February = Black History Month

We have finished 103 days of school and have 77 days more to go. That's 58% of the school year. Only 42% of the school year left!

It is February and it is Black History Month! On February 25th, we will be having a Black History Month program at TWC from 12:30pm - 2:00pm. Mr. Napoli, Ms. Dimick, and our class will be doing a skit on The Temptations. We have been practicing for weeks! Ms. Dimick choreographed a dance for our classes and everyone will be singing a famous Temptations hit. You'll have to come and see what song is it for yourself! There will also be some props that the students made, as well as a brief history about The Temptations. It should be very entertaining, so please stop by and see your students hard work!

Each Tuesday, Mr. Napoli, Ms. Dimick, and I have been meeting with our 4th and 5th grade classes to talk about classroom expectations. We have allowed the students to discuss appropriate rules, expectations, procedures, consequences, and rewards. We have also spent time pointing out the positive things that we have seen coming from each classroom. I can say that for all three classes our hallway walking as seen major improvement, as well as the attitudes of many of our students! We are starting to see a positive change for many of our students after a month or so worth of meetings! I have been encouraging my students to really look at the big picture. Sure they may be in 4th or 5th grade right now, but they are starting to lay down their own foundation for future learning. Each student in this class will finish high school and go on to college! That is an expectation that I will have for them even after they leave my classroom.

Current classroom topics:

Math: Division

Health: The Media's Influence on our Lives

Science: Hypothesis and the Scientific Method

Writing: MyAccess.com and Narrative Writing

As always, we are constantly discussing and working on our body control and respect for others!

Remember: Next Thursday, February 25th is the Black History Program and next week starts our 3rd round of Benchmark Testing!

Donations and Days Off!

We have finished 84 days of school and have 96 days more to go. That's 47% of the school year. Only 53% of the school year left!

Since my last post, many great things have been happening in Room 117! Our wishes were granted over winter break and Room 117 received a few gifts. I let a few family and friends know that our classroom was lacking Kleenex and a pencil sharpener. Between my parents and my good friends, Alex and Kelly Statza, we now have an additional 33 boxes of Kleenex in our room! This should last us through the cold season! My grandma fulfilled our pencil sharpening needs with a brand new pencil sharpener! We are so thankful and the students made Thank You letters for everyone who donated. Also, Ms. Gianni, the TWC security guard, was very nice and donated a projector that was given to her to our classroom! The projector will be put into use next week and will allow a stronger connection to technology within our classroom.

Our classroom has been working very hard lately! I mean, VERY hard. Since the start of the school year, we have talked about "respect". Respect for our teachers, respect for our parents, respect for our classmates, and respect for ourselves! To ensure that we show respect within the Thurston Woods community, we have been practicing our classroom and school etiquette on a daily basis. After lunch, we have been working on our hallway procedures by walking around the school and attempting to be an inspiration to all the younger students. Throughout the day we discuss the expectations of the classroom and how it affects our ability to learn. We had a rough start but we are really starting to see results in ourselves! The students know that they must not let anyone be a distraction to them, inside or outside the classroom. I have set the bar very high for Room 117. They are going to meet and pass this bar before the end of the school year. Please feel free to discuss all of our classroom happenings with your child. I'd be more than willing to sit down and explain my expectations for your student!

Last week, we completed a really interesting unit on Probability in Math. The lessons were very hands-on and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The first day involved picking objects from a box. We discovered how to properly use the terms "likely", "unlikely", "certain", "possible", and "impossible". The second day involved using spinners to see if there is a better chance of landing on a piece if it is the same size as the other pieces. The third day I brought in a basketball hoop that Ms. Socha lent us. Thank you Ms. Socha! We talked about predictions and how they can be used in probability. I took a few shots and the students predicted how many I would make. The students took a few shots and we made predictions on their success. The final day involved flipping coins. Now the students quickly figured out that the probability is the same between heads and tails, but we thought creating some actual data by flipping coins would be best to prove this. The students seemed to gain a lot from this probability unit and it truly showed on their test scores!

Remember: No student attendance on Friday, January 22 and Monday, January 25!