World Read Aloud Day

Mrs. Breeze, our guest reader, reads aloud to us from Fish In A Tree, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.

Today was World Read Aloud Day.  To celebrate, we had a guest reader, our district literacy coordinator, Jen Breeze, read to us from our read aloud book, Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  Mrs. Breeze had read both One for the Murphy's (our Global Read Aloud Book), and Fish in a Tree, so she was the perfect guest!  We are thankful she could make time to read to us!

Then, to celebrate the power of the spoken and written word, we created a quote wall.  Students researched their favorite quote or quotes that were meaningful to them, and we put them all together.

I showed students examples of some of my favorite quotes.

Students use their iPads to research quotes. 

Students hang up qutoes.

The finished product!

Coming Soon- World Read Aloud Day

"Every year on the first Wednesday of March, World Read Aloud Day calls global attention to the importance of reading aloud and sharing stories."

~LitWorld

This upcoming Wednesday, March 4th is World Read Aloud Day.  To celebrate, we've invited a guest reader to visit our classroom and read to us from our read aloud, Fish in a Tree.  Our guest reader loves to read, she has read both Fish in a Tree and One for the Murphys, and she was  instrumental in getting our class copies of both...we'll reveal who she is on the big day!

To prepare for World Read Aloud Day, we've been looking literacy statistics from around the world. 

Global Literacy Statistics

• Reading aloud to children every day puts them almost a year ahead of children who do not receive daily read alouds regardless of parental income, education level or cultural background. (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research)

• According to the latest data (2014), 793 million adults – two thirds of them women – lack basic reading and writing skills. (UNESCO)

• Since 1985, the female adult literacy rate has risen 15%, which is about double the growth of the male literacy rate in the same time period. (UNESCO)

• On tests involving 4,500 to 10,000 students in 43 countries, half of the girls said they read for at least 30 minutes a day, compared with less than one-third of the boys. (UNESCO)

• Even though the size of the global illiterate population is shrinking, the female proportion has remained virtually steady at 63 to 64%. (UNESCO)

• Among the youth population, female literacy rates have been rising quickly. Nonetheless, three out of five youths lacking basic reading and writing skills are young women. (UNESCO)

• If all children in low-income countries left school literate, 171 million people could move out of poverty. (World Literacy Foundation)

• Poorly-literate individuals are less likely to participate in democratic processes and have fewer chances to fully exercise their civil rights (UNESCO)

• A child born to a mother who can read is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five than a child born to an illiterate woman. (UNESCO)

• A literate and educated girl is three times less likely to acquire AIDS, she will earn at least 25% more income, and she will produce a smaller, healthier family. (UNESCO)

• Illiterate people earn 30-42% less than their literate counterparts. (World Literacy Foundation)

UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

  

LitWorld © 2015

2015 Youth Media Awards

Looking for a good book?

Each year the American Library Association releases a list of award winning books for children and teens for the year.

This year's list is full of amazing books, many of which are perfect for middle schoolers!  Take a look at the list by clicking here.

Rett Syndrome Awareness Day

The class gathers around Mackenzie.  We are dressed in purple to support Rett Syndrome Awareness Day!

The month of October is Rett Syndrome Awareness Month.  Here at IMMS, we celebreated Rett Syndrome Awareness Day.  In ARRE time, every class across the school watched a video made by Kelly Schoeller about Rett Syndrome.  Take a look:

Then, in our ELA class, Mrs. Hickey came in and talked with us about how to use the Tobii.  The Tobii is eye gaze technology that Mackenzie uses to communicate with us.  Today, Mrs. Hickey invited us to try out Mackenzie's means of communication.

The Tobii has different tabs with pages behind it that Mackenzie can use to communicate with us.  Just like we are learning how to use our iPads efficiently, Mackenzie is learning to use her Tobii.  When we talk to her, we are invited to ask questions by touching and interacting with the Tobii, just like we do on our iPad.  When we uses the Tobii, it helps Mackenzie see the different pages, and it also helps the students understand how she can communicate.

Thank you Kelly, Mrs. Hickey, and Mackenzie for teaching us so much!  Mackenzie, we are so lucky to have you in our class! 

Standards-Based Grading for Daily Work

This weekend, I updated the grade book.  One of the biggest updates was the change in how I graded student daily work and assignments.  This year, student assignments will be graded using the standards-based grading rubric above.  Each assignment will be worth five points, and students will be graded upon how they demonstrate their knowledge on a scale from one to five.   As I use the students' daily work to inform my instruction, standards-based grading will help me assess how students are meeting learning objectives.  The scores will give me and the students important information on areas in which students are excelling and areas in which they need more support.

Ultimately, the standards-based grade will translate to a percent and letter grade, per the sixth-grade grading scale.  These letter-grades and percentages are listed in the last column.  Each daily work score is averaged in Infinite Campus to contribute to the students' overall daily work grade.  In English Language Arts, daily work accounts for 20% of students' final grades and in social studies, daily work accounts for 30% of students' final grades. 

NOTE: In accordance with the sixth-grade late-work policy, if students turn in assignments past the due date, the highest score they will be able to earn on a daily work assignment is a 3.5.

For all summative assessments (projects, tests, and quizzes) I will be using the traditional grading method.  For example, if a quiz is out of 12 points, the students' grade it will be entered in the grade book to be the number they got correct out of 12 points.

This week, we set up infinite campus on students' iPads, so they now have immediate access to their grades.  We activated grade book notifications, so students should receive an alert from Infinite Campus on their iPads anytime they are missing work.

Our First Mystery Skype is Tomorrow!

Our first Mystery Skype is tomorrow, and the students are so excited!  Today and tomorrow, we will be spending time preparing for the call.  We will brainstorm questions to ask, assign roles, and get familiar with the resources we have in our room to help us.

Each class will be participating in a Mystery Skype, so overall, we will be connecting with two different classes tomorrow.  I've told the students that the classes we connect with could be from anywhere in the world.  Now, it's our job to figure it out!

Students will be live-blogging and live-tweeting from our classroom accounts during the call.  Watch for those posts!  I cannot wait to see what we will learn.

This will be our first connection with the classes we will work with for Global Read aloud.  After students learn where the other class is located, we will continue to connect with students from these classes via KidBlog and our classroom twitter account.

Thank You

Dear Families,

Today, we got the news that our Donor's Choose project received full funding.  Thank you so much for your excitement, support, and enthusiasm surrounding the project. The students and I are still in disbelief about how quickly the books were funded.  We cannot wait for them to arrive!  

As a thank you to the donors, I posted the following letter on our project page:

Thank you so much for your generous donations.  When I began this project, I would have never guessed how much the community would get involved.  I cannot thank you enough for your time, help, and support.  Your investment in our classroom and our learning means so much to our students and to me.

This year, our classroom has developed a culture of reading.  Our independent reading time is sacred.  Our reading conferences and book talks are revered.  Our reading wish-lists are constantly expanding. Now, with your help, our love of reading will continue to grow.

As I said in the project proposal, I believe that every child is a reader.  Students just need to find the right books to get them hooked on reading.  Your donation will not only provide our students with new books, it will also provide them with new views of themselves, new adventures to partake in, new worlds to explore.

We cannot fully express how much of a difference you have made, but we will try.  Thank you.  You've made our classroom more interesting and more engaging, and you've contributed to our classroom community in ways we have yet to discover.  We are truly lucky to have your support.

Whether or not you were able to donate monetarily, thank you so much for all you do to support our classroom from home.  I feel truly blessed to be able to work with your students each day, and I am so thankful for your help, support, and investment in our learning.

Thank you.  For all you do, and for sharing your student with me.

WOO-HOO!!!!

Our Donor's Choose Project just got funded!!!  We cannot thank the community enough for their support!!

WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!

Banner Day!

Gould's Galactopuses: Battling Bad Behavior and Getting Good Grades

On Friday, we had Banner Day.  Banner Day is a school wide-celebration to promote unity and positivity.  Students met with their ARRE Time groups in the morning to choose a team name and slogan and create a team banner.

Our students created the team name "Gould's Galactopuses."  They informed me that a Galactopuses is an octopus that is galactic.  As you can see, we filled our banner with space ships, octopuses, stars, and our photos of course!

After creating the banner, we went to the gym to share banners and participate in team cheers.  Finally, students headed outside for the Banner Day Olympics.

Take a look at some of the games we played below:

Skittle Pass!
Pass the skittles using only spoons into a cup at the end.

Chicken Run.
Put the foam under your arms and see how many you can get in the bucket.

Hula Hoop Pass.
Stand in a circle with arms linked.  See how many times you can pass the hula hoop around.

Leg Lock
Get the foam piece to the basked using only your legs.

Ball Bounce.
Get the ball to the bucket with a bounce.

Ball Pass
Lie in a circle and pass the ball using only your feet

We had a great day!  Thank you to everyone who provided treats! We appreciate it! :)

iPad Open House

Thank you to everyone who came tonight!  Here's the slideshow we went over.

We're excited for the learning to begin! :)

September Book Orders Due Friday, September 26th

September book orders went home today.  Students had some time to look over these in class to circle books they are interested in.  Book orders are due back this Friday, September 26th. If your student will be ordering books, please pay with a check.  Checks can be made out to Scholastic.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Our First Donors Choose Donation

Before school started, I created a Donors Choose project in anticipation of our Classroom Library.  Donors Choose is a website that allows teachers to propose projects and ask for funds from individuals and companies around the nation who are looking to make a difference.

For our proposal, I talked with teacher friends and librarians and browsed children's literature blogs (like Nerdy Book Club and Mrs. Ripp Reads) searching for recommendations of new, high-interest, and high-quality literature for sixth graders.  After all the research, I put together my ultimate wish-list of 50 new young adult books for sixth graders.  And the community answered.

This weekend, we received our first donation to our project, Making a Marvelous Classroom Library.  On Saturday, a McFarland Community Member donated $500 to our project, and now, we just have $285 dollars to go. We cannot thank her enough. The students are so excited!  We can't wait to get our hands on new and captivating books!

With the goal so close, we would appreciate your help. If you or your friends and family are interested in contributing to our classroom, any amount would make a huge difference.  You can contribute to our classroom by clicking here.

iPad Open House: Monday, Sept. 22nd, 6:00pm, LMC

As a reminder, we have the iPad Open House on Monday, September 22nd at 6:00pm in LMC.

At this open house, we will go over policies and procedures with you and your students, and you will receive the iPad Use Agreement and iPad contract.  If both you and your student are there to sign the agreements, you will get to take the iPad home with you that night!  After both contracts are in, the iPads will travel regularly from home to school. Most of the students' work will be on the iPads.

Please let me know if you are unable to attend, and we can figure out a way to make it work.

Looking forward to seeing you Monday!

iPad Roll Out!

Today, we rolled out the iPads for their first use in class!  We started by going through some iPad policies and procedures, and then we moved on to get Notability and Schoology- two apps we will be using this year- all set up.  

To be on the same page as your student, take a look at the iPad policy and procedure slide show below.

,

Today in social studies, we were already using the iPads to take notes, research, and generate ideas.  It was great to see the students utilizing the new resource so quickly.  The question of the day was, "Ms. Gould, can we do this on our iPad?"  The answer: yes.  Let's figure out a way to make it work!

Our First Book Donations!

Today, we received our first book donations!  A member of the school board donated books to the school, and since our classroom was in need, we got to take a look at them!  Five boxes were delivered to our door, and the students spent the first part of ELA sorting through the books, looking for keepers.  We were lucky...almost all the books were keepers!

Students sorting through book piles in table groups

I dumped piles of books at table groups, and students spent time previewing the books with their table-mates deciding what we should keep.  Looking through all the books generated a lot of interest! The excitement in the air was tangible... the students were laughing at how much energy I had going from table to table looking at the books.  There were some gems in there!  I've been keeping an eye out for the Artemis Fowl books, and sure enough, several were found in the boxes!  We also found copies of books in the Percy Jackson series and the Maze Runner series.  Today felt like the best treasure hunt ever!

I am going to stamp and file the books, and then students will be able to check them out from me.  Many were already writing titles down on their book wishlist....my goal is to get the books in their hands as soon as possible!

New additions to our classroom library!

If you have any books laying around at home (even just a few), we would love to take them off your hands!  It was awesome to see the students so excited about new books today...hopefully it's a feeling we'll have again in the future soon! 

Timber-Lee Slideshow and Photo Link

Thank you to all the parents and family that volunteered at Timber-lee.  We really appreciate your time, energy, and photos!  Here's a slideshow of some of the photos taken by one of our parent volunteers.

To see more photos, click here.  

If you have more photos you'd like me to post, please send them my way! :)

Thank you to Anne Byers for the photos in the slideshow and to John Tran for the photos at the link.

Camp Timber-Lee: On The Way Home

So we're officially on the way home from camp. It's been an amazing, terrific whirlwind, and I cannot believe it's over already!

Here's some highlights from the last 24 hours:

Geology:  Students traveled to the rock pit and studied rocks. We split rocks open, categorized them, and looked for fossils. My favorite part was seeing students so absorbed with what they could see in the rocks. 

Arts and Crafts: I led several more sessions of arts and crafts. I was so impressed with everything the students could do!

Night Sessions:  Last night, students had two more rotations. I supervised movie time (we watched A Bugs' Life) and game time (we played ping pong, carpet ball, fusball, etc.). 

Bonfire:  My favorite part of the night was the bonfire. We want songs, and the students performed the skits they've been working on for the past couple of days. It was great to see all the Sydney's taking risks, getting up in front of an audience, and sharing their ideas!

Morning Sessions: This morning, students braved the cold and traveled to two more rotations. I lead orienteering and arts and crafts, which I've alrwady blogged about, but students went to other sessions like animal encounters (they got to hold live animals like ferrets, chinchillas, and snakes!), leather, leaves, etc. 

Overall Reflections:  I love camp! My favorite part had been all of the bonding that's been taking place. Many students have already told me they've met new people and made new friends. For me, it was really fun to get to work with the other teachers and spend time with the staff, students, and parents outside the regular school day. Mr. Tarnutzer and Mr. Jondle both visited us at camp too!

I feel so lucky to be working with such amazing and supportive students, staff, and parents.  Thank you so much to everyone out there for all of you're help and support. Whether you came to camp or helped your student get ready...we couldn't have done it without you!