Unit 6 Math Test, More Fun with Go-Carts and a New Addition to F3

Good job Julia! She won honorable mention in the Neighborhood Appreciation Day Student Art Project. Congrats!!

Hello everyone. Hope you are enjoying your three-day weekend. This last week, students in F3 opened up a very cool package from Paul: a folded American flag that had been flown at Paul's base in Iraq. So great. Thanks Karen for bringing that by! Through a true democratic process in F3, students decided that we would unfold the flag, hang it in the classroom, and then have Paul fold it back up when he gets back. Hope he won't mind :)

Students are working hard on getting familiar with fractions in anticipation of the unit six math test on Wednesday. Kids need to know how to add and subtract fractions with different denominators, put fractions in order from least to greatest, deal with improper fractions and mixed numbers, and know how to turn fractions into percentages.

We've been having a fantastic time with go-carts. The kids went from making free-wheeling go-carts to ones that are self-propelled. No one has quite figured that one at yet... looking forward to the week ahead.

With all the excitement in politics lately, students will start keeping track of the delegate count for both the republican and democratic nominees for president as part of social studies. This Tuesday and especially next Tuesday are pretty big days for the nominees.

We had a great conversation about being safe while on-line this past Friday. We will have more discussions about on-line safety as the year goes on. Among the kids' concerns is cyber-bullying. We talked at length about what it is, and we'll be talking more about what to do if it every happens to them in the weeks ahead. Remember that there are lots of really great reasons why your should protect yourself on line.

Celebrate MLK Day Tomorrow, January 21! See you at Maple on Tuesday

Thanks for the flag, Paul!!!

I hope to see some students tomorrow out and about in Seattle to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King. In the morning at Franklin High School, workshops will be followed by a rally and then a march at the 26th annual Let Freedom Ring celebration.

At the Seattle Center, performances will be happening all day at the Center Stage. At 2pm, the speech that we read at the assembly, "Our God is Marching On", will be read aloud for everyone at the Seattle Center. Other performances will be happening at the Center House all day long from 10-5pm.

Coming up this week, on Tuesday Karen Craddick will be coming in to bring us a package from Paul! How exciting! She'll be coming in at 10:30. I hope that kids will be willing to read aloud some of their letters to Paul. As you can see, Paul sent us a letter just a few days ago. I think it's pretty amazing that his gift to us was carried around in his vehicle for a couple of missions in Iraq. That's pretty amazing.

Also this week, students will be starting on the third part of our science unit, Models and Designs: making go-carts. Don't get too excited: we won't be driving these cars, just making them go across F-Pod. It should be a ton of fun.

Remember that there is no school next Monday, January 28th; it is the day between semesters.

Cheers!

MLK Assembly coming up on Friday!!

Dr. King leading marchers from Selma to Montgomery
Greetings everyone! Hope everyone has had a good 2008 so far. F3 has been busy in the classroom working on a number of projects. In science, students made physical models in their black box activity. For math students are moving on from decimals and percentages to making various kinds of graphs and doing data analysis. I was very happy with the results of last week's unit math test. If you would like your child to get extra help in math, you are welcome to bring them at 8:15 on Thursday mornings for our math breakfast club.

To celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy, students read and reread Dr. King's Our God is Marching On speech, delivered on March 25, 1965 in Montgomery on the capitol steps-- just after King led thousands of marchers from Selma to Montgomery for the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

F3 students will be reading from the last part of that speech for the assembly here at Maple at 2pm on Friday. I hope that you can make it as our kids educate the school about the meaning behind that speech and the significance of that year and of Bloody Sunday.

We are not quite ready yet to send out our package to Paul. Kids are almost done with their letters, but we need to send treats as well. Please bring in treats by the end of this week so that we can send out the package on Friday.

Hope you had a GREAT break!! Looking forward to seeing you!

Read any GREAT books lately??

Hey everyone!! Hope you had a GREAT and safe winter break and enjoyed lots of time with your friends and family. Thanks again to the kids who kept in touch during the break. It's always good to hear from you guys.

Coming up this week: On Wednesday we will get a visit from Wes Fisk, who is a violinist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. This will be in preparation for a field trip to the Benaroya Hall later this school year. We will have a unit 12 math test on Wednesday as well.

If you haven't already checked out the amazing letters to each of you from Paul, you really should. They're pretty great, and I bet you're excited to write him back. We'll be doing that this week for sure.

Hope you like the new look to the blog. In addition to a nice little makeover, a few links have been added for your on-line pleasure. First off is Study Island. Anyone with internet access at home should check out Study Island a few times a week and try some problems. They are directly correlated to the WASL-- so they'll be excellent practice for when we take the test in April. Just like with the Everyday Math games, I can check out how you've been doing with Study Island.

Lastly, thanks to Danny, Jonathan and Sarah's Moms for coming in on Gingerbread house making day. And thanks also for all fantastic gifts y'all gave me for the holidays. You are such a fantastic class.

Cheers!