November

Can you work out what our new writing unit will be?

Qtr 2 Week 3 Day 1 Halloween

No H/W tonight. Enjoy your Halloween!

For Mrs. Clayton's Science class: One last reminder - Do you have your I-Check signed by your parents? Students who forget a second time will receive a consequence!

Next Week

The following students need to make sure your parents sign your I-Check for Mrs. Clayton's Science class

Jacqueline
Rachel
Maddy
Maya
Emma
Nick
Zack
Rohan
Nakul
Aditya

Below is the 'Week at a Glance Sheet' for next week:

Technology is important in our lives, but should never be allowed to take over our lives. Everything should be used in appropriate degrees. Spend these days AWAY FROM THE INTERNET. Get outside and play. Stay away from my blog. NO POSTS are allowed over this break. Get some fresh air, play. and READ

Everybody is welcome to bring in treats for Halloween - If you bring in treats, you must bring in treats for the entire class. Can you imagine how you would feel if you were left out

Set yourself the target of earning 'one piece of genre pie'  for the start of next week!

See you next week for Halloween!!!!!!

Qtr 2 Week 2 Day 1 Knovios

Sign in to for live chat during class today
http://todaysmeet.com/RLA
http://todaysmeet.com/konvios

H/W
Finish your expository paragraph. When you think you have finished,copy the entire text into this link and press 'visualize'. What can you learn from the result
http://tagcrowd.com/

Your Knovios must be ready for presentations tomorrow. The only additional class time will be during morning work or recess for any finishing touches

Math
Study link 4.4
Finish the workbook pages from today's lesson

Final Book Club - Fishbowl tomorrow

Next Week
This is the last H/W for week. If you have already finished much of the above, be thinking about your book club presentation and your responsibilities.

Next Week

We will be using this website to brainstorm for our final Book club project.
Create an account and check out how to use it below:

Qtr 2 Week 1 Day 5 The Friday Moment

Check out some new photos under the 2nd qtr link (not working yet)

I forgot to tell you all to add me to your blog invite.
rbuxton@charlottelatin.org Do this now as I cannot read your blog if you don't.

Student of the Week - Camille

The Friday Moment

"Life is not what happens to you; life is about how you choose to experience what happens to you"

Qtr 2 Week 1 Day 4 "...He who numbers the stars one by one..."

RLA
Complete your power plan for your essay. Make sure your p3s are clear elaborations to your p2s. Does each of your p2s relate to your p1? Don't forget to clearly restate your main points in your  restate sentence. You may choose to type this up in google docs. for easy access in school. (typing this tomight is completely optional)

October Reading Response
This should be on your blog by tomorrow. Make sure you are demonstrating advanced thinking about your reading.

Math
Study link and Math boxes 4.2.  IXL H.5 (Optional H.6)

Read-a-loud - Optional
What are your thoughts about the use of the title, 'Number the Stars'  in today's chapter? Why is this an important concept in the book? Plus point for great responses


How are your personal goals coming along? - spent some time this evening reflecting on your porgress.

Qtr 2 Week 1 Day 3 Essay Writing

You are in the process of writing two pieces: 
Your monthly reading  response about your book (Due: Fri)
Your non-fiction essay (Due: Next Tue)

Tonight's Priorities

1) Write one topic sentence and two (or three) power 2s. 

REMEMBER the Do's and Don't about  writing P1 and P2s

2) Math H/W (Thur)

3) October Book Reading Response (Fri)

4) Vocaroo (Fri)

5) Social Studies - Knovio preparation - Think about just creating certain slides (Next Tue)

Make sure you use your power plans to outline both these peices before you begin.
Make sure you are writing with advanced sentence structure in  both pieces

Qtr 2 Week 1 Day 2 GRAAB Techniques

Conjunctive Adverb Practice
Try the 2 min exercise below to practice the structure and format of your conjunctive adverbs
http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/ell-conjunctive-adverbs-test2.html

Reread your notes on GRAAB  Techniques. Don't try to master all 5 of them in one go. Focus on just two of them for the time being. These are great techniques that will help you immensly (voc. word) with your non-fiction writing. - Make sure you have good notes on your topic. 
Why do you think I call these GRAAB techniques?

Below is a video for Mrs. Clayton's class that explains how they can use  Wallwisher to collaborative and the S.Studies project.


Math H/W
Study Link 3.11 and Math Boxes 3.11

RLA
Write your Letter to your teacher about your personal  reading on  your blog. Upload an image of the novel you are reading to the post. Make sure you  are applying some of the advanced readinng skills we have been discussing.  consider  trying to integrate some SSS techniques sentences and a GRAAB technique. Remember also, those students who have a goal of improving their sentence fluency. Letter is due by Friday

Qtr 2 Week 1 Day 1 - The Early Settlements

H/W
Math - Study Link 3.10

Social Studies Research - Spend 15-20mins (Due Wed)
Use these links to help you with your Social Studies Research
Jamestown
http://zunal.com/process.php?w=97072
Plymouth
http://www.zunal.com/process.php?w=50249
Ronaoke
http://www.zunal.com/process.php?w=39690
You do not need to do the activities, but use the resources are a source of notes

Non-fiction Writing: (Due: Wed) - From Week at a Glance Sheet
You willl need facts for a real topic for your final 'non-fiction' essay. Choose a topic you like. Collect facts not whole sentences. Not needed until Wed -BUT we will practice writing up some of these facts using SSS and GRAAB techniques tomorrow. The more facts you have for tomorrow's session- the more sentences you can create  in class for this essay.

Use the new search engine too: http://www.zakta.com/  for both research tasks

2nd Quarter

Next Week:




Tech Integration
Set up accounts with
http://www.voki.com/
http://knovio.com/
http://www.zakta.com/

Can you add your voki to your blog?  Who will be first?

Some of you need to change the color schemes of your blogs. It is too difficult to see your posts or links
If you know how to do it, please add me as a member to your blogs. This way I can comment.
rbuxton@charlottelatin.org

"The use of technology is a priviledge, not a right. Use it wisely"

End of the First Quarter

Can you believe you have actually made it through one quarter. Take a look back through the acrchives and see at all the different material we have covered. We have come such a long way already.

Next Qtr.

We begin with our class giving announcements. Make sure you are READY and PREPARED with excellent PEX. This for many of you will be your largest public speaking audience to date. Make sure you  EXCEL! - no pressure :-)

• The first week  we will craft our first non-fiction essay. Make sure you know how to effectively use a powerplan and SSS techniques. Be thinking about a topic you would like to write about.

• You may spend some adding all your digital work (popplets, booktalks, notas, photopeach etc and the links we have used so far this year to your blog. I am very proud of my blog because of the work i have put into it. The way I have designed the blog is symbolic to how I work as an educator. What will be the symbolic messages found in your blog. Feel free to as one blog post talking about how you spend your long weekend. (Optional). Next week - In a gadget window, you will list your goals for this next quarter.
• Math - The next unit we will do is EDM is Division. The IXL unit to practice this is Unit H 1- H 14 (These will be set as H/W over the next few weeks. Feel free to work ahead if you choose)

Future learning... 2nd qtr
We will learn  more about how to read non-fiction, and we will begin our persuasive writing unit.
The grammar topic will be prepositional phrase. We will learn what 'isn't a sentence by looking at fragments and run ons.

Congatulations on such a great first qtr...

Let's try and get to the top of the ladder to laughter quickly, so we can truly celebrate in style

Week 9 Day 2

RLA
Complete Unit 1 from this link. You must do this exercise. I have checked in with some of my websites and can see that some students have not been doing the online practice. YOU are losing out if you don't practice the skills we are learning!
As the famous quote goes: "Be careful not to fool yourself becasue you are the easiest person to fool"
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/llc/academic-writing/tsent4.html

Then create your powerplan outline as described on the 'Week at a Glance' sheet. Use your notes from the Jane Reyonlds talk to create your powerplan. Read back what you have created after you have finished. Do the P3s relate to the P2s? Do the P2s all relate to the P1?  - Have you repeated the same word/phrase/used banned words? Next week will be your first official expositiory paper. Practice the skill now!

Math Study Link 3.9
Optional: For those who like a challenge - Review this link and answer the questions below
http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/polygons.html

BookClubs
Make sure you are ready for your bookclub tomorrow

Week 9 Day 1 Tessallations

Use this blog as a model to design how you will create your own blog.
http://mrbuxtonstudent.blogspot.com/
Add some links to your blog. I will show you tomorrow how to create posts and add images/videos to a post.
Important - Copy your blog url into a comment window tonight. I will then add a link from my blog to your blog. (e.g. http://marysmith.blogspot.com)

Learn More About Tessallations below:



Math Study Link 3.9 and Math Box 3.9
Check your 'Week at a Glance' sheet for your other H/w tasks tonight. (Book Club tasks are postponed until Wed. as we have a special speaker presentation tomorrow)

Make sure you have at least one topic sentence and two power 2s for that topic sentence for tomorrow's class.

Next Week

Week 8 Day 5

Congratulations to the Watsons Go to Brimingham - Book Club Presentation Today.  We all learned how to conduct an effective discussion. Well done.

Student of the Week:  ALEX

Next Week
Make sure your announcements are ready. You will audition on Monday. Keep it simple but make it interesting! Make sure you practice the delivery beforehand. Use a vocaroo file to listen to how you sound.

SMART Targets - Due Monday. Think specifcally about what you want to improve.

Optional IXL work
B4, B29, B31, S10, S14
Sammy Snakes for the first three people to master  UNIT K

Check the H/W sheet above to make sure you are ready for the short, but busy week ahead!

Enjoy the first Friday Message again

Week 8 Day 4

Social Studies Assessment - Review Material
Make sure you clearly know these facts or can locate these palces on a map.

• 7 Continents    4 Major oceans   North and South Pole    Equator
• Know basic facts about these places (e.g. city, country/captial city, continent)
• USA   Russia   Italy   Spain  Mexico   Argentina   Canada   Iraq   Kenya
• South  Africa  London  Holland

Clayton class - next Tue.

Buxton class - next Wed.

Use these links to master the basic geogrphical facts that you are expected to know for continents, oceans, major countires and major cities of the world - You are NOT expected to know all these cities and capitals just what we covered in class

Easy
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/world_G1_drag_drop.html
Hard
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/World_G4_name_input.html
harder-cities
http://www.mindjolt.com/games/world-cities

Optional - This is hard! Try for fun...I couldn't get past level 1
http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq/worldcapitals


H/W

Vocaroo - due: Fri (make sure you are creating accurate fluency). Copy your vocaroo link into a blog comment window. Next week- We will upload these to you own  blogs!

SMART Targets - Due: Next Monday - BE REALLY SPECIFIC

Kudos to all those people who have been using the vocabulary link to extend their  knowledge of words. Bravo!

Thank you to you all for my first gecko... that was sooooooooo sweet!

Week 8 Day 3

Sentence fluency Test is tomorrow. Make sure you are ready!

Study Link 3.6 and finish 3.5/3.6 Math Boxes

IXL B10

Today's speech on Civil Rights was simply superb! We will certainly be reading his book this year. I'm interested to see if you can go 'deep' into the onion and offer some feedback on what you learned or your emotions about what you heard. Try not to state the obvious, but think about his message and  how it might effect us today?

+1 points for 'deep' thoughts and contributions

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Sir Winston Churchill

Week 8 Day 2

Homework
Math
Study link -3.5

Social Studies
NOTAs due tomorrow for Buxton class. Make sure you have each a printed copy. If you run into any technology problems tonight, find an alternative way to bring in your work. Read your work for accuracy of content and information BEFORE printing. Look at the WILF and the guidelines sheet for details of the specific information that should be included in your NOTA. - This is your first 'official' out of school collaborative deadline. Make it a successful one!

RLA
Do your BOOK CLUB preparations.: (Due Wed)
The Sentence Fluency test is postponed until THUR. Ues the extra evening to make sure you have tackled all the exercises on last night's blog post before then. Bring any questions you have about simple, compound or complex sentences to class for discussion.

Week 8 Day 1

H/W
This link below takes you to the exercises you need to do to practice for Wednesday's Sentence Fluency Test.  The more practice you do, the better you will perform. YOUR ASSESSMENT IS WEDNESDAY
Mr. Buxton's 5th Grade Class SAS: Setnence Fluency Test Practice (spend 15 mins on some tonight and 15 minutes on some tomorrow night)

RLA


Make sure you have at least 3 different SSS techniques in your Great Explorer Nota. (Bring a PRINTED version of your Nota to class on Wednesday. - We will have 45mins of class on Tuesday to work on your NOTAS

Remember: You can create a route for your Great Explorer by going to http://www.scribblemaps.com/
Math
Watch these videos to recap how to use a protractor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeclDm7pVcIb  (repeat from class today)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3IO6Uhtlp8&feature=related

Compulsory
Go to IXL and complete activities B.12 (Can you master using a protractor tonight?)