Week 16 Newsletter

What a busy few weeks we've had! I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving week. It was so nice to have a little break and visit with family and friends.

Thank you to everyone who helped donate items and money to make our San Jose Sharks basket for tomorrow's PTA Holiday Breakfast. Thank you to Elissa and Minal for their help in organizing everything. Our basket is very cute! I hope to see some of you tomorrow at the event.

Next Wednesday we are headed to the Blackhawk Museum in Danville to check out their Spirit of the West exhibit. Thank you to all the parents who volunteered to drive and chaperone. It will be a great time and I think the kids will really enjoy seeing everything in this museum.

Friday, December 14th is our class earned party. Our class has worked very hard over the last few months to earn enough beads to fill up our Sharks cup. This has lead to a fun afternoon planned on December 14th. Students have voted on a theme and chosen... BYOD! Students can bring in their smart phones or tablets for an afternoon of fun and activities.

Weekly News: Week 32

This week was pretty busy as we headed to the A's Game on Wednesday! The kids loved hanging out at the ballpark and having snacks. It was a great day with beautiful weather.

Students also worked on their second, and final, argument writing piece. If they did not finish in class today, they are finishing them up this weekend. We also studied the similarities and differences between George Washington and King George III as we delve farther into the Revolutionary War.

Yesterday we started reading the novel Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. This a great novel set during the Revolutionary War, and is the beginning of a trilogy. Students will be reading it in class and participating in a digital book club with their classmates. Students can access their documents through Google Classroom.

Today, the school had a flag salute and our leadership kids did a great job leading it. A freeze dance party even broke out!

Next week we will be having three BYOD days on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. I am hoping that we can start bringing our devices everyday to finish out the school year. If next week goes well, it will become an everyday occurrence. Remember to bring devices that are fully charged!


Upcoming Events:

• Monday, April 24th
• 6th Grade Placement Test
• Please be on time to school
• Library Books are due
• Last trip to the Library for the school year!
• Tuesday, April 25th
• BYOD
• Wednesday, April 26th
• Pay Day
• BYOD
• Friday, April 28th
• Auction
• BYOD

Weekly News: Week 25

This week students turned in their Historical Reports and also gave speeches on their topics. It was wonderful to hear all of them becoming experts on their topics!

We've also been hard at work on our Colony Travel Videos! Students are being very creative as they think of the best way to get their ideas across. Videos are due Tuesday, Feb 28th. They need to be uploaded to YouTube or emailed to me. Once all the videos are in I will send out the link to the playlist so everyone can enjoy them!

Upcoming Events:

• Monday, Feb 27th
• BYOD- last day for videos
• Tuesday, Feb 28th
• Colony videos uploaded and ready to go
• Friday, March 3rd
• Module 4 Math Test

*** 2nd Trimester Report Cards go home Friday, March 10th. 

Weekly News: Week 23

Wow! Outdoor Ed was amazing! We have been talking non-stop since we got back about all the wonderful things we experienced. Tidepools, puppet shows, elephant seals, and the Redwoods all led to experiences we will never forget. It may have rained pretty much the entire time we were there, but it gave us a lot of amazing experiences! We will never forget the trek at Ano Nuevo to see the elephant seals and walking through mud and puddles. Once we embraced our wet feet, there was no stopping us!

Thank you to all our wonderful chaperones who helped make this trip possible! Thank you Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Lai, Ms. Bellare, Mrs. Khansa, Mr. Talbot, Mr. Yalamanchi, Mr. Bollu, and Mr. Chen! You are all amazing for joining us on this trip!

More pictures will be posted soon... don't forget to check out our photo site HERE, to see photos as they are added!


Thursday and Friday were pretty mellow days. We were all pretty tired, but we learned about our Colony Video Project & we started a new class novel, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. We also started to write a free verse poem about our Outdoor Ed experience. Today we tried the Marshmallow Challenge and realized it's much harder to work together and build a free-standing tower than we originally thought.

 


Upcoming:

• Monday, Feb 13th
• No School
• Tuesday, Feb 14th
• Valentine Exchange... please bring a valentine for every classmate if you plan on bringing in Valentines
• Friday, Feb 17th
• Minimum Day 8:15-12:30

BYOD DAYS

As we are working on our colony videos students are allowed to bring in their devices on the following days: Wed 2/15; Thurs 2/16; Tues 2/21; Thurs 2/23; Fri 2/24

Weekly News: Week 20

What a quick four day week! We had a lot of rain which led to a lot of indoor recess time... hopefully all this rain continues to help with the California drought.

In Social Studies we learned about colonial America, the kinds of jobs people had and the way the colonial marketplace worked. We quickly discovered that the King of England stood to make a lot of money in the colonial system! Too many taxes! This will help us begin to learn why we needed the American Revolution.

On Thursday we had our first DARE session with Officer Batoy. Students are excited to learn from a Pleasanton police officer! We are in for many weeks of fun!


Upcoming Events:

• Tuesday, Jan 24th
• Science test with Ms. Britto
• Wednesday, Jan 25th
• BYOD
• Thursday, Jan 26th
• Mid Module 4 Test
• Safety Valet Ice Cream Party @ lunch

Weekly News: Week 19

Our first week back from Winter Break had us beginning to learn about multiplying and dividing fractions as we started Module 4, picking our new nonfiction writing topics which will focus on an event in U.S. history, creating beautiful Snowmen art pieces, and starting to learn about the 13 original colonies.

DARE permission slips were sent home along with your child's weekly progress report. Please make sure those are signed and returned by Thursday, our first DARE lesson.

Outdoor Ed Medical Forms... please make sure you have filled out the online medical form for your child. The link is HERE to submit.

Just a reminder that Monday is a holiday. There is no school. See everyone on Tuesday!


Upcoming Events:

• Thursday, January 19th
• DARE
• Friday, January 20th
• BYOD-- my hope is that this will happen weekly. I will continue to update the calendar, as well as these Weekly News posts with the date of a future BYOD day.

BYOD Tomorrow, 1/13/17

Don't forget... tomorrow is BYOD! Bring in your device, fully charged, and ready to connect to the wireless network!

Colonial Travel Videos

In Social Studies we began our unit learning about the 13 Original Colonies. For this project, in groups of 1-3 students, each group is making a Travel Video about their chosen colony. After researching and storyboarding their idea, they will be creating a 90 second video to try and persuade future settlers to move to their colony.

Today students picked their groups, chose their colonies and began to research all that makes their colony unique.

Over the next 2 weeks students will storyboard and ultimately choose the best way to complete their video. Videos will be finished on Friday, February 26th.

I've linked up a few of the documents the students are using for this project. Check them out!

Colony Groups
Research Document
Travel Video Guidelines

We will be working on this project on the following days: Wed 2/17, Fri 2/19, Mon 2/22, Wed 2/24, and Fri 2/26. Students are welcome to bring in their own device (laptop, tablet, phone) on any of these days as long as it is being used to help their group create their video. Students will also have access to class chromebooks.

BYOD #1

We are ready to have our first Bring Your Own Device day on Friday, November 7th. Students are invited to bring in a phone, iPod touch, tablet, or laptop... as long as it is able to access the internet. We will use these devices to enhance our learning experience in social studies and science, to read new stories and articles, and to discover new ideas.

A permission slip was given to each family at Back to School Night. I still need them back from several families. If your student is missing this form, you will be receiving an email this week with the form attached. Please print it out and sign it. Your student can bring it to school with them. Any student who does not have the form returned by Thursday, November 6th will not be able to bring in a device the following day.

I'm looking forward to starting this BYOD process with your students. This first day is the beginning of many more to come, if the students use it responsibly. They are very excited to begin!

Our very first BYOD was a success!

Today, our class participated in our first ever Bring Your Own Device day! The students were excited to use them all day long as an additional resource in the classroom.

Students used them:

• To look up words during vocabulary time
• To find better diagrams of the respiratory system during science
• To practice coding, and participate in the Hour of Code by using Lightbot & Tynker
• To learn more information on important historical figures like Chief John Ross, Sequoyah, Chief Logan, President Andrew Jackson during social studies.

In fact, BYOD day went so well, we've already got our next one planned! Wednesday, December 18th will be our next BYOD day.