Book Reports

Just a reminder the book reports for the second quarter are due tomorrow, December 14th. Each student has had this reminder in their agendas all week.

December Activities

As always the month of December provides a calendar full of events.

- Our list of events kicks off this Friday with another Student Council Popcorn Day. Students may bring in their 50 cents to receive a bag of popcorn to eat after lunch.

- Next week is the Santa Shop. We will have a preview day where our class will get to go and see what is available and to figure out prices. Then later in the week we will go back to make our purchases. For those who have never been to a Santa Shop before let me explain. A variety of small Christmas gifts are brought in and made available for students to buy for family members for Christmas. After they are purchased at the Santa Shop the students will receive them in a bag at the end of that school day to be taken home.

- Friday December 14 is Rolly Polly Day. Student Council will be taking money and orders Monday - Wednesday of next week if you would like to receive a Rolly Polly wrap for lunch on that Friday. A form will be sent out letting everyone know the types of wraps that are being offered and the cost of each.

- Tuesday December 18 we will be having a small awards ceremony during the day where awards from the first 9 weeks will be passed out.

- And finally Friday the 21st will be our last day before Christmas break. My hope is to enjoy the season that day with a variety of holiday activities.

I wish everyone a Happy Holiday.

Christmas Is In The Air

Here is a little holiday decorating that has recently hit our room.

Book Reports and Midterms

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day vacation. We are now ready for a 4 week roller coaster until Christmas. I just wanted to remind everyone or give you the heads up if you are hearing about this for the first time that book reports are due December 14th. After completing a book, each student has to complete one of the activities posted in the classroom. They must complete a different activity then the one they did last time.

Also, midterms will be going home on Friday. Because of the time it takes to gather the grades and get them out to all the parents by the time you see the grades we will only have 4 weeks instead of 4 and a half to finish off the term. If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanksgiving Week

There will be no spelling lesson or reading story this week due to the shortened week. We will be finishing up some projects and activities we have been working on in class as well as a few Thanksgiving things.

Retro Dance

On Friday night Lakeveiw had its first Family Retro Dance. Fun was had by everyone that was there. Music from the 60's, 70's, 80's, and a few hits from today were played as everyone danced the night away.

Study Buddies Friday October 26

Here are some pictures from our Study Buddy activity last Friday. For the first time we all went down to the computer lab. In the lab we helped our 1st grade buddies learn how to use Microsoft Word. We did all sorts of fun things such as font styles, sizes, and colors, clip art, word art, and practiced saving our documents. Everyone had a great time doing something a little bit differently this week.

A Presentation for Science

We were recently privileged to have Mr. Mike Roberts come to our school to teach us about wildlife and taking care of our great outdoors. In the afternoon the 3-6 grade gathered in the auditorium while Mr. Roberts introduced us to all sorts of animals. He talked about what it would have looked like at Lakeview 400 years ago and all the different wildlife animals that were around at that time. He also taught us about the habits of such animals as the turkey, fox, and the white tailed deer. We were very fortunate to have Mr. Roberts come to Lakeveiw.


One other quick announcements. We will be having half days of school next week on Thursday and Friday. The students will be dismissed at 11:30.

I hope everyone is enjoying their fall season.

Upcoming Student Council Events

Student Council Upcoming Events

Boo Grams
Boo Grams will be sold in the cafeteria during lunch on Friday October 26, Monday October 29, and Tuesday October 30. The Boo Grams will cost $0.50 each and be delivered October 31 at the end of the day. Each gram will include a sucker in the form of a ghost along with a personalize message to the person you are sending it to. Parents if you are interested in sending your child a Boo Gram please fill out the form on the back of this sheet.

Popcorn Sale
The next Popcorn day will be Friday November 9 during lunch. Each bag of popcorn will cost $0.50. Students will be able to buy their popcorn after they are finished with their lunch and then eat it outside at recess.

School Dance
When: Friday November 16th
Time: 7:00 – 9:00
Cost: Free
It will be a school wide family retro dance following the PTO meeting. There will be a D.J. playing oldies, hip hop, country, and more. Concessions will be sold by the student council and will range from $0.25- $2.00. So wear your best 70’s outfit.

Collect-A-Million
We are still collecting pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald house. Have family and friends save those tabs and then send them in. We have two large containers located outside the office for our collection. We are a little over half way to our goal.

Student Council Elections
We will be having our Student Council Elections on Wednesday November 7. Each student in each class will vote for one candidate for each office. These offices range from President through Publicity Director. Keep an eye out for each candidate’s poster hanging in the halls around school.

4 Day Week = Fall Break

We have just started a short 4 day week and are getting ready to ride that into fall break. Even though we are a day down doesn't mean we are going to just let it pass us by. Instead we are going to work twice as hard to squeeze 5 days out of 4. We will be covering spelling, reading, writing, social studies, and science just like we always have.

Our grading term ends this Thursday. If there is any pending work please make sure that it is handed the break. The grade cards will be handed out the following Friday.

Today was the last NWEA test, so we are now, finally, done with testing. I will be talking about the results of those test in our conferences. Which leads me into my last comment, Parent Teacher Conferences. Everyone has signed up for a time to meet. Some of you I have already seen and I the rest I am looking forward to our meeting. If something changes and you are unable to make the appointment, please call and let me know.

NWEA and Parent Teacher Conferences

Hello everyone. Sorry for the slight delay since the last post. When creating this site at the beginning of the year I really had high expectations for updating it more regularly. However, time seems to slip by faster each week. So I apologize for those that continue to access the sight looking for daily homework assignments. I will try to improve on this.

As it stands right now we are in the middle of taking the NWEA test for the fall. This is a series of three test, math, language arts, and reading, that help gauge students progress throughout the year. Friday was our fist test, math, and today we finished the reading portion. A week from today we will conclude with the language arts test. I am proud of the class for their effort in the computer lab. I know that just after taking ISTEP the last thing you want to think about is another test. Keep up the good work everyone.

We are also getting ready to start our Parent Teacher Conferences. There are two half days set up the first two days of November for PTC however, I prefer to do mine a bit differently. To ensure quality conferences and my own sanity of not having to conference from noon to nine, I like to schedule them over the course of a few weeks. Last week I sent home a sign up sheet for each parent to fill out. I would like each parent to please put your top three time choices on this sheet and send it back to me. I will figure out which of your time slots are still available and then send a slip home that same day confirming your day and time. If you are unable to make any of the time slots please let me know and we can make other arrangements. Thank you for your cooperation with this. I hope to see you all soon.

Friday Fun

It's Friday!!!!





On Fridays we start the day off in P.E. Today was a kickball day. It was a close game with a few home runs and a few exciting catches. Afterwards, we all headed back to class to take our spelling and reading test for the week. Then it was off to math followed by lunch and recess. After recess we came back together to continue our series about civilizations. We have been talking all week in Social Studies about what it would be like to start our own colony and what it would be like if we were in charge. Today we watched the first episode of the CBS television show Kid Nation and discussed different techniques and strategies on how they started their town. Later in the day, we met up with our 1st grade study buddies. Each Friday, in the auditorium, we pair up with students from Mrs. Muehlings first grade class and help them with some sort of math or reading activity. Over the past couple weeks the 1st graders have been learning and doing activities involving apples. So today we colored a picture of Johnny Appleseed together while our 1st grader buddies told us what they had learned. Afterwards it was back to the room to finish off our video and and call it a day. I hope that everyone has a great relaxing weekend. See you on Monday. (To enlarge a picture all you have to do is click on it.)

NWEA Coming Right Up

I just wanted to thank everyone for your help with getting ready for ISTEP test. It was a big help that we had great attendance and that everyone seemed well rested and ready to test. I am proud of the way the students stayed focus throughout the week.

Now that we have that behind us and we are starting our normal schedule we run into NWEA testing. This is the test that we take a few times each year in the computer lab to monitor our progress in the different subject areas. We will be having three test over the next two weeks. One next week and two the following week.

I also wanted to share my excitement about the Social Studies activity we have been working on this week. We have been exploring ideas about what it would be like to start our own civilization. We have talked about what it would take to survive, rules we might need, necessities that we might need to deal with, and hardships we might need to overcome. I am excited to see where the discussions take us and what sort of society we can create.

This week I will hopefully be taking pictures of the class in action. I am hoping to get some shots of us working in the room as well as playing in gym or at recess. Be on the look out this weekend for those shots. I will also be posting a new survey questions please check it out and vote.

After ISTEP

We are cruising through the ISTEP test. I am proud of how each student has really focused this week on the job at hand. It can become a long week in a very short amount of time but everyone is doing great. The sixth grade as been testing in the mornings while the 5th grade, because of the Science test, has been testing both in the morning and then in the afternoons. Thankfully, the weather has been great. We have had the chance to go out a few extra times to stretch our legs and get some of the jitters out of our system. We have one more full day tomorrow and then we coast on into the weekend.

Starting next week we will be getting into our normal weekly routine. We are going to be starting Science and Social Studies as well as Literature Groups soon after. I will also be sending home Midterm Grades at the beginning of next week, hopefully on Monday or Tuesday. After checking those out if you could please sign them and send them back to me. Thanks.

Finally if you haven't noticed I added a couple things to the side bar to your right. There is a fun poll question you can vote on as well as our new scrolling marquee.

Assignment Books and Newsletter

As the beginning of the year hustle and bustle is starting to settle down and students are getting in the flow of their daily routines I want to make sure that everyone remains up to date on their homework. With all that goes on in the course of our busy day it is sometimes easy to forget an assignment or two. To help minimize this as much as possible I encourage any parent, who feels this would be beneficial to their son or daughter, to pick up an assignment book. This is a great organization method and will help you to know what is going on here at school. At the end of each day I will remind the class what homework they might have so that they can write it down and take home the necessary books.

I will be sending home a Newsletter this Friday with information about ISTEP testing. If you would like to send in a small healthy snack please let me know before sending it in. This way we don't have all of our snacks arriving on the same day.

Another Good Week

I just wanted to throw a couple comments on here before we officially close out the week and get ready to enjoy the weekend.

Even though it was a shorter week we were still able to get a lot accomplished. We were able work through a story in our reading book, go over a few lessons in our spelling, worked on writing, and continued to review our test skills in the afternoon. Overall I would say it was a very successful week.

If I could pick one thing for us to continue to focus on as we strive to become better inside the classroom and out is to use our time wisely in class. The way our schedule is set up each day we tend to have a few minutes of transition time between subjects. It is very important that we use this time. I encourage everyone to be productive and not just waste your time away.

Thanks again for a great week. Enjoy your weekend and we will all be ready to do it again come Monday.

Book Reports

This is just to let everyone know that the first book reports are due Monday October 1st. Everyone in here has chosen a book that they would like to read and we have been working on this now for about 3 weeks. When finished reading the book, each student is responsible for completing a "General Book Report Form," which I have hanging in the room as well as one of the ten activities on the Book Report bulletin board. I have been trying to monitor how well everyone is coming with their books. With this being around the half way point for the time allowed to read the book, please help me make sure that your son or daughter is on pace to finish the book on time. Thanks

More news on ISTEP coming soon.

Open House

Thank you to all the parents who attended this years Open House. If you did not have the opportunity to attend please fill out the medical informations sheets that I sent home with your child on Friday (August 31st) and have them bring them back as soon as possible. Now that we are starting to get into the swing of things please be checking back to this site for more frequent updates on homework, test dates, projects, and other fun activities.

Welcome to My Class Blog

For those of you who have never navigated your way around a blog site before, let me take a minute of your time to help you out with some of the basics. First of all, this section you are reading is where all the posts will be located. Any time I post information or pictures, they will show up right here. Once there are 5 or so post on the page or if the month changes, the posts will be sent to the "Archives." The "Archives" are located in the left side panel. You may access any post at any given time throughout the year by clicking on the the month you wish to view. Along with a post I will occasionally add pictures to better show you what we are doing in the classroom. To get a better larger view of the picture, simply click on it. If you choose to leave a comment, remember that anyone who accesses the site can read it. You may leave a comment by clicking on the link under each post where it say "Comments." Then, fill out the desired information and click "Publish Your Comment." Along with the archives on the side panel are a list of websites and links that take you to a variety of places online. I will be updating this list as the year goes on.

To practice making comments, please answer the following question as a comment: What is your favorite ice cream flavor?