Fall Teacher-Parent-Student Conference

Conferences start Wednesday!  This is a time for me to communicate, problem solve, and celebrate this past term with the parents and students of Room 24.  I want to make this time worthwhile and positive for all involved.

Here are a couple of expectations for ALL participants (parents, students, and myself) during conference time:

1.  Please be on time.  Conferences are scheduled in TWENTY minute blocks with no time in between.  You being late means your conference will have to be shorter.

2.  Let's problem solve and not blame.  It is easy to blame the student, parent, teacher, or school when things don't go as well as we like.  Please be respectful to everyone involved by not blaming.  Blaming gets us nowhere!  Instead, we need to address what to do to improve a students' performance or behavior by COLLABORATING.

3.  Both students AND parents need to attend.  This conference is for the students, so he/she needs to be there.

4.  Stay on topic.  There is only TWENTY minutes scheduled for each conference and there is a lot to cover.

5.  Keep positive.  There is plenty of school left this year, so there is a lot of time to improve!

Here is my AGENDA for conferences:

1.  Greetings and introductions

2.  Go over REPORT CARD

3.  Goal Setting, Problem Solving, and Celebrations
I will go over the current curriculum, web tools, and other ways to assist students at home.

4.  Conclusion

I look forward to meeting with each of you to share your child's progress.  See you soon!

Native American Projects

For our first major research project this year, the students of Room 24 studied Native American tribes and how they compared with each other based on the area they lived in.  The students chose two tribes to study.  The requirements for this project was to research the tribes, write a comparison essay, and give a speech on their research paper.  This was a HUGE project that consisted of doing tons of research on-line, using Google docs to type their reports, and some students even created art and a slide show to go with their presentations!  The students had a month to work on this.  It was very nice to see and teach the students to utilize technology to complete this project.  I created Google accounts for each student at the beginning of the year.  They were required to type their essay and share it to me via Google Docs.  They also peer edited from our Chromebooks.  I love seeing the end products and especially, the process the students took to complete this project.

Feel free to browse and read the students' essays here:

Abigail's Essay          Abigail's Slideshow          Brian's Essay          Sasha's Essay       

Porter's Essay          Zach's Essay          Bella's Essay          Isabelle's Essay         Issa's Essay       

Evelina's Essay          Faythe's Essay       Faythe's Slideshow          Artem's Essay         Tavia's Essay



Here are a couple of presentations I recorded in class:

Tavia's Visual Aid Art Project for her Speech.  Great work!!!

Blazers Visit Gilbert Park

We had some special guests come to Gilbert Park today.  They are tall and like to slam dunk....Yep, the Portland Trail Blazers!!!  Our guests included Robin Lopez, Thomas Robinson, CJ McCollum, Earl Watson, Will Barton, and Victor Claver.  They were accompanied by some Blazer assistant coaches, Blazer radio broadcaster Antonio Harvey, and of course Blaze the Trail Cat.  They encouraged the students to read everyday, study, and listen to their teachers.  The assistant coach's message was when you look and listen, you will learn.  Antonio Harvey lead the students in a pledge to live, learn, and play.  There was even some silly string spraying by the players on the students.  Gilbert Park received an autographed basketball, the staff received t-shirts and tickets for opening night, and the school received an assembly they will never forget!  Thank you BLAZERS!!!

Reading Group Time

Reading groups are an integral part of our reading program here at Gilbert Park.  Students are divided into groups by their reading levels and receive small group reading instruction.  All the groups work on the same reading skill while using different books at their level!  While the reading groups are going on, the students who are not meeting are quietly working on their reading skills by silently reading.  These students are also given a reading task to work on.  A big thank you to Ms. Chin for being in this class and teaching the RED group and Mr. Kertay for teaching the YELLOW group.  I instruct the BLUE and GREEN group and the ORANGE group runs themselves.  Ms. Chin's group just finished reading The Littles and are moving into Forces and Motion.  Mr.  Kertay's group just finished Frog and Toad and are now reviewing the Viking text we read in class.  My groups are reading The Thief Lord and the ORANGE group is reading Savvy.

Zenger Farms Field Trip

The students of Room 24 had a wonderful time at their first Zenger Farms field trip of the year.  They started the day learning about ORGANISMS and what four characteristics they need to be considered an organism.  They next toured the farm and got to taste many of the crops like kale, peppers, fennel, beets, and many more!  They got to see and pet the chickens, turkeys, and saw the bee hives.  In the afternoon, they performed service work.  They picked weeds, sifted through compost, planted plants, and fluffed dirt.  The worked SO hard!

 

 

Here are some thoughts on the field trip by some students:

Are you a FLEXIBLE thinker?

Zach and Porter created a video to demonstrate the other success skill we are working on this term, Flexibility.  Great job boys!!!

Introduction

The WRONG WAY

A GREAT example of FLEXIBLE thinking

Some more great examples of FLEXIBLE thinking:

Curriculum Login

Our new curriculum, Forward, has a component that enables students to login to the curriculum and do some extra studying, review lessons, and do assignments.  I gave the students their login information today and instructed them to look around.  I will link the website below.

The other site that I encouraged the students to visit is iXL.  iXL is a site for extra math study.  It has problems that cover all the standards.  I will assign iXL homework starting next week.


Forward Login

Zenger Farms Field Trip Next Tuesday, October 15th

The students of Room 24 will go on a walking field trip to Zenger Farms next Tuesday, October 15th.  We will leave the school no later than 9:10 and walk directly to Zenger Farms.  The purpose of this field trip is to educate the students on ecosystems.  This is a partnership between the farm and David Douglas, so in return for them teaching our students about ecosystems and the environment, the students will in turn help the farm by weeding, mixing compost, picking up fruit, etc.  This is a very fulfilling field trip, because the students give back to the community by helping out the farm.

I sent home permission slips last Thursday and they are due by the end of this week.  I would love for some chaperones to come along to experience this worthwhile field trip!  Please let me know if you are interested and make sure your to fill out the Volunteer Form located in the front office.

I'll make sure to post pictures and videos of our experience!  Have a great day!

Attached is a copy of the permission slip.

Zenger Farm Permission Slip

Last Day of Swimming

Swimming instruction came to a close today.  The students finished up their patch testing and had a ton of free-time!  I'm so impressed on their improvement in the water!!!  Here are a couple of videos curtesy of the iPhone 5s.

First PBiS Assembly

PBiS (positive behavior interventions and support) is a behavior system we use at Gilbert Park that focuses on acknowledging positive behavior and less on negative behavior.  Whenever students go above and beyond to display our school rules, be safe, be respectful, and be responsible, they receive a "Patriot Award."  They then save Patriot Awards up to redeem prizes.  They also get a 5 Nguyenning bonus for receiving a Patriot Award in our class.  Gilbert Park has used this system for about 6 years and it's produced great results.  Both attendance AND disciplines referrals have improved over this time!

PBiS assemblies are held in the cafeteria every other month.  The assemblies highlight PE and Music awards, attendance awards, and character trait awards.  Our class received the Attendance All-Star award this month for having the best attendance in the WHOLE SCHOOL!!  I'm so grateful for this group of students and their willingness to be at school.  And HUGE kudos to the parents for supporting them!

                                                 

Free Access to Online Books!

The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) is pleased to announce that free access to myON Books (a business unit of Capstone) will be extended through December 20th, 2013. This online library of over 4,000 enhanced digital books for all students and families was first introduced as a free resource to the state in early summer, 2013.

Follow the following steps to login:

1) Go to www.myon.com and click on the “Login Now” button

 

2) On the login screen, enter the following information into the appropriate fields: 

 

• School Name:  Oregon Readers (begin typing Oregon Readers and select “Oregon Readers, Oregon Department of Education” from the dropdown box.

 

• Username: read (all lower case)

 

• Password: read (all lower case)

 

        3) Click the “sign in” button and enjoy!

All About Me Posters

Check out these ALL ABOUT ME POSTERS!

Class Collaboration

One of the focuses in our new curriculum, FORWARD, are ACADEMIC SUCCESS skills.  The skill we are learning about and practicing is COLLABORATION.  Here is a poster I put up in class:

These skills are important not only at school, but at home and in all the students' future endeavors.  Below are some videos that shows great collaboration between the students during a group math practice sheet assignment in class today.  Can you spot the examples of good collaboration in these videos?

Band and Orchestra Field Trip

The start of Band and Orchestra is right around the corner!  We went on a field trip to the David Douglas Performing Arts Center and listened to a performance by some talented high school students.  They played tunes from Star Wars, Aladdin, Pirates of the Caribbean, and other classical tunes.  It was an unreal experience for me to see SEVERAL of my former students (who are seniors now) perform!  The students of Room 24 did a phenomenal job displaying respectful and responsible behavior during the performance.  I'm SO impressed!!!

I sent a letter home today detailing the musical instrument meeting required for ALL students that have an interest in joining Band or Orchestra this school year.

First Day of Swimming

We had a fun AND eventful first day of swimming!  The students started out by testing their swimming ability.  Half were placed into the shallow end and half in the deep end.  The students in the shallow end focus on basic swimming skills like kicking their feet, bobbing up and down, and increasing their comfort in the water.  The students in the deep end focus on learning new swimming strokes and other advanced swimming techniques.  The students also get FREE time if they follow directions and have a great day.  Some of the students used the free time to jump off the diving board!

The eventful situation came at the end of swimming when we were ready to leave the pool on the bus.  We were all ready to go when the bus would not start.  We waited a short fifteen minutes for another bus to arrive.  I appreciate the students' flexibility!  Below is a link to the letter that the swimming teacher would like all parents to read.

Swimming Letter to Parents

 

Thank you Sasha for the fabulous PHOTO-BOMB!