Archive for September, 2010

Class activities for Thursday, September 9

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

We continued our welcome back activities today:

Straw Towers

We discussed the Straw Tower building activity that students completed yesterday. Some insights about teamwork that students shared:

  • Sometimes you have to work with a scarcity of resources. Quitters complain about the scarcity, champions overcome their problems and never give up.
  • Everyone is important. Just as a pinky finger is important to the body and can cause problems if it’s broken, every person is important to a team and can cause problems if they give up.
  • Doing the right thing in the wrong way is wrong. Focusing on building the straw tower taller, without making the foundation strong, will only lead to a collapse later.
  • Build your foundation first, before you climb higher. First things first. If you try to take shortcuts to get ahead, your creaky tower will eventually crash down.

Mission Statement

Every team has a mission that explains who they are and what they want to do. Here’s ours:

Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 6th grade.

Class Goals

We selected the following class goals for this year:

  • We will improve our STAR reading scores monthly and grow at least one year by the end of the year.
  • All students will pass our math tests with a grade of C or better.
  • We will move our magnets no more than ten times each week (or, less than 40-50 magnets each month).

Visit our Class Data Center in the future to track our progress.

Class Rules

We selected one class rule to rule them all:

Follow the High Fives*.

*Respect, responsibility, kindness, honesty and courage

Courtyard Vegetable Garden

We built a vegetable garden in our courtyard last year and decided to donate the harvest to Carriage Town Mission in Flint. Today, we harvested a bunch of tomatoes and onions!

Garden Harvest: September 9, 2010

Behavior Update:

  • Yellow magnets: 0
  • Orange magnets: 0
  • Red magnets: 0
  • STAR Awards: 0
  • Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 0

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with SnapGrades?

Notes:

Our Mission:
Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 6th grade.

Class activities for Wednesday, September 8

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

We continued our welcome back activities today:

  • Students completed an initial cursive quiz.
  • Teams selected their team captains and we reviewed class jobs and responsibilities.
  • We played a game to share some interesting facts from summer or past years.
  • We discussed the class behavior procedures. See our Behavior Policy for more information.
  • Teams competed in a competition to build the tallest tower out of straws and tape.

Behavior Update:

  • Yellow magnets: 0
  • Orange magnets: 0
  • Red magnets: 0
  • STAR Awards: 0
  • Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 0

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with SnapGrades?

Notes:

Class activities for Tuesday, September 7

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Welcome back to school! Today was filled with get-to-know-you activities and procedures. Here are some highlights:

  • We played a game to share some news from the summer.
  • Students took the Mr Howd test; most failed!
  • We played a game so that students could introduce themselves and one of their hobbies.
  • Students made locker signs and chose lockers and partners.
  • We went to an assembly about High Fives character and expectations in our school.

Notes: