Moving...

So...it's hard to believe, but we're almost to the end of first quarter! Fifth grade has been going well. Every day is truly an adventure in our room, but in a good way. These kids keep me busy and running all day as is the life of a teacher. We're several months in and I've hardly touched the blog this year. I guess keeping up more than 1 classroom site is more than I can handle. Our new website is up and running over at Team Gentry. If you'd like to keep up with what's going on inside of our classroom please visit us there. I may be back to blogspot eventually, but for now I'll be concentrating my efforts over at the new site!

Aaaaaand We're Off!

The school year is underway and we are off to a great start! I have a lovely bunch of 5th graders that I am looking forward to working with and getting to know better. We have already been hard at work reviewing place value and expanded notation in math, studying new spelling words, reviewing the 4 types of sentences, learning new vocabulary words, and writing fictional stories. It has been a whirlwind these past few days, but we are beginning to settle into our schedule. Our group this year is very spirited, outgoing, TALKATIVE, and very sweet. I am looking forward to letting the students do some reporting on our blog and keeping it up to date.

It's Almost Time!

One week from today I will get to meet my new 5th graders! I'm so excited to get to know my students and for all the adventures and challenges teaching a new grade level will bring. I've been hard at work at school for the past 2 weeks and am happy to report it is finally starting to resemble a classroom as opposed to a storage room! I can't wait to see what this school year will bring and will be keeping you updated on all the fun!

The New Mrs. Gentry

I'm married! The wedding and honeymoon were more than I could even imagine! It was a perfect day and vacation at the beach in Mexico!

 Mr. & Mrs. Gentry

We Made It!

Congratulations! We made it another year. We had a great last day! We used shaving cream to practice cursive while cleaning our desks, we had a newspaper snow ball fight with the other 2nd grade classes, we ate lunch outside, started working on our memory books, and cleaned out our desks. I hope that everyone has a wonderful summer filled with lots of fun and memories. Don't forget to read every day! :) Here's to a wonderful 2nd grade class and an exciting summer to look forward to!

We had a fun field day last Friday! We played all kinds of games like: kickball, ring toss, dress up relay, 3 legged race, free throw contest, and water balloon toss. We also got to enjoy popsicles! Thanks to Mrs. Boehme and Mrs. Crews for organizing our fun day!

 

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!

Ms. Jackson dropping her class' projects off the top of the bleachers.

The second grade classes had a great time doing the egg drop last Friday!

Our class had 13 students participate.

 We had 7 egg projects that stayed intact throughout the big drop. 

 Others were not so lucky. :(

There were some very creative ideas ranging from using bubble wrap, to Styrofoam, to marshmallows for padding!  I loved seeing everyone's project and getting to drop them off the bleachers! Thank you to all of the families that participated!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

We've been hard at work for the past week or so brainstorming questions, conducting an interview, changing that interview into a story, and finally typing up our story into a newpaper article! Here are just a couple samples of some of the students' hard work. They did a great job and had a fun time learning a little more about some of their classmates! I hope you enjoy reading their articles.

Written by: Christian

Written by: Tessa

Written by: Megan

Didn't they do a great job? Make your own at www.fodey.com!

Career Day

We had a wonderful time last Friday on Career Day. We got to learn all about lots of different jobs! Thank you to all of the teachers who organized the event and all the guest speakers who volunteered their time to spend the morning with us!

We learned about Wind Turbines.

We learned about what the different colors of Firefighters' helmets meant.

We learned about special clothing that keeps people working with electricity safe.

We learned about how the Rescue Squad volunteers train and take care of their dogs.

We got to pet and play with the dogs!

-We also learned what a pharmacist does...unfortunately I didn't think to grab my camera in time for that one. Oops!-

Measuring Up!

 

Using feet and inches to see how far we can jump

 

Finding out how many unifix cubes long our shoes are

 

Using paperclips to measure the length of a notebook

 How far can you blow a cotton ball in one breath?

We have been having such a fun time learning all about estimating and measuring length!

Thing #6

I had never heard of Diigo before. It is a very interesting concept and I can especially see the "searchable website" pages coming in handy with younger elementary aged students. Basically, you can archive any website page and then students are able to search for a specific animal/term/etc. I can see this being useful when doing research writing about a person or animal choosing only information from teacher approved web pages. I believe that internet research is an important skill that is imperative for our students to learn at an early age.

May Newsletter and Spelling Lists

Sorry these are a couple of days late!

Click to Enlarge

May 3-7

tried

trying

planned

planning

liked

liking

hiked

hiking

cried

crying

skipped

skipping

*danced

*dancing

*replied

*replying

May 10-14

mixture

nation

section

future

picture

action

caution

station

fixture

motion

nature

feature

*furniture

*adventure

*tuition

May 17-21

kindness

careless

goodness

useless

fearless

darkness

sadness

sickness

helpless

thankless

fitness

weakness

*awareness

*eagerness

*wireless

May 24-28

midair

misplace

mislead

midway

misprint

midday

midweek

misbehave

midyear

mismatch

misdeed

mistake

*midstream

*midnight

*misbehavior

Field Trip Fun

The second grade classes enjoyed a wonderful field trip last Friday! First we went to Centennial Park for a picnic lunch and lots of windy playtime and then to the movie theater to watch the Disney's new Oceans movie. We had a great time playing and learning more about some interesting animals that live in the ocean! We'd like to thank all the parents that came and enjoyed our day with us. A special thank you goes out to Mrs. Brewer and Mrs. Roth for sticking with us and helping out the whole day! Enjoy our video!


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Spring Concert

On Tuesday, the students got all dressed up and performed at their Spring Concert. They all did a wonderful job and I think everyone enjoyed the fun Disney songs they sang!

Exciting Announcements!

This week has brought several exciting opportunities and arrivals to our classroom!

1. We will be going to see the Disneynature movie Oceans on April 30th! We are all very excited to see the movie and learn more about all the wonderful animals and plants that live there. Check out their website here to see pictures and videos about the movie.

2. We now have our very own Promethean board and projector. We have been using it to enrich our math, reading, writing, and science lessons. I love having this awesome learning resource right in our classroom! We are still practicing being careful around all the new cords, but no injuries as of yet! I will try to remember to take a few pictures of it "in action" in the next few days.

3. Today we welcomed the newest member of our class, JN. We are all looking forward to getting to know you better over these next couple of months!

Breaking News!

We now have a brand new classroom blog that each and everyone of the students in our class can contribute to. Mrs. Yoder told me about this website and I am very excited to start using it with our class. The students and I went to the lab this afternoon and had a great time learning all about typing, posting, and commenting on others' posts. Today I had them post a blog using one of their journal assignments from the week. It was so much fun to watch and listen to the students as they discovered the wonder of the blogging world for themselves.  I am so excited to incorporate this mode of learning in our classroom! They all did such a wonderful job!

If you would like to go and see for yourself the website is:

kidblog.org/msmckeownsclass

You may log in using:
username: guest
password: guest

Feel free to check it out and comment away (don't forget to leave your name so we know who you are)! :)

Our April Newsletter & Spelling List

CLICK BELOW TO ENLARGE

 

April 12-16
talk
because
August
caught
draw
walk
chalk
auto
taught
thaw
fault
launch
*applause
*audience
*awkward

April 19-23 Review
enough
graph
because
walk
wrap
sign
rewind
disappear
teacher
quickly

April 26-30
we’re
I’ve
don’t
can’t
he’d
you’re
won’t
they’re
I’d
they’d
she’d
we’ve
*could’ve
*would’ve
*should’ve

Apple Barn Slideshow

I realize that our Apple Barn field trip was way back in the fall, but I couldn't resist trying out this new video/slide show experiment. I love taking photos of my students and this seems like it might be the perfect way to share with parents and families! I think some of the students look so much older now even compared to a few short months ago! Enjoy! :)

 

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Thing #5

Stacey's commitment to her blog on our first day of Spring Break inspired me to try out the next assigned "thing". I've never put together a custom search before, so this was a good learning opportunity for me. The custom search I created contains websites the students often use in the computer lab. I hope that this will be a good way for those students who have internet at home to easily access games there for extra practice. In the past, I've sent home lists of helpful websites in the class newsletter, but hopefully this will be more convenient for everyone! I like that it will be easy to add to and update when we visit somewhere new in the computer lab!

Happy Easter!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter and a fun and relaxing Spring Break! 

Where would you like to go?

Yesterday I asked the class if they would like for me to take them to McDonalds. Of course, the resounding answer was "YESSSSSSS!"....but it wasn't that easy. I told them that I would rather cook at home for them instead and they had to persuade me to change my mind. They did a great job of coming up with good solid reasons why I should take them including: not having to do dishes or clean up, not having to take so much time, and some even offered to pay their own way!
After introducing the concept of persuasion, we completed our first writing assignment for this type of writing. The assignment was to write a letter to our mom/dad/grandparents/etc. persuading them to take us somewhere. Here are a couple examples:

"Dear Mom,

Please take me to Hawii! You want to go to. Its warm there very warm. There's palm trees and a beach. You and me and shelli and Bri and Nee can go. I'll clean my room for a whole Month I promise. We girls could take the trail blazer. Pretty please with Hawii on top. The boys can go mudding. I'll wash the dogs.

Love,

KW"

Written and Illustrated by: KW

"Dear Mom,

Can I go to Thai land? I haven't been there for a while. I would pay for the tickets. Then I would give you the change if we got any change. I would get you a ipod touch that you really want. I would feed the cats every day. I would clean my room. I would try to keep Dakota away from your stuff. That's what I would do if we were going to Thai land.

Love,

CK"

Written and Illustrated by CK

Great job! Ok -- I'm definitely convinced and I'd love to tag along to Hawaii or Thailand with you!

Helping Others

Last week, NB spent the whole week on a church trip to Mexico. He helped the team finish one house and build another one. He brought pictures and explained each one to our class. The students and I both enjoyed hearing about his trip and seeing the pictures. I hope that somehow the important lesson of helping those less fortunate than us was communicated to the other students. NB, thanks for sharing your awesome experience with our class!

"Amigos por siempre" ="Friends Forever"

This was a gift given to NB by a friend he made while working there.

Today we...

Today we wrote journal entries, learned more about telling time, listened to a funny story about a dog that acted like a person, played "Stop the Clock" in the computer lab, and lots more. Here are some pictures and student work from our day:

Prompt: Invent a new sandwich and describe it.
"I would invent a new sandwich that tastes like cherries. It will have mints and cherries in it. Every time you take a bite it will sqirt cherry juice in your mouth. It will make you smarter in school and make you get 100s on everything.

Written and Illustrated by: KS

Prompt: Write about your favorite toy.

"My favorite toy is my Ipoud I Like it becase it is fun to lessin to and you get to lessin to iny kind you whant but best of all i Like my ipoud.

Written and Illustrated by: MR

Here we are hard at work trying to master this tricky time telling thing!

Thing #4

I have been a fan of google docs for quite some time. It is such a convenient way to share and access documents and pictures. From wedding guest lists, to shopping lists for classroom things, to assignments I prepare during evenings or weekends, I use it all the time -- the possibilities are endless! I'd love to be able to post document and share with families for extension activities that correlate with what we are currently learning. Also, as some other teachers have mentioned, it could be a convenient way to share important documents such as school calendars, announcements, permission slips, etc. I <3 google!

What is the best thing about a rainy day?

The best thing about a rainy day is you could invite a freind over. you could do a puzzle. you could paint a picker. The last thig of all you can play in THE RAIN!!!

Written and Illustrated by: LB

Great Job! LB wrote this this morning for a morning work journal entry. I love her creative artwork and her use of exclamation marks! The speech bubble reads "This is so great!" I am going to attempt to add more student work for your viewing pleasure.

While we've had lots of dreary and rainy days lately today is NOT one of them! We are all very thankful for the beautiful sunshine and outside PE and recess today!

The Blob

Student: "Do we get to check our blob today?" and that is why I love teaching...kids are way funny. From now on I shall refer to our blog only as blob. :)

In celebration of starting our new math unit on telling time HERE are a bunch of fun games to help your student practice at home. Even though we've only played the first installment of the game, I can already tell that "Stop the Clock" is going to be a class favorite.

At the risk of our reading being left out feel free to check out this pronoun game or this one

(don't mind the alternate spelling of some words)!

 Don't forget about the Book Fair that is going on this week! Our class will be visiting tomorrow. Also, it will be open Tuesday and Thursday evening for you to come with your family!

 

Fraction Fun

As promised, here are a few pictures of the fun we've been having with fractions! First, we did a pizza project where they used toppings to make different fractions. Friday, we wrapped up our fraction unit by doing an activity involving M&Ms and the different fractions that were made from the colors. We all had a great time learning all about fractions!

Today we...

Today in math we made fractions with M&Ms. We estimated how many M&Ms were in our bag. We opened and counted our candy. We sorted them by color. We did addition problems with our candy. We filled in a graph to match our M&Ms. Last, we got to eat our M&Ms. It was fun. We love math! We like having M&Ms for breakfast....or having M&Ms for dessert after our breakfast. Maybe you can do the same thing at home with your family this weekend!

Ms. McKeown says she will post pictures of our fraction projects soon (she also helped us type our message).

Sincerely,
Ms. McKeown's class

Goodbye Mrs. Koltun!

Wishing you the happiest retirement ever!

WE WILL MISS YOU!

Reader's Theater

During first week of March our class practiced and performed 3 plays ("Mr. Wolf and the Three Pigs" - "Twice as Nice" - "All By Myself"). They practiced all week long and did a wonderful job reading with expression, fluency, and proper phrasing. The students really enjoy when we have a "Reader's Theater" week and I am always so proud of what great jobs they do! We definitely have some wonderful little actors and actresses!

Thing #3

 There are so many wonderful examples of how teachers are using web 2.0 tools to teach and enrich their students' learning. After looking at several, I found Kathy Cassidy's blog. She is a 1st grade teacher in Moose Jaw, Canada. I love how each student can each make student entries where they can share their own writing. The feedback they recieve is particularly encouraging and I would love to be able to incorporate something similiar on my classroom blog in the future. The use of video and the amount of student work showcased is inspiring and, again, something I'd love to learn how to do!

Another blog that I find entertaining and interesting is Regurgitated Alpha Bits  who shares candidly about the frustrating/inspiring/funny/challenging. This blog is written anonymously by a female teacher aspects that come along with a job in the education world. She describes her blog as "Musings of a teacher who loves her students, hates her job, and mourns the fact that they used to be the same thing." I enjoy her style of writing and can identify with much of what she writes about -- although, I am far from "hating my job" in fact, I quite like it! :)
UPDATE: I have recently found Look at my happy rainbow! - It is a blog written by a male kindergarten teacher. I have loved reading about his "sprouts" and all the funny stories that surround teaching a room full of 5 year-olds. I encourage you to check it out - it will make you smile. Guaranteed.

Celebrating Dr. Seuss!

 Today the students and I had a wonderful time celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday. We read 5 of his books, learned about his life, talked about why he became an author, made our own Cat in the Hat hat, played some fun rhyming games online, watched part of Horton Hears a Who during recess, and made this story using the "Seussville StoryMaker" from seussville.com. Overall, we had a very exciting day! We hope you enjoy our story...now go make your own! Find this fun story building program and much much more right here!

Click below to enlarge and read our story! :)

Petting Zoo

Yesterday, the students and I had a chance to participate in the petting zoo that the high school Agriculture students put on. We saw pigs, a sheep, a llama, a horse, dogs, and a cow. We walked through the tent, read the posters with facts, saw the animals, and then answered questions about what we learned. Besides numb fingers and toes, we all had a wonderful time.Thank you for a great learning experience, high school students!