Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today we celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  She is one image of Mary is celebrated in Mexico.  Follow the link below to read the story of her and Juan Diego.

http://www.franciscanfriars.com/RMH/OLGtext.htm

Heaven Cents!

I am so proud of our school and my class! We have been so generous with our extra dollars and change to help families in need. As a school, we raised $3278.02!! All the money will go toward buying gifts for families that need help this Christmas season. Way to go Panthers!!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Did you put your shoes out last night? We did before church this morning and St. Nicholas came bringing treats! We were also treated with a visit from the Archbishop. He celebrated mass with us and blessed the candy canes. Candy canes are symbols of the generosity of St. Nicholas!

Advent and Christmas around the world!

Follow the link below to find out how Christmas and Advent are celebrated in countries around the world.  We will look at some of these in class, but not the ones after December 16th.  You can check those out on your own. 
Think about the Advent and Christmas traditions you have with your family.  Are yours similar or different?  Do your traditions come from the country of your ancestry or just from your family?


Advent and Christmas around the world

Happy Advent!!!

Our class!

Back to work!

Time has gotten away from me again!  It's been a while since I've posted but, as you can tell from my last couple posts, I should be able to do it a little easier now. 

Class is going well.  We have all survived and thrived in the first trimester and are starting into the second trimester.  Many Christmas and Advent events are coming up in school (check out the dates page)!

The most important thing to remember though is that even though we only have three weeks until Christmas break, we still have three busy weeks of learning going on!

And pictures too?

Welcome to our classroom!

Trying something new!

Over Thanksgiving break I joined the tech world with an early Christmas present of a new iPhone. I should be able to post updates and pictures to my blog from the phone. Let's see if it works!

Science Rocks!

We are working this week on rock cycle projects.  Follow the link below to see the options and check back next week for some of the best examples!

First letter!

We received our first letter from our friends in Nicaragua today.  It came in Spanish and we worked together (Ms. Schervish mostly) to translate into English.  How much can you understand?

How time flies!

I can hardly believe we are half way through October!  The last few weeks have been very busy with Parent/Teacher/Student conferences and a long fall break.  We are now settling back into the routine of school with some fun additional projects.

This week, we are starting our penpal project with a group of fifth grade students in Nicaragua.  We will be writing a letter as a class, introducing ourselves, first.  Then groups of students at SNA will write to an individual student in Nicaragua to get to know more about school and life in another country.

I can't wait to read the first letters and start this advenure!


In other news, our class won the Spirit of St. Nicholas at the pep rally yesterday.  So now we have a real spirit to fill in Casper's chair in the room!

Remembering September 11

Many of the students in the fifth grade are too young to remember the events of September 11, 2001.  Some weren't even born yet!

As a school community, we want to educate the students in our rooms, but also remind them that, as Catholics and Christians, we are called to be peacemakers.  We will spend some time in class dicussing the events and addressing questions or confusion about what really happened that day and in the days and months that followed.

Throughout the day Friday, September 9, at the times that each plane crashed, we will have a moment of silence and a reading of an important American speech.  In addition, we will have a prayer ceremony at 1:45 which is open to parents and family.  The focus of this service is to honor those who are no longer with us and remember our call as peacemakers so that something like this will never happen again.

Grades!

We are finally starting to get into the nitty gritty of the school year and the school routine.  Grades are being posted on PowerSchool.  Each child should have received a letter with their username and password.  Grades will be posted at least every other week, most of the time even more than that.

Be sure to check often to keep track of assignment and overall grades for each trimester.

I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing Labor Day weekend.  Make sure you thank all of the people who labor in your world from the boss to the person who cleans the office!
Here in fifth grade, we are laboring hard, preparing for our first Math test on Friday.  It had been mostly a review of place value and naming fractions and decimals.  It's amazing how much falls out of our heads over the summer though!

In Religion this week, we are focusing on being peace makers and following Jesus' call to love our neighbor, even when we aren't sure who our neighbor is.  Take this week to make sure to say hi to the people in your neighborhood and remember how our actions and words can spread much larger than the people we see every day.

As we remember the events that changed our country 10 years ago, we remember that we are called to take care of others and to be the peace in our world.  If you have more questions about September 11 or how to start a conversation about it with your family, check out the following special from Nickelodeon news.

Nick News Special: 9/11: What Really Happened?

1 Down, 40 To Go

The first week of school was very eventful.  We had our first school mass and met the new students, teachers, principal and priest.  Open House was a great chance for parents and teachers to meet.  Parents who came got an overview of how the fifth grade year will go.

As for the students, this week started our school year in earnest.  We are still getting used to the routines of school.  Students are practicing walking quietly in the hallways and carrying their books without dropping them!

First Day of School!!

I have to admit, I did not get much sleep last night.  No matter how many years I have been teaching, I always have trouble sleeping the night before school starts.  I go over in my mind what to do the first day and make sure everything is ready to go.
Fortunately, the first day was wonderful.  We all had a chance to get to know each other, the classroom and the school.  We spent time learning names and a bit of information about each student.  We will learn tomorrow when we share our homework.  Yes, that's right.  Homework on the first day.  Welcome to fifth grade!!

Back to School . . . before the students!

Believe it or not, teachers are already back at school!  We started our meetings yesterday and it was great to see all of the teachers after having a great summer break.  It was also very fun to welcome back our "new" principal, Kathy Delozier.  It feels good to have a familiar face in the office and she's already started making some great changes to freshen up the school.

Most teachers are in and out this week getting the classrooms set up and ready for Meet and Greet on Monday night.  I look forward to seeing many of you before that, on Thursday at registration.

Welcome to August!

I can't believe it's August already!  The summer seemed to fly by and I know the next few weeks will definitely go fast as well.  I just got back from a vacation with my family where I was able to sit on the beach a read . . . heaven!


Speaking of reading, this is just a friendly reminder to those who haven't started on your summer reading yet!  We have a great book to read this summer titled Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo.  It's an interesting story of a boy left stranded on an island and how he found the help he needed to survive in an unlikely place.

Follow the link below to see the fifth grade supply list and summer reading requirements.

Fifth Grade Supply List

Up and Running!

I'm very excited about this new blog/website for my classroom!  I love learning about new technologies that I can use for my room so this is a great new adventure for me.  It just shows you always keep learning in life, even when you're done with school!

There are 26 days until school starts and I'm starting to have ideas about how to set up the classroom and get ready for the first few days.  I hope you are all enjoying your summer and reading your summer book!  (Hopefully more that one book!)

See you all in a few weeks!