What is your Christmas wish?

I am sure many of you have already thought about things you "want" for Christmas. How much time have you spent thinking about what others want? If you had a Christmas wish that was not about you, what would it be?

Blood on the River Projects

Our class recently finished reading Blood on the River. The boys were split into Literature Groups of 3 throughout the book. These are their final projects. Many of them did dioramas or tv boxes. I loved seeing these...they were awesome!

Rain, rain, go away??

People have different thoughts and feelings about rain. What if it never rained? Would that be okay? Do you like the rain? Why or why not? Do you think that different cultures or people from other areas of the world have similar feelings about rain?

Halloween!

Happy HALLOWEEN! We had a great Halloween lunch thanks to our terrific parents. The boys have been working on "DEAD WORDS." We have put them to rest and are now thinking of the new words that "survived" them. Boys- post your "DEAD" word as well as the "SURVIVED" by word.

Momentum

There has been a great deal of lurking and looking at other blogs. It seems clear that as a class you need to be committed to taking your work seriously before posting for all to see. I think we are ready for that challenge. Take a moment to reflect on your school experience. What is an important lesson about learning? Do you think it is more important to get an A or to have a true understanding of a concept? Is it okay to "forget" the information after a test or should you strive to learn it well enough that you can recall it later?

Think...

New Year=New Class

Welcome to the new 5th graders on the blog! For tonight's homework, you should "lurk" around other blogs. After you have lurked around at least one blog, please leave a comment about why you are excited about blogging.

Voicethread

Some more Voicethread Novel Shares.

Read and Tell

We have read so many great books as a class, and you have read over 2,000 pages on your own! Let's take this opportunity to highlight one or two of the books that you would give 5 stars!

Include the book title and why you recommend it. Hopefully other students will post their favorites as well!

Think...really think.

To help keep the pollen off your brain we are going to answer a few philosophical questions. You discussed philosophy in Current Events on Tuesday. Remember that we are not looking for right or wrong answers...just thoughtful answers. Have fun!

1. Does a tree make a sound if it falls in the forest with no one around? Explain your reasoning.

Must be May!

It must be May. The students are beginning to get fidgety...as are the teachers! Another sign is the amount of projects looming (all with the best of intentions and a desire to do one more great thing before the school year ends). We just finished the PowerPoint's on our State Brochures. Next we are collaborating with another school on a creative writing assignment! Two more projects after that...all in good time. Hope to post more work soon.

State Power Points

We have been studying the story of the USA since September. Now that we are moving west and more and more territories have received statehood, we did a little research on them. Each boy chose a state and completed a Power Point as a brochure. Look to the green box to choose a state and see his work!

Our class wiki

We have been using our class wiki throughout the year to collaborate on different projects in and out of the classroom. Check out our placespotting links!

http://stcva5-wilson.pbwiki.com/

Slow week...

We have our formal testing coming up this week which definitely limits our class time. I am hoping this will be a nice opportunity to take advantage of the blog and play around with it a little for myself and the students. We shall see...

WOW! I just took a peak at a few classroom blogs, and it is amazing what teachers and students are doing. It is also a bit overwhelming...I have to remember that some blogging is better than no blogging and that the goal is to do better tomorrow than I did today. With an awesome group of boys like I have this year, I feel confident that we can do some cool things. Keep your fingers crossed!

Day 2...Introduced "idea" of blogging to students

I told the boys in very general terms about setting up this blog and how my goal was to break out of our four walls in the classroom. They (like me) are excited to begin building our network and witnessing it through the cluster map. Slow process...errors are likely (which is a good thing)...and together we will come out better for it...right?

1st Teacher Blog

FIRST BLOGGING MOMENT...For the first time in a long time, I remember what it feels like to stare at the screen and wonder what to write. It is so easy as a teacher to forget what my own students experience so frequently. I hope this blog will help make me a better teacher and will eventually turn into our class blog for so many reasons.