Hello Readers,

After many happy years on Blogmeister, we are moving to a new blog provider, Google! The new site is almost ready and is waiting for the blessing of our school district. I'll keep you posted on the launch date!

What a fantastic collection of experiments and learning was displayed last night! From volcanoes to LCD screens there was so much to see and learn. Share your thoughts and what you learned! LOok to the left, under Assignments, to see what students have learned and what they are wondering about.

Wow! Lots of great thinking and sharing of books but the writing, oh the writing! If it looks rough it is...because we have posted our rough drafts. As we learn about what makes a good book review we are also learning to revise and edit our work. Look for comments that help our writers improve their craft. Feel free to help out by posting a comment with compliments and suggestions.

Well, 2010 sure showed up quickly! It is amazing how fast the school year is flying by. Third, fourth, and fifth graders are now setting up blogs and writing, writing, writing! This week has been consumed with the District Writing Assessment in Portable C. In math students are working with geoboards and a computerized geography program called Logo. Ms. Conlon is uncovering what students know about energy as she kicks off a unit on Matter and Energy. Needless to say, students are writing about all of these things. Look to your right for a list of recently published student work and enjoy!

It is difficult to believe that ten days of school have already passed. We have jumped into the deep end of the learning pool, so to speak! Students are reading, setting writing goals, exploring numbers, and making terrariums. The first blog assignment is up and ready to go (look to the right, click the teacher link and choose Ms. Conlon's blog!) Enjoy reading about what we think about energy use!

Go! Larrabee opened its doors after a summer of construction on Wednesday afternoon and it has been non-stop activity ever since. Hundreds of boxes were moved into classrooms and hallways, waiting to be unpacked. In a repeat of last summer's late August days a wave of families, teachers, and communtiy members descended and brought order to chaos. On Friday families dropped in to match students with teachers. Now the fun begins. Students will arrive tomorrow and our year long learning journey will commence. Yipee!

The end of the year was, as usual, a whirlwind. From the many field trips (WWU gardens, Fairhaven Park, Cornet Bay) to the many activities and assemblies things were just busy, busy, busy. Now, the days are slow and I find myself amused by what I choose to focus on outside of the classroom. Things I have learned since school ended on the 18th: >How to make ricotta cheese! Not very difficult and it tastes just divine. I don't think I will ever buy mass produced ricotta again. >How to trade stocks online. No phone calls, just click and trade. Scary at first but I am warming up to this. > That raspberry plants can rust. Sadly those little orange spots on one of my raspberry plants is rust, not a nice disease at all. It doesn't seem to have stopped the plant from producing berries but I have not been successful eliminating it yet. That will be my next learning goal! 

Hope this finds you learning new things too. Have a wonderful summer!

Two weeks and six long tests later our WASL tasks are complete! Now, we are diving into poetry. Geometry with words! We started with the word "tidbit" which I always took to mean a small bit. Well, the proper definition is, "very pleasing bit of food, news, etc."  Some students felt that combining WASL with something pleasing was created and oxymoron. Others disagreed. Just like broccoli, some love the WASL and some don’t! Thankfully all of us are having fun with words; how they sound, how they look, and what they mean. Look to the left and click on the Poetry assignment to read poems from fifth graders!

Today representatives from Qwest foundation came to Larrabee to present Ms. Conlon with $10,000 to spend on technology. THANK YOU Qwest! Ms. Conlon, Mrs. Young, and Ms. Mueller are all looking forward to exploring energy use and conservation through math, science, and social studies. Look for student designed projects coming soon!

All fifth graders in the state of Washington must complete a “Classroom Based Assessment” (CBA) in Social Studies. This year students took a look at the Stamp Act for our CBA. We wrote essays and created presentations that addressed who wrote the Stamp Act, what it meant to accomplish, and how it fit within our democratic ideals. Take a look at our Revolutionary War wiki page to see a few examples of our work and read the blogs from our Revolutionary War assignments to find out what students are learning about!

 One of our "Big Questions" that we asked before we began our study of the Revolutionary War is, "When did cooperation turn into conflict?" Colonists stood united with King George during the French and Indian War but now things are beginning to change. Not all Colonists were happy with the Proclamation of 1763 and now they are learning about the tax on sugar. Take a look at our Revolutionary War assignments and follow along as we learn more about conflict, cooperation, and the birth of our nation.

We have officially embarked upon our study of the American Revolution. Students are assuming the roles of important Patriots (like Nathan Hale depicted on the stamp above), Loyalists, Native Americans, and Frenchmen. We will work our way through events from the end of the French and Indian War to the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Unlike the original participants, we won't use pen and paper, participants must use 21st Century tools such as blogs, wikipages, digital maps and Google Documents. I expect we will see more writing than ever! Check out the resources we will be using on our wiki page. You may have to ask your student for the necessary passwords.

• What did you observe when the salt and water were combined?


• How did the water and the salt change when they were combined in the cup?


• How did measurement help you describe the changes?


• What have you learned about the properties of salt when you add it to water?


• How does experimenting with a solution of salt and water help you to understand the properties of salt and/or water?

What an interesting month! December roared in with snow and holidays only to be followed by January which brought flooding to large portions of our state. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a nice steady period of learning. Fifth graders are setting up book groups and Sasquach teams. Many have online Writeboard documents that they can work on at home and at school. In addition students are writing "Winter Stories" about events (real and imagined) that took place over winter break. Click the Winter Stories link to the left and enjoy our work!

On Monday teachers gathered together to learn more about our brains and how we can structure our classrooms and our lessons so we support learners in the best way possible. The book we are reading, Brain Rules by John Medina, started off in a very interesting way. Instead of focusing on the brain the first chapter talked about exercise and how it important it is to healthy thinking. If you have a chance, watch John Medina address Google executives or explore his website. The slide presentation on exercise provoked lots of discussion in Portable C!

Yesterday we watched a wonderful video on the Intelligence of Crows that we accessed via our classroom del.icio.us site. Delicious is a social bookmarking site that allows us to save our favorite sites and share them with the world. The picture that you see is a wordle.net picture made from all of our bookmarks. If you haven't had a chance to visit our delicious site take a look!

When I was younger I used to love jawbreakers, the hard round candy that would last for what seemed like hours. Today students worked to understand and record “jawbreakers,” words they didn’t understand or couldn’t pronounce. When a student accumulates ten of these I exchange the work for a small but tasty old fashioned jawbreaker. It always amazes me how varied and difficult the vocabulary is in the books students read! Take a minute to look at your student’s reading journal and discover for yourself the tasty words that are contained within. Here is one student's jawbreaker recorded today: 

Yesterday I told the story of my son Duncan and his writing journey. The road through elementary school was a long and bumpy one. Duncan just didn't care very much for writing, certainly not for the way his writing looked. His penmanship often crossed the line into illegible. When did he finally decide to take care and pride when writing? His JUNIOR year of high school! Needless to say this caused his teacher mother countless hours of frustration and angst. Now, I enjoy reading my son's writing, and he enjoys the journey he is on as he continues to improve his work as a college student.

In the classroom I ended my story with a challenge to fifth grade writers; if you have not yet decided to take care and pride in your work, when will you? Will you wait, as my son did, another seven years? It was delightful to see bright and capable thinkers choose now. Take a look at the results!

Quite a bit of difference; in just one day!

 We have started keeping “Reading Journals.” Our first few entries will be structured and follow a defined set of expectations.  We began with "Golden Lines," examples of what we consider an author's best writing. Once we get rolling though, journals become a very individual record of how we think about an author’s work. Critical evaluation of how an author puts words together to pull a reader in. Take a look at one student’s evaluation of Madeline L’Engle’s writing. Surely this student is reading like a writer (and surely underestimating themselves!)  

 I know I am absorbed in learning when I lose track of time. When I haven’t looked at a clock or my watch.  When distractions disappear. When learning and persistence take over. That pretty much describes the afternoon in Portable C. Twenty-seven learners, focused on writing, lost track of time. We were so busy creating stories, revising blog articles, and illustrating our work that we didn’t notice an hour and a half had disappeared. We were left with just a few minutes to tidy up, pack up, and get to P.E. Can’t wait until tomorrow!

Today some of us were submerged into "Spelling Angst." Well, I should probably just speak for myself. I was awash in Spelling Angst. Giving a spelling inventory assessment to fifth graders, some of whom surely are better spellers than I, brought on feelings of anxiety, apprehension, and a bit of insecurity. I can't spell very well. Haven't ever been able to. Thankfully I love writing, the oddities that English grammar offers, and new vocabulary words. I write often and count among my blessings friends who will read my writing and point out misspelled words. I am also a friend of spell check and dictionaries. It is my hope that the budding writers in Portable C will put their Spelling Angst behind them as they take pencil to paper and tell their stories. Look to the left for some new blog articles! If you would like to look at the list of "High Frequency" words that we worked on today click here.

Well, as of this morning I was a bit doubtful that Larrabee would be ready for students and families to come in and visit...turns out that a dedicated, caring, helpful community can do wonders! Families, students, alumni, and neighbors all pitched in to organize a classrooms and offices that were completely dismantled and moved over the summer. Pizza provided by Mr. Paige and homemade breads (thanks Mrs. Flinn!), cookies, and cakes helped fuel the effort. The last few days have reminded me that what makes a school is the people who gather there, not the bricks and mortar. How fortunate we are to be a part of the Larrabee community. The entire Larrabee staff is looking forward to hearing and reading about the myriad of summer adventures that our community took part in over the summer. Welcome to our new families and welcome back to those returning!