FREE DAY at the Asian Art Museum

The Asian Art Museum is FREE for a Community Day on Saturday, December 1st! Don't miss this chance to see the new exhibits at one of the coolest museums in SF! There will be docent tours, Korean drum performances, and storytelling, just to name a few...

HOMEWORK for November 19

Homework for November 19- December 3 (you have TWO weeks for this homework packet…have a great Thanksgiving holiday!)

1) Spelling List

a. Do NOT do spelling dictation

2) Daily Language Review

3) Daily Academic Vocabulary

a. defend, viewpoint, position, perspective

4) Daily Paragraph Editing

a. Personal Narrative, “My Favorite Music”

5) Daily Handwriting Practice

6) Daily Word Problems

7) Daily Geography

a. A Physical Map of Washington

8) Tic Tac Math

a. Solve ALL problems

9) Daily Math Practice

a. Do not do Monday problem #4

b. Do not do Tuesday problems #2, 4

c. Do not do Wednesday problem #2

d. Do not do Thursday problems # 1, 3

10) Margaret Bourke-White

a. Read and complete crossword

11) Reading Log

a. Choose a book and read every day. Log your ideas.

INTERNET HUNT: Read the poem “The Land of Nod” by Robert Louis Stevenson. Write a two paragraph essay on what the poem means to you.

Search the Internet on facts about Robert Louis Stevenson. Prepare notes for writing your 4 paragraph essay on his life and writing.

The field trip yesterday was amazing! The Asian Art Museum is such a gem. If you have a chance to visit with your kids, I would advise it! They loved the art for the different countries. We explored mostly China, Korea, and a little bit of Japan in the galleries, but the kids loved the brush painting lessons the most. They created some fabulous art, which is hanging from our clothesline in the classroom, if you want to see!

The kids did very well on the trip, and behaved their best. MUNI is not easy with 33 kids, but they did amazingly well, considering how crowded and grumpy some of the passengers and drivers were. We have some great kids in Room 11!

Mr. Reed came on our field trip as a chaperone, and we were lucky enough to have him teach a lesson before we left for the bus. He taught the kids all about woodcut art, and showed them his own woodblock prints, which left quite an impression. Then, we had time to make our own "wood" cut art by using styro-foam meat trays from the super market to carve our own Christmas card images. The are just lovely, and will hopefully find their way home to you and your families soon!

If you're curious about our trip, please feel free to take a look at our photos on the web...

HOMEWORK for November 12

Homework for November 12- November 19

1) Spelling List

a. Do NOT do spelling dictation

2) Daily Language Review

3) Daily Academic Vocabulary

a. complicate, complicated, complication, complex

4) Daily Paragraph Editing

a. News Article, “New Baseball Record Set”

5) Daily Handwriting Practice

6) Daily Word Problems

7) Daily Geography

a. The St. Lawrence Seaway

8) Tic Tac Math

9) Daily Math Practice

a. Do not do Monday problem #1

b. Do not do Tuesday problems #3, 4

10) Addition and Subtraction Page

11) Crossword Puzzles

a. Disappearing Frogs

11) Reading Log

a. Choose a book and read every day. Log your ideas.

INTERNET HUNT: Read the poem “Alone” by Maya Angelou. Write a two paragraph essay on what the poem means to you.

Search the Internet on facts about Maya Angelou. Prepare notes for writing your 4 paragraph essay on her life and poetry.

The World According to Sesame Street

I went to the free San Francisco Film Society teacher screening of The World According to Sesame Street at the very cool Bridge Theater on Geary.

If you didn't catch it on PBS when it aired last year, you should Netflix immediately. What a great film, especially for educators, who are given opportunities to teach peace and tolerance in their classrooms on a daily basis. Sesame Street is a far reaching neighborhood, it seems. 120 countries have their own, aculturated versions of the show, including Bangladesh, their most recent addition.

Kosovo was an eye-opening segment. Who would have guessed that politics could figure so prominently in the creation of a much-needed children's program. They could fit the Serbians and the Albanians in the same room, yet they couldn't make the tension dissipate no matter what cause they were all united in fighting for...be it the unification of a nation or something as essential as guaranteeing the future of their children.

But for me, the most touching and heartbreaking moments of the film were when they showed the South African version of Sesame Street, with their HIV muppet, Kami.

Apparently, for a country like South Africa, which now holds the highest number of known HIV related cases in the world, Kani is a welcome learning tool with which the show can help children understand the very heavy-duty concepts and unpleasant issues of loss, death, and the HIV virus.

However, in the US of A, we trampled the idea of Kani before it even had a chance to explain the benefits of educating a huge mass of children who have no means of understanding a sickness that is sweeping through their country.

The show at the Bridge ended with a very sparse Q and A with the director of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Milton Chen, and the man who was the soul of Gonzo on the Muppets, Dave Golez. Needless to say, I never got my answer to the question; what exactly IS Gonzo?! Ant-eater is my best first guess...an ant-eater that loves chickens and rats. Go figure!

FREE DAY AT THE SF MUSEUMS!

Hi everyone! And thank you all for some wonderful parent/teacher conferences. It was a pleasure discussing how terrific your children are. I love talking about how great my students are. Teachers get bragging rights, too!

Please remember...Saturday is FREE DAY at all the museums in San Francisco, including SF Moma, Zeum, Cartoon Art Museum, The DeYoung, Academy of Sciences, The Asian Art Museum, and The Legion of Honor...take advantage of this amazing offer if you can!

Also, MONDAY IS A HOLIDAY! NO SCHOOL!

And Tuesday is our fabulous field trip to the Asian Art Museum, where the kids will learn about Chinese brush painting in addition to seeing all of the amazing artifacts during our docent-led tour. Bring a bag lunch, kids!

As for curriculum, we are zooming in math, and are currently on Chapter 8, which includes:

Unit 1: Reasonable scale
Unit 2: Bar graphs and double-bar graphs
Unit 3: Ordered pairs and graphing
Unit 4: Line graphs
Unit 5: Histograms
Unit 6: And choosing the appropriate graph to represent your data.

We have learned up to unit 4, and will be continuing units 5 and 6 on Wednesday. The Chapter 8 test will be on Friday.

HOMEWORK for November 5

Homework for November 5- November 12

1) Spelling List

a. Do NOT do spelling dictation

2) Daily Language Review

3) Daily Academic Vocabulary

a. refer, reference

4) Daily Paragraph Editing

a. Directions: “How to Build a Sand Castle”

5) Daily Handwriting Practice

6) Daily Word Problems

7) Daily Geography

a. Picturing the World

8) Tic Tac Math

9) Daily Math Practice

a. Do not do Monday problems #1, 3, 4, 5

b. Do not do Tuesday problems #1, 3, 5

c. Do not do Wednesday problem #1

d. Do not do Thursday problem #4

10) Problem Solving

11) Crossword Puzzles

a. The White House

12) Reading Log

a. Choose a book and read every day. Log your ideas.

INTERNET HUNT: Search for the planet Venus. Research the planet, take notes, and prepare for Wednesday computer lab where you will write a 4 paragraph essay.

What's Up?

Sorry for the delay in posting, parents and students! This past week has been crazy with conferences and report cards, and finding time to log on to the Internet has been a challenge!

Ms. Van Doren has been coming on Fridays for nearly a month now, and hopefully you've all been able to get to know her better. She has told me how much she has enjoyed getting to know all of you better, and how she has been having a great time in class. In fact, she will be attending your field trip to see Seussical on Monday with you. Have a great time, and please behave while on the trip! It's important to remember where you are going...a theater...shhhh....

We have finally finished up Chapter 7, which focused on range, mean, median, and mode. There is no easy way to remember the four terms and what they mean, other than studying hard and practicing. The kids did a great job with the practice problems, however, and seem to have the gist of it. Good job, students. It was a hard chapter, and you conquered it!

Now that we've finished several chapters in Harcourt Math, the students have learned a huge amount of new vocabulary and mathematical terminology that they will have to retain. It is advisable that they study these terms as much as possible, as it will all be present on the test at the end of the year.

Oh, and homework is due on Monday. The students have been told to keep all of their completed homeworks as reference. All of their geography work in those worksheets will help them study later on, and it is helpful to keep all their work.

See you soon, students! And have a great time on the field trip on Monday!