Fourth graders now! Congratulations on all the hard work and your commitment to being the best students you can be. Have a great time this summer and feel free to email me any time you wish!

Tags: good bye

Tomorrow is our last full day of school, and you should know some things about our day. Tomorrow we will be doing a few things in no particular order. There are the things we will be doing:
Pizza party with our special guests

• Special secret science movie
• Clean out tote trays (bring a larger bag if you feel the need)
• All school sing along
• (Maybe) bring chairs to the cafeteria
• Help clean up the classroom

On our half day on Friday we will have a long year book signing time, along with some final words. Please bring a pen to school with you on Friday.

Hope I remembered everything. Can’t wait to share a lot of pizza with you tomorrow!

This is just a reminder that those of you kids participating in the pizza party on Thursday need to have your $2.70 turned in by Wednesday. If you do not want pizza, then please be sure to bring a bagged lunch to school on that day.

Also, make sure to have your final copy of your “Learning to Fly” story ready to go by Wednesday. Tomorrow we will also use class time to finish writing our final copies.

Today we had a blast at our school function “Are You Stronger Than a Fifth Grader” where teachers and fifth graders squared off in various competitions to see who was the best. After that our whole school enjoyed cool popsicles on the playground. What a fun afternoon! I had a blast with all of you. After working soooooo hard sooooo many afternoons, it was nice to get to be playful with you kids.

Oh, by the way, we are going to be having a pizza party on Thursday, June 11. The hot lunch servers will not be taking orders, but if you do not like pizza feel free to bring in a bagged lunch of your own. Each child that would like to have pizza should send in $2.70 by Wednesday of next week. Hopefully my wife and Nadia will be there to celebrate with us!

Have a great weekend, kids! See you on Monday.

This is the last episode of the Marchionda Minutes PodCast for 1008-9. In this final episode we hear from Kaitlyn who talks about her writing and vacation. We also her from Madison who tells us how late she stays up and tries to turn me into a frog!

Enjoy!
Podcast

Tags: PodCast

Just wanted to let everyone know that library books need to be turned in as soon as possible. I think we only have a few out. Other than that, I do not have much news, have a great night!

Here is the work for the day:

This week in reading we are reading Stone Fox together. It is a great short story about a boy who enters a dog sled race to win his grandfather’s farm back from the bank. Here is the work for the day:

Attached for download, and in iTunes, is the latest episode of the Marchionda Minutes PodCast. On this show Bailey talks about what it is to become a great student. Eli also discusses the movies that he likes. Enjoy!

Here is the work for the day:

Podcast

Tags: Marchionda Minutes, PodCast

Below is the work for the day:

Today in math we were playing with the concept of volume being measured by cubic units. To take this a bit further we played with a great, free tool by Google called SketchUp. A free download of it can be found here. Google SketchUp is a great example of how a motivated learner can read to learn and become an expert on this type of software. There are links within the program to Google’s simple tutorials. Enjoy!

Here is the work for the day:

Head of over to Apple Camp this summer. Using all of Apple’s hardware and software, learn how to capture, create, and edit digital media - all for free! This is a great summer activity to accent the baseball, soccer, swimming, and other activities you may be doing this summer.

Also, we had the Frog Man come on over and show us a few amphibians. We were able to get up close and personal with salamanders, different types of frogs, and toads. Pretty cool!

This week was a busy one. In addition to our spelling test and reading test, we took our last science test. From this point on we will be learning about health issues and skills in science. We will also be getting into the history of our city. Have a great weekend, kids. See you on Tuesday!

Tags: Apple Camp, Test, Health

The twelfth episode of the Marchionda Minutes PodCast is ready for your listening either through downloading it here or by subscribing to it in iTunes. On this episode we start of with Grace who only wants to hear about rainbows, unicorns, and cotton candy. After that Dawson comes on to talk about skateboarding and karate. It’s a pretty cool show, hope you enjoy!

Please stay tuned to the end of the show for some brief announcements.

Download the Podcast directly.

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast. I hope to see those of you parents that helped me out earlier in the year there. I would love to serve you some yummy breakfast goodies!

Before I end this post, I would like to show you some work Brianna did on our SMARTBoard today. This is her figuring out the perimeter of this weird polygon.

Here is the work for the day:

Tags: PodCast, Smartboard

Today we learned in math how to determine the perimeter of a polygon. My challenge to all my students is to measure the lengths of all of the walls that make up their bedrooms and figure out the perimeter of their bedroom. After that is done, the second part, is to come back to this post and comment the equation, calculated answer, and the label (something like feet or meters). Students that do this will get a free, cool new ruler to use in class.

Can’t wait to see who can do this! And, it is ok to ask Mom or Dad for help.

By the way, please check out our Educational Downloads for waaaayy more math and reading materials. Be sure to remember the password - I changed it!

Here is the work for the day:

Tags: Perimeter

After looking at my calendar I just realized that we only have three more Tuesdays together. The end of the year seems to be approaching very quickly. So, for those of you that want some extra math fact practice, I have added the timed tests that we do in class to the Educational Resources section of our site. Please email me if you cannot remember the password and username.

Here is the work for the day:

Tags: Math Facts, Timed Tests

I have added a new game to our science area called This is Sand. Not sure why it is cool, it just is. It seems to work on physics and gravity, along with the properties of really small solids-much like we talked about a few months ago. Hope you like it. Be sure to mess with the settings, you can make your sand different colors, making layers on layers. This kind of reminded me of how soil builds up over time and compresses living matter over millions of years. It’s all sciencey stuff to me!

Here is the work for the day:

Tags: games, This is Sand