The class finished up their beehive projects in art.  I look forward to seeing those finished products.

I need to be extremely brief tonight since we had homework club and I have a 6:00 meeting. It was very nice to get the homework club outside.  We played dodgeball and capture the flag.  Good stuff.

I'll be interested to see how math homework goes tonight.  The classwork was identical, but I'm betting we have some confusion.  I'll get them unconfused tomorrow.

Have a great night.

Mr. Shea

Going bananas

Hello,

I couldn't let it go.  A couple of students had beat my Banana Monkey score and I felt the need to show some brain power.  I played a bunch of times just before writing this.  The kids will see photographic proof of the NEW high score tomorrow.  I should feel guilty that I can't let them win, but I don't.

It reminds me of the time in high school when my uncle was my math teacher, (the only year my father wasn't my math teacher in high school).  My uncle boasted that he had memorized pi out to ten places.  I knew it out to eleven places the next day.  That was my competitive nature.  I told that story at Jordan Acres to my fourth graders.  A girl learned it to twelve by the next day.  I was confident of it out to twenty places at that time, (knowledge long since gone, by the way) so I let her know that. In the next week, she learned it to 45 places!  I kid you not.  She won.  I usually don't go down without a fight, but I surrendered on that one immediately.

I wanted to thank Mr. Merrill for coming in to show us some of his World War II memorabilia. He was great with the kids and I was happy with the many questions that his collection generated from the class.

HBS now has a laptop cart downstairs. All carts used to be upstairs which made it really difficult for downstairs classes to use.  Our class has now been frequent users of the laptops.  We've used them for writing class and for research.  It is often tough to get a spot in the computer lab, so the laptops give us another option.

Your child may be a little tired coming home tonight.  Our class took part in the "pacer test" in PE today.  It basically is a how far can you run test.  Kids go back and forth in the gym for as long as they can,  Their is a time component in that you can't go at a walking pace.  Some kids really pushed themselves.  Well done!

Homework club tomorrow night.  No Harry Potter on Thursday night due to the early release.  No school on Friday.

Thanks,

Mr. Shea

Biome projects

Hello,

I'm going to paste a copy of the instructions for our upcoming biome museums so you know exactly what your child has started researching.

Biome Museum           Your team will be putting together a display for our class biome museum.  You will be graded on your final product and how well you worked together as a team.           Each team has been given a biome based on your preferences.  You now must do all the research it takes to create a diorama and a poster.  The diorama has to be a three dimensional scene that represents your biome.  The following information must be included in either your diorama or your poster. 1.    Biome title
2.    Biome overview (a short explanation of your biome)
3.    Specific precipitation data
4.    Specific temperature data
5.    Common flora (plant life) and their adaptations
6.    Common fauna (animal life) and their adaptations
7.    Predators
8.    Prey
           Be Creative.  Be Cooperative.  Be Colorful.  Be Correct.

Be sure to ask your child how their research is coming along.  We went into the computer lab today for some research. Our fourth grade student links has some great sites.

We still need a few lessons on flora, fauna, and their adaptations, but then they should feel pretty good about all of the necessities for the project.

In math we've started geometry and it has been a refreshing change from the decimals and fractions. I hope you saw your child's recent decimal test. Great success for the class on that, with only two students scoring below a 22 out of 25.  

April Vacation is fast approaching. Next Thursday is an early release day and the kids have no school that Friday as well. I can't believe how fast this is all going. 

Pat, our class volunteer, made up nice picture cards for all of our biography tea party participants.  I hope you saw your child in full regalia. 

I only need to have a couple more parent/teacher conferences. We had a staff meeting last night and a union meeting tonight. I think I'm finally caught up with everything and should get some after school time to breathe in the coming weeks. I'll let you know soon about starting Thursday homework clubs. Not yet.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea

Grant money from BCEF!

Hello,

I'm sorry that I had to run off at the end of homework club to go to a meeting. I like to chat a bit and touch base with all of you, but I needed to go to the library to meet with the BCEF.

The Brunswick Community Education Foundation gives grant money to help support Brunswick public schools. This meeting was for grant award winners. Many teachers from all levels of our school system met to get the details on the next step in the grant process. I'm happy to report that our class will be benefiting from one of the grants.

I wrote up a grant a couple of months ago to support HBS teachers that are trying to teach children to have a growth mindset. A group of teachers had read Carol Dweck's book, Mindset, last summer. This led us to a number of other books on the topic, including Mindset in the Classroom by Mary Cay Ricci. That book recommended a series of games made by a company called Thinkfun! These are games that are meant to be played alone that teach that accomplishment comes through perseverance and learning from your mistakes. The grant allows us to purchase an assortment of thirty of these games. I'm going to write up the order tonight, which means we may have the games before April Break! It's very exciting for me because I've been grabbing these games at lawn sales and Goodwills whenever I see them, but now we'll have a full class set to share.

Thank you BCEF!

I'll update you on when we start using them. I think I may want some parent volunteers, so we can have some game rotations on the first day we use them.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea

Change of plans

Hello,

We're going to wait a bit longer on our research papers. The class voted to get started on our biome unit.  I have now spent a couple of days giving an overview of several biomes.  Students will make their top choices tomorrow.  Based on their choices, I will be partnering them up and they will be putting together mini museum displays. They will have to show off their research findings through a diorama and poster combination as we turn our classroom into a biome museum.

We talked a little about predator/prey relationships today.  We went out and played a deer vs. wolves game. I cut it short when I realized multiple deer trying to get caught by wolves. It kind of messes up the lesson.

I've been releasing the class Kindles.  We have three used ones.  Kids are allowed to bring them home.  They are not allowed to download any other book than the one I gave them permission to read.  They can't purchase anything new either.  We'll see how this goes.  I figure that we'll learn as we go.  I plan to get a Brunswick library account set up with them as well.

We are starting geometry in math.  I'm very happy to get into some lessons that everyone is ready for. Hooray for more hands on learning!

Homework club is meeting tomorrow after school.  Harry Potter club meets at lunch.

Have a great night.

Mr. Shea

Biography Tea Party

Hello,

I thought the tea party went well. It was quite a mixer. Attendees included President Obama and President Lincoln, as well as first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Adams. King Tut was our youngest or oldest attendee, depending on how you look at it. Maria Tall Chief, Amelia Earhardt, Susan B. Anthony and Clara Barton were just a few of the strong women in attendance. Genghis Khan didn't make too much trouble. Pele, Babe Ruth and Tom Brady were our top athletes. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant got together, possibly for the first time since Appomattox Court House. Sacajawea made it, as did Annie Oakley. J.K. Rowling, Isaac Newton and Harry Houdini were also popular guests. We were sad that John Lennon was feeling under the weather.

Mr. Banana provided the food and beverages, helped out by many volunteers. Thank you to all of them for pitching in. The kids commented that many of them asked great questions and helped get conversations rolling.

The food highlights included Turkish Delights, fresh coconut, smoked salmon, English cheddar cheese, banana chips, buffalo jerky, sweet potato chips, carrot chips, dried blueberries, Pirouline wafers, dried peas, cupcakes from Pat, almond thins and snow pea chips. Drinks included peach juice, mango juice, pineapple juice, blackberry juice and a cranberry/raspberry mix.  Some real treats for our guests.

I felt like most of the class learned a little about many different people. We had a recap afterwards to see what everyone learned. I was pleased with most of it.

I was disappointed that two students didn't meet the requirements to go to the party. I felt like I bent over backwards for two others to go. I won't do that again. It just takes away from everyone else. Unfortunately, the rest of the class didn't get to learn about Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria. Maybe they'll be able to do a wax statue presentation along with John Lennon when he returns from his illness.

Thanks for all the help today. Like everything, it was a learning experience for us all.

Mr. Shea

Hello strangers!

Hello,

I'm back.  It's been too long.

Big day tomorrow.  Students have read multiple biographies, completed a poster, timeline, paragraph, venn diagram, dress-up sheet and interview based on their famous person in history. It is finally time for our grand tea party.  Parents are welcome to come in at any time.  We will kicking it off sometime around 12:45 in Room 120.  Kids will be able to get dressed after our lunchtime.

Their instructions for the duration of the party will be to stay in character.  Their job will be to learn about all the other famous people in the room, as well as to teach everyone in the room about themselves.  The key will be to mingle.

I will be the butler for the tea party.  (I need to be in character too.)  The kids voted on my name. They will enjoy calling me Mr. Banana.  I don't remember who made that nomination for a name, but it was popular.  I will be serving many appetizers and beverages.  I try to bring in very odd food and drink choices that not many kids will have tried before.  I can't give you a sneak peek into this year's choices because I am doing all of the shopping after I finish this blog.

Parents are not only welcome, but I am really hoping for a bit of help with some food prep and serving.  Pat, our fantastic volunteer, will be here to help, but we could use others.

Okay, I'm going to run. Thank you to everyone who came in for conferences.  I still need to nail down a time for a couple of you, but overall was pleased to get them done within two weeks of the end of the basketball season.

It's good to be back,

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea