Mr. Pratt's Sixth Grade at SAA

Bringing Valentine's Back

2012-02-06T14:02:00.001-08:00

There's the answer! With my (we'll call it) lack of enthusiasm for the holiday, I usually don't celebrate Valentine's Day in my classroom. This year, I had enough kids upset about it that I gave them a chance to redeem it. I gave a writing assignment to write a persuasive essay convincing me we should have Valentine's Day. When I had students raise their hands asking if they could write one convincing me we shouldn't, I thought for certain my mind wasn't going to be changed.

Well, some good arguments were made for both sides, but one essay stood so far above the rest, I had to share it. It is an essay written far above grade level. There was research done. Both sides of the argument are addressed. Counter arguments are even given for the other side. I have to say kudos as this is one very well written essay:

"Please let us celebrate Valentines day. Valentines Day was first celebrated as a Pagan holiday in the 1st century A.D. and then began to be celebrated by early Christians. It is a real holiday and tradition in many cultures. It is held on February 14th in honor of St. Valentine who was killed on this day by the Roman Emperor Claudius II. Valentine was a priest who defied the Emperor by marrying young soldiers to their sweethearts. The Emperor felt like if the soldiers were married they would not be as willing to die for the kingdom, so he made it against the law to be married. Valentine disagreed and married them anyways and when the Emperor found out he put him in jail to be killed. Valentine fell in love with the jail keepers daughter and just before his death he wrote a love note that said "from your Valentine." That's where the phrase "Your Valentine" came from.

"It is a holiday that helps the sluggish economy because in the US alone the record spent is $24.7 billion in 2009. Valentines Day is banned in Iran. We don't want to be anything like Iran do we?

"It has always been mandatory in other classes to give everyone in the class a Valentine. A list of how to spell names of students properly has always been provided. All candy or treats had to be prepackaged and not homemade and must be eaten at home and non food related items were highly encouraged such as pencils, erasers etc. I have been celebrating Valentines Day at SAA since 1st grade, the first year it opened and have never had an issue with anyone being left out or not following the guidlines a teacher set. We are now in 6th grade and are more responsible then ever before. This helps us to be inclusive to others and also think of others on this holiday. I mean we're giving a valentine to people we may not even care that much for. For some people who do not have many friends or may feel lonely this is an opportunity for them to recieve a card or note from many people. Valentines day could be the only day of the year they feel like people care or like them. That's helping us grow in our character and character matters! If there is a special gift you want to give a friend that can be done after school and not during regular school hours.

"I can understand your concern for those who may not be able to afford valentines. Money is very tight right now for many families including mine. My mom has always had us make our own Valentines. We use constuction paper and stamps, or we find other creative people like Mrs. Skinner who can let us borrow their ideas and crafty gadgets. My mom uses Valentines Day to help my brothers with their handwritting by making them address all of them and use their best handwriting. Making handmade valentines is a family project that helps us build traditions. We even make them for all the Young Women at church, family, and friends, even the other teachers and lunch ladies. We make almost 150 Valentines as a family. It is quite a project but it is fun and we do it on the cheap! We spend less than $10 for all the supplies. Not all parents are as creative as my mom but we could make valentines in class as a project and exhange them.

"People should tell their loved ones every day that they love and care about them but, it is nice to have a special day to set aside just for that reason. It is unfortunate that some husbands only give their wives flowers and special attention on Valentines Day. I feel sad for that wife and a marriage like that probably won't last very long. But, we should feel patriotic every day and be proud of our freedoms but we still celebrate and dedicate the 4th of July to it. We should honor Veterans and their sacrifices every day but we honor them on a specific day. For some men it is hard to express their feelings but on Valentines day they show their softer side. I think that Valentines day has become a commercial holiday by buying the packaged Valentine cards with candy and sweets inside the box for money, as you said, but I think the true meaning of Valentines day is to make a simple card, telling people that they are special, and about showing your loved ones you care on this special day."

I'm not so certain I could write a better counter essay, so how could I not be persuaded? With that being said, our celebrations are going to be the same as the other sixth grade classes. They will be brief and will only include a short amount of time to pass things out, if they want to. Here are the rules and expectations:

· Giving Valentines is completely optional.
· If you give Valentines to anyone in our homeroom, you must give to everyone.
· You may give to Valentines to students in other classes, if you want to.
· Valentines will be handed out at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 14.
· Students should have a box, sack or envelope to collect the Valentines.
· Containers may be decorated, but it is not necessary.
· Valentines may contain candy, or may not. It is your choice.
· Students may not eat or open candy or Valentines until they arrive home.
· Valentines are designed to make people feel good; they should not be used to hurt, annoy, or exclude others.
· Valentines may be purchased or homemade.

With that, I guess all I can say is Valentine's is back! Great job on your essays students!

"Persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art." ~William Bernbach (Maybe that's why these students were so good at it.)

February 3, 2012

2012-02-03T13:30:00.000-08:00

There never seems to be a dull moment here at Syracuse Arts Academy! With everything else going on: the Reading Contest, Science Fair, prepping for a field trip, etc; crazy things have to happen, like the lights have to go out on us. It made for an interesting day yesterday. I'm just glad they came back on so we didn't end up with a school day we'd have to make up somewhere along the way.

There are lots of things up and coming:

*Please make sure your students are staying on top of the Science Fair.

*Please make sure your students continue reading their little hearts out! We need to get about 6000 minutes over this weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) to be on pace to break our goal of 72,000 minutes for our class. That's not so far fetched a goal. I have brought in three prizes for the top three students in the class. We have a definite front runner for top student right now, but things can happen. That doesn't mean anything so keep it up! Keep reading!

* We are going on a field trip Tuesday, February 14. We need to have the permission slips and money turned in no later than February 7. Our class has the two designated chaperones and we're still waiting to hear back from the Planetarium to see if we can have additional adults come. If we are allowed more, I will realy that to those parents who were interested, who were not one of the two original chaperones.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard from your students that Mr. Pratt is a hater of Valentine's Day. It is true. I do not like the holiday for many reasons:

· It’s a holiday created by the retail industry to get people to spend money.
· Why do I need a special day of the year to tell people I love them?
· Most 6th graders are too old for the cutesy Valentine’s but too young for what Valentine’s will turn into
· Too many families cannot afford the expensive Valentine’s that some bring and so those children end up feeling bad about themselves
· Kids can get hurt if feelings aren’t reciprocated
· My first year teaching I had so many “relationships” verging on inappropriate that I had to cancel it all together and really don’t want a repeat experience of that, because that talk should come from the parents and not the teacher.

At any rate, I have given the students the opportunity to write a persuasive paper convincing me we need to celebrate Valentine's Day. This paper should be submitted through Utah Write (http://www.utahwrite.com/) no later than Monday. I gave out the Utah Write assignment on Thursday and am still missing about half of them. I did give them until Monday though, so please make sure that they get to the website and get it finished. The one's who didn't have a strong opinion about Valentine's were to write following the prompt titled "Genie's Lamp".

Also, please keep Science Fair on the forefront of your brains. The students should be consistantly working on that, working toward their finished product. I know that several pieces of the packet have been turned in already, so please keep an eye on the gradebook to make sure they are keeping on top of it.

At any rate, school will truck along as normal. There will be a math test coming up this week. DARE with Officer Penrod will also begin this Friday. So we'll take it as it comes and enjoy as much of it as possible!

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." ~Christopher Robin

January 27, 2001

2012-01-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

With the week I've had (Our Informance, Report Cards, Observations, State of the School), I'm not going to write very much, but I still want to relay the basics. Here's our homework board:

Thanks to everyone who attended the State of the School/Celebration of Arts. It turned out to be quite the evening. The performances were great! It's not the best picture in the world, but here's a shot of the 4-6 graders performing their song.

The plan is to have report cards go home on monday or Tuesday. It's looking a little unsure right now, but that's still the "plan" so I'll keep you posted if it changes.

Our second field trip of the year is coming up on February 14. We will be going to Clark Planetarium. It's really a fun time and a great correlation with the 6th grade Science core. The money and permission slip are due by February 7. The paperwork will be coming home on Monday.

Thanks to everyone who has been turning their reading minutes in on a daily basis. Our class goal is 72,000 minutes by February 22. We've already got one student over the 2,500 mark, so we're making really good progress, but to get to that mark we're going to need everyone reading, Reading, READING! Keep it up those who have been turning it in! Let's break the precedence set by my class last year!

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." ~ Mark Twain

January 22, 2012

2012-01-22T07:55:00.001-08:00

Term 3 is officially under way! Can you believe we're already halfway through the year. On that note, Parent Teacher Conferences are coming up here in a bit, February 15 and 16. I'll get a schedule made up as soon as I have some free time. This however is going to be a busy, busy week.

First thing to make mention of is our informance on Thursday. For those who don't know, an informance is an informal performance. It's a short presentation we invite parents to so they can get a brief snapshot of how we integrate the arts into the classroom. As I said, we will be performing it this Thursday, January 26, at 8:45. All parents are welcome to come and see and celebrate how the 6th grade has been using the arts within the classroom.

Also on Thursday, our school board is hosting a State of the School Address as well as a Celebration of Arts! Being involved with this with my Tech Club, I know that it is going to be a pretty fun evening. There will be several performances from grades K-9 as well as a few minutes of talking from the POEC, Board, and Administration. It will definitely be worth it to attend. We are also asking that you bring your students with you. They are involved in one of the songs being performed. The more students we can get here, the better the performance will be. From what Mrs. Bayn tells me, our class is doing the best with the song, so as an incentive to get them to want to be here, we are offering two homework passes to those who attend. This isn't something I freely give out, so hopefully they take advantage of it and help us out. It should last only about an hour and it begins at 6:30. Thank you in advance for those who get your family here to share this evening with us.

With second term over, I suppose I should make a mention about report cards. The plan is for them to go home on Monday, January 30. That gives all teachers this week to get things loaded and locked so the office can print them up.

As you know, make making started this week. Phase one ended up taking us a little longer than anticipated, but the results are worth it. Here is an example of one of our masks:

With the school year marching right along, it won't be long before it's all over. I hope everyone is enjoying their time here in sixth grade as much as I enjoy teaching it!

"Every artist was first an amateur." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

January 16, 2011

2012-01-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

Lots of pictures and stuff to show this week, so we'll begin with the homework board.
A few things up and coming:

* Mask making will be Wednesday this week.
* The official end of the term will be Wednesday this week.
* Reports cards should go home January 30.
* Term 3 gradebook will hopefully be up and running by Friday, so start keeping an eye on it.

And really, that's about it, as far as I can think, so onto the more fun things. This week in Math, we did a graphing group project that included haveing to everything from figure out a function, to graphing it, to writing a story problem around it. I randomly chose one from the pile of 9 as an example: There were also lots of great book reports presented this week. Below is a picture of a few of the three dimensional displays that were brought in.

Finally, we all know we had Monday off this week for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He is one of the greatest facilitators for civil rights in history. I believe it is important for the students to realize why this is a holiday, so, I will leave you with a video. This is the second annual performance of Mr. Pratt giving King's I Have a Dream speech:

"I have a dream that one day my four children will live in a world where they are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." ~Martin Luther King Jr.

January 6, 2012

2012-01-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to the new year! We have the first week under our belts. As much as I tried to ease us back into the year, we did quite a bit this week. Here's our homework board:

A few things to keep in mind as we move forward with this next week. The end of the second term is quickly approaching. The official last day is January 18, but this Friday will be the last day I will accept any work for this term. Most of the things we turn in this week will actually count toward term 3, aside from the book report and the math test. With that said, keep in mind that book reports are due this coming week. We will be presenting them Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Here is a list of who presents on what day:

Please make sure these are ready to be presented on their assigned date. As I mentioned, we will also be having a math test this week. We have been working on graphing functions. This next week we will put together a group project on the same topic. On Wednesday we will review, and Thursday we will test. There will some questions on the test from previous lessons, so let's make sure we haven't forgotten everything.

With the end of the term coming, please, please, please make sure we keep a close eye on the online gradebook.

One of my classroom incentives is earning marbles in an attempt to fill a jar. Each time they fill a jar, they get a class party. Back in the end of November, we filled the jar, but we had so much going on with the play and all that it was just to hectic to fit in the party. Well, we finally fit it in today. We had a fun day playing all kinds of Minute to Win It games. Thanks again for the support of the volunteers who came in. You guys really made it run a whole lot more smooth than it would have were I to have tried to pull that off on my own. Thanks so much! I'll leave this weeks blog with a couple of pictures from our game day.

"All work and no play is no good for the soul." ~ Feliz Sabates

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-16T06:28:00.000-08:00

I'm going to share this week's adventure's through an array of pictures. I'll start with the boring. Even though it was the week before the holiday break, we did have some real work that we did. Here is the picture of our homework board for the week. The next activity I'd like to spotlight is one of my favorite activities of the season. Not because the art work turns out all that fancy, but because of the message that is conveyed with it. This goes hand in hand with the lesson I did based on Pearl Harbor in that it's purpose is to teach tolerance and acceptance. The more these children realize people are different and that's okay, the less hatred we'll have in the world.

In five of the different continents I have represented a different holiday. North America is Advent, South America is Christmas, Africa is Kwanzaa, Asia is Hanukkah, and Europe is St. Nicholas. Down in the Australian region I didn't necessarily represent a different holiday, but different customs. This season down is Australia falls during their Summer months so their customs are a lot different than our dreaming of a white Christmas. I also read them a New Zealand version of our Twelve Days of Christmas, thanks to one of my students last year for the gift whose family was from New Zealand, A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree.

The next couple of pictures are going to come from our final holiday activity, the "Gingerbread" house building. It was certainly a fun project that some of the students took a little more seriously than others. There were certainly a lot of them that turned out cute but pictured below are two of the better pictures my phone camera took throughout the activity.

A few serious things to note upon. I have grades online entirely up to date with what I have turned in. I have given the students missing assignments reports with the assignments attached to it. I have told them I am giving them until the second day back to get those turned in. After that, anything that was due before the break will no longer be accepted. the only reason I'm making it the second day is because I know there is going to be at least one student who forgets it at home, so I'm just making the adjustment for that now.

Finally, I want to thank you (both parents and students) for all of the fabulous gifts, and for those that didn't, don't feel bad. It was certainly not a necessity, but I'll tell you, if there's ever a time that I doubt that I'm making the difference I set out to make, this season really tells me otherwise. I with I could pay it back tenfold because these kids deserve it. I truly do care for and appreciate each and every one of them and I hope that I was able to convey that message to them without having some kind of gift to give them. Unfortunately, having bought a house earlier this year, I'm not in a place where I could afford that, but I do love each and every family that I'm working with this year and whatever it is you celebrate: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa; or even don't celebrate, I hope you have a happy break filled with lots of family and lots of love because you all deserve it so very much!

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree." ~Roy L. Smith

Shakespeare Unshackled Character List

2011-12-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

For those in my homeroom, you can ignore this post. I promised Mrs. Dezember's class that I would have the parts for the play we are doing in their rotation posted today. So here it is! I ask you to realize that of the 27 parts listed on the paper, the majority of you wanted 4 of them, so I took those, along with auditions, along with what I thought would bring together a great show, and here is what I came up with. I implore you all to do the best with the part you are given as I am currently thinking that we could produce a super incredible performance with the way I have it cast! We'll see you all on Monday excited and ready to start learning your music!

December 10, 2011

2011-12-10T10:15:00.001-08:00

December 4, 2011

2011-12-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

I seriously cannot get over how proud I am of my students for their three performances this week. I could not have asked them to do any better. With my theatrical experiences growing up, I tend to set the bar high when I create these performances, and even though not everyone is the actor or actress the next person might be, they never seem to let me down. This year was no different. They did fantastic and I could not be more proud! I am going to be sending home an order form for both DVD copies of our play and 8x10 copies of the cast pictures. Because we had students there on some days, and not on others, I am going to make both the Wednesday and Thursday performances and pictures available, in the event that you have a preference. Here is an example of what the cast pictures will look like. This is the Wednesday cast:
With the play behind us, we can officially move on with the school year. The homework for this past week is posted above. Remember this coming week we are going to be making masks. There are also some student who are involved in an assembly we'll be putting on this Friday. I will send a note home for to the parents whose students are involved giving you more information.

Only two more weeks til Winter Break and only 22 days until Christmas! Are you ready?

"Never be too proud of who you are and what position you hold because after a game of chess the kings and pawns are tossed into the same box." ~Unknown

November 23, 2011

2011-11-23T12:39:00.001-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

With a four day weekend ahead of us, I just wanted to take this second to let each and every one of you and your students know how thankful I am for my class and their parents this year. The students are so sweet and caring. Our class has high times and low times as any family would, but in the end we all get along with each other and we all care for one another. There is no name calling and no blatant rudeness. They are all really good kids and for that I am truly thankful. I am also truly thankful for all the volunteers we've had this year. I know I have hard times coming up with things for all of you to do, but I want you to know that I am thankful for what's been done and for what will still come. Finally, all you parents at home, I am thankful for you. My job as a teacher would not be possible without your support!

A few reminders: we perform our play next week. our final dress rehearsal is Monday. Parents, you are invited to come and see the play on Thursday at 2:45. The auditorium will be pretty full with students for the other performances, but there should be plenty of room for you on the Thursday performance. Thanks for all the support I've had with the play.

Also remember that our class store will be next Friday. If you have anything around the house your kids would like to bring in and sell, have them bring it on Friday. Also, our first class party will be the same Friday. I've not had any volunteers yet, so if you have a game, craft, or something you'd be willing to do in rotations with the kids, let me know.

It is a time of thanks, so one more time, just, thanks, for everything! I love my job and I wouldn't have it without parents, students, and a school!

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. ~H.U. Westermayer

Veterans' Day 11-11-11

2011-11-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

This is by far my favorite patriotic holiday here at our school. Each year the students work so hard on the Armed Forces Medley and another song to honor the Veterans. Each year it wells tears up in my eyes to hear it. This year was no different. Our Veterans deserve so much more than one day to thank them, but we do the best we can with that one day. Thank you Vets, for everything you do for us! Our play is quickly approaching. We will be performing it three different times, November 29, 30, and December 1. Please mark your calendars for December 1st. This is the performance that we're reserving the space for parents to come see it. The performance will begin promptly at 2:45. I have asked some student help on costuming. Most of it is easy things. Most of it has also already been brought in. A huge thank you to Becky Austad for all of her help with costuming. Thank you, thank you.

Also something to put in your heads, I plan on doing our first of three class stores on Friday, December 2. I am going to be bringing in some things the kids will be able to purchase with their Seussopoly money. One thing I like to do with my stores is give the kids a chance to bring things in as well. If you can think of anything you have around the house you're needing to get rid of that you think a sixth grader would be intersted in, send it in on the 2nd and let your student profit from it. You could also purchase some small things to allow your students to sell here in the class. The students really light up with the chance to sell their own items. It also helps them develop some entrepreneurship. We do keep our money from store to store so they can build up money throughout the year.

Even further out, keep in mind that I would like to make the final store a bigger one than I can produce on my own. If you'd be willing to donate items or money toward that, I certainly would not turn them down. That will not be until just about the end of the year though, so you really have some time to think about it.

That's about all I have right now. Below is our homework board for this week. Only a week and a half until Thanksgiving! I seriously can't believe how quickly this year is moving!

The courage of our Veterans is really a contradtiction of itself. It is their strong desire to live with us taking form in their readiness to die for us.

November 6, 2011

2011-11-06T08:23:00.001-08:00

Holy Cow! There is so much going on here right now, I often wonder if I'm sinking or swimming. But here I am, on this beautiful Sunday morning, getting things caught up, so I say with grace that I am definitely swimming. First and foremost, here is our homework board for the week:

Can you believe first term is already behind us? For some reason, this first transition in terms has thrown me off! Between teaching, our play, tech club, my involvement with the additions to our auditorium, the new grading system, and, oh yeah, life away from school, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Needless to say, I'm finally getting on top of it.

Tuesday will be our first rehearsal in the auditorium where we will be script free! Talk with your students, ask them how they feel about their lines and songs, and if they seem unsure, work with them on it. I think we are going to have a fantastic performance. I am super excited for it. Remember, the calendar below, the performance for parents is going to be Thrusday, December 1, at 2:45. It will be a show you won't want to miss!

This week I will be sending home the assignment for Term 2 book report. They will not be presented until someone after Christmas Break, but it's never to soon to start thinking about it. Also, this week, we will be resuming the at-home reading of our story. This week, it's "Trapped by the Ice." Remember I'm only asking for it to be read at home one time, and it can be counted as that night's 20 reading minutes. Please make sure your students are keeping up on that as well. They should be reading 100 minutes a week, averaging 20 minutes a night.

A bit of down news, we've taken a couple of term tests in the past few weeks, and the average scores have been less than I'd thought they'd have been. I've come to the conclusion that maybe I need change some things about how I am here at school. I do like to joke around and have fun while we learn, but if the fun gets in the way of the students taking school seriously, I need to quit it. Grades are updated online. You can see how your student has done on the Term 1 Math test and the Term 1 Language test. Please have a talk with your students about these tests and see how they felt about it. I know one aspect with the math was the test was just too long. It was 50 questions in two parts and I feel it was just too much, but that's no excuse. I know we're going to struggle a bit with the change in math core this year, but that means we, including myself, have to work at things a little bit harder to get everyone to be as successful as possible. With that said, we went over the math test on Friday. I will be sending them home with a new copy this week and over the course of the week, part of their homework is going to be to redo this test as an assignment. You are allowed to help them and they are allowed to ask me any questions necessary so they understand the material that was covered throughout the term. Please be available to help them on this so we can sure they know all they need to know.

With that being said, we will truck on with term 2. Here's to another 130 or so school days together! Let's make them great!

"He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet." ~Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Final Calendar for "Character Matters"

2011-10-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

October 24, 2011

2011-10-24T06:12:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to quickly put up last weeks homework board. There were so many things I wanted to get done before I left last Wednesday and I vowed to myself that for once I was not going to come in over a long break. I didn't succeed in getting quite everything done before I left, but I did succeed in not coming in over the weekend.

Remember, the official end of the first term in this week. If your student has any last minute assignments they'd like to get made up before things are final, they'd better do it quickly. I'm looking forward to a good week this week. I hope everyone else is feeling it too!

"Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life. And when you feel better about life, your life is better." - Art Linkletter

Red Ribbon Week

2011-10-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 24 - Friday, October 28

Theme: “High on Life!—Stay Drug Free!"

Monday---Get a natural high…Wear Your Favorite Jersey—make sure you wear a shirt with sleeves underneath if the jersey doesn’t have sleeves—uniform pants

Tuesday---Crazy sock day—crazy socks make you happy and keep you high on life—pink Socks if you have them—Breast Cancer Awareness Month—wear your uniform

Wednesday---Crazy hair day—Crazy hair—color it pink—Being High on Life celebrates Breast Cancer Awareness—Pink—Breast Cancer Awareness Month—wear your uniform

Thursday---Get high on life while wearing your favorite hat—can have to do with Halloween also—wear your uniform. Moosebutter concert…gets you high on life.

Friday---Backwards/inside out—pink ribbons—Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October 14, 2011

2011-10-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Yet another successful week behind us! Just a few short things to share this week.

* Remember that fall break is next week, so we will only be in school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

* Cultural Fair is due on Monday. We will be judging Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. I'm not entirely sure if Mrs. McGuire got all of the volunteers she needed, but if you're intersted in helping out with judging any or all of those days, send her an e-mail and I'm sure she'll reply to you. (tmcguire@syracuseartsacademy.org)

* The end of the term is October 26. The last assignments for this term will be next Wednesday, 19, and the cutoff for any missing assignments for the first term will be the 26th. Report cards should go home by November 4th.

* Also remember that November 4th is the last day the students will be allowed to use scripts during the run throughs for our play, so make sure they are ready. I am still planning the performances November 21 and 22, but that might change depending on the construction in the auditorium. We are finally getting lights and curtains and I'd love to be able to use them, so if I have to push it back a week to be able to, I will.

For those who do not know, we have a student in fourth grade, Grace Hinds, who has been put into a medically induced coma to help cope with the seizures she's been having. You can see the full story on KSL (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=17656075&autostart=y) There a few fundraisers the school is supporting to help raise money to support the family. The first is the Race for Grace. It's a 5k and Carnival going on tomorrow at Jensen Nature Park in Syracuse. There should have been a flyer come home about it today.

Also, on Monday, the Syracuse Papa Murphy's is hosting a Teachers Takeover for Grace. The teachers will be working the Papa Murphy's as a fundraiser donating I believe 15% of the money made during that time to Grace's family. I will be working there between 5 and 6, so if you're interesting in having Mr. Pratt make you a Papa Murphy's take-and-bake Pizza, that's the hour you should come by.

I believe that covers it. Come support us as at the Papa Murphy's as we try and help the Hinds family through this difficult time.

"The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all." ~Leo Rosten

October 6, 2011

2011-10-06T13:24:00.001-07:00

Well, first parent teacher conferences are done and out of the way. Thank you all for coming in. It was good to really sit and talk with some of you parents that I haven't seen since back-to-school night. All in all we have a really good group of kids this year and it was fun to share the successes. It is also a good time to look at things we can work on, especially with the end of the term quickly approaching! (I can't believe we're more than halfway through it already.)

Things are as they are here at school. There's not been anything too abnormal. Cultural Fair is quickly approaching as well. The projects will presented October 17-19, so please make sure your students are staying on top of it. It is a really fun project, from a teacher's point-of-view, to see the heritages these students have been brought up with.

Mrs. Weidenbacher, the integrated arts specialist for our school, brought in a guest for us from Tandy Leather. He showed the students many different leatherworking projects and gave them the opporunity to pound some designs into a piece of leather. They really enjoyed getting to beat at the tools with the mallets. It's not every day that their encouraged to hit things like this. They loved it!We've got just a few other big things going on around the classroom. First off, book reports are due this coming week. I have given the students an assigned date but in the event that their paper got lost between school and home, here are the assignments again: Finally, we have our play, Character Matters. It's a very cute mix-up of a bunch of fairy tales put together in such a way that it teaches different character development and social traits. The parts have been assigned and we've run through it a couple of times in the classroom. Just so you know, here is the basic schedule I have planned out for it.
Notice that I am planning 3 performances between November 21 and 22. With limited seating in the auditorium, parents are only officially invited to the third and final one. If for some reason that absolutely cannot work for you to see it, talk to me and we'll see what we can do to fit you into one of the others, but please, do your best to come to only that one performance. Besides, it's the third performance, so it will be the best one! I will also be filming the performance and taking a cast picture that I will be offering afterward for pretty much the cost of the supplies. It is coming along really well and I'm excited to see what we can put out after a month more worth of rehearsals. It will be a show you won't want to miss!

"We've got a show, a story that features, fairy tale folk, and fairy tale creatures!" ~Character Matters Opening Song

October 1, 2011

2011-10-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

Here's the homework board for the week. Everything is moving along. Cultural Fair has had several of its parts come due, so please make sure your student is staying on top of it.

Reminder about parent teacher conferences coming up this Wednesday and Thursday. I did have a few people change times into the open spots. Thank you for your flexibility. If you've forgotten your time or need to reschedule, please talk to me.

We have completed our Second Unit in this new Math Common Core. I feel really well about how the students did on this test. The majority of our scores were in the 80s and 90s. Congratulation kiddos! I know we've worked hard to get to that point.

I plan on continuing the at-home reading of our Basil Reading stories, however, with the shortened week this week we will not be doing one, so we'll have a break this week. Expect to have another note to sign the following week.

Beyond that, there isn't much to say. We've gotten our scripts for the play, so its coming along. I'll let you know when I've got a more firm date on performances, but we're looking sometime just before we go on Thanksgiving break in November.

I'll end by saying thank you to you parents. Teaching is a hard profession, but dealing with your kids is why I do it, and having parental support like I do from you makes it that much easier. Thanks!

"Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel." ~ Unknown

September 23, 2011

2011-09-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

I've started something new this week that, should it continue to work as well as it did this week, will make it so I have a post on the blog every week no matter how short. I brought in a new little white board that is now our homework board. I have set the board up exactly as their planner is set up so there should be no problems figuring out how to fill in their planner. It also means that whether they fill in their planner or not, every Friday you will be able to see exactly what they did throughout the week. It is a little bit more work on my behalf, but I'm more than happy to do it if it makes the students more successful. Please give me your feedback letting me know how well you think it works."In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves … self discipline with all of them came first." ~ Harry S Truman, U.S. President

Character Matters Part List

2011-09-23T12:52:00.000-07:00

This will be one of two blog posts I make this weekend, but I promised the students I'd get it up as soon as possible. We have been learning the songs for Character Matters, which is our class play for this year. Earlier in the week I had the students select the parts from a list that they would want to be in our show. Today, we auditioned. Based on the audition and the part selections, I made the list. I tried to get everyone one of the three parts they selected, but not everybody has been a given a part of their choosing.

Parents, I need your help getting the students who didn't get their first choice to understand that there are lots of parts in the show and when everyone wants the same parts, there are going to be disappointments. It is a lesson I learned early growing up in the theatre. It took me countless auditions before I was even given a part, and then had to work my way into the larger parts. They get the fortunate benefit that there are no cuts. Everyone gets a part in the show, it just might not be the part they wanted.

With that said, and with no further adieu, here is our part list:

Friday, September 16, 2011

2011-09-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

There's certain unit I teach this time of year each year that really pleases me. The unit is a Heroes vs. Celebrities unit wrapped around a 9-11 theme. It always seems to really hit the kids exactly as I mean it to. I don't know if it's because I lived through 9-11 that my emotion conveys through the message or what, but it always has such an impact on the kids.

We start with the definition of a hero being a man or woman of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his or her brave deeds and noble qualities. They then draw a picture of a hero in action with a sentence explaining the picture. The next day, after a short 9-11 tribute video, we discuss the many different things that will need to be done in their lifetime that would be considered heroic. They come up with such answers as curing cancer, serving in the military, donating money for charities, etc. They then create the cover of Time Magazine's Person of the Year Issue. Here's a picture of some of those: The final day I bring in a special guest. A good friend of mine from Syracuse City Fire Department has been coming to my class since I taught his daughter two years ago. He gives a firefighters perspective on 9-11 telling the students how firefighters are a close knit family and how traumatic it was losing 343 of their brothers and sisters on that day. I then present to the firemen a bound book of the pictures we drew on the first day with a letter in it signed by all the kids thanking them for their service and honoring them as our hometown heroes. Thanks again Brad for coming in and delivering this message. It really teaches these kids in a way that I couldn't without you! Beyond that, the classroom is moving along as normal. I believe they took their first quiz in science class this week and their first social studies quiz is Monday. Mrs. McGuire also handed out a packet in Arts and Tech. Cultural Fair is their first larger project of the year. The directions should have come home in a note that you had to sign. I also have assigned our first of four book reports this year. The presentations of those will be the week of October 10-14.

Be sure to keep an eye on grades: https://syracuse.usoe-dcs.org/Login/Default.aspx. It might seem early, but with as quick paced as everything is going, Term 1 will be over before we know it!

"The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men." ~Henry David Thoreau

September 2, 2011

2011-09-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

There's not a whole lot of new information to share this week. Things are cruising along pretty smooth. I'm going to post videos this week instead of pictures. Our story this week was called "Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs". It's a story about a boy who uses his violin talents to earn himself money at a street fair. Usually, I play the students a violin piece from my I-pod, but this year, I happened to know that we had two students who had been taking violin lessons. I asked
the two of them to come and play for the class:

I am so proud of the both of them for having the guts to stand up in front of their peers and play like this, but I am especially proud of this second one. She told me after the fact that this was the first time she had ever played in front of people outside of her lessons. They both did a fantastic job!

All in all, things are moving along at a fairly normal rate. Because of the change in math core this year, I feel that the material we are covering hits harder sooner, but for the most part the kids seem to be handling it okay, and those that are struggling don't seem to be afraid to ask questions. If we keep this attitude all year long, I have no doubt we'll be successful.

We ended this week with a short character lesson based around the book, "The English Roses," by Madonna. It's the story of the a group of girls who don't befriend another girl simply because of how pretty she is and how much better that must make her life. They come to find that her mother died when she was young and so outside of school, she has no friends, and is always at home helping her dad out around the house. The lesson to be learned is that we all have what I call "baggage". We are all dealing with something that no one else knows about, and you never know hot heavy that something is. As students in this class, we are all a family for the next 35 weeks and we will take care of each other as if this were so. We will be there to root for each other when things are great, and we will be there to pick each other up when things aren't going so well. No matter what, we will be there for each other!

"To the world you may just be one person, but to one person you may be the world!" - Brandi Snyder

August 27, 2011

2011-08-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

We did it! We survived the first full week of school. It seemed to be a bit of a long week trying to get back into the swing of things, but here we are, moving forward and ready to go! I have a couple of pictures that I promised this week. First off, on Monday, we finished up our watercolor flowers:

We ended up using these flowers as a lesson on perspective. Each student started with the exact same picture, the exact same view finder, the same paper, and the same paints, but there wasn't a single picture that turned out looking the same. There is not one picture up there that is the "correct" picture. This is because we all see things differently and need to learn to respect that, though other people may see things a little differently, it does not make their way wrong.

The other picture I promised was what we used the cans for. Here it is:

The words "I can't" are not allowed in my classroom. Especially not now that we've made a physical representation of an "I can". I'm going to be putting a shelf up in the room and these are going to remain up for the whole year. If I ever hear somebody use the words "I can't", I will simply refer back up to the cans and say, "I know you can. There's proof right there."

I want to make sure you're aware that the state is slowly transitioning into what is called the "Common Core". This is a fantastic thing for several reasons. First off, the Common Core raises the standards. I am a firm believer that children will reach whatever bar you set for them, so this raises the bar a bit and pushes them to excel. Also, the word common in it refers to the fact that it is the same thing across the nation, or at least it will be, right now I believe it's 46 states that have adopted the Common Core. This is great! Especially for the military in the area. They're children will be able to move from school to school and not be completely lost. This year, the state has decided to have sixth grade adopt the new math core, so if you've had other students come through the sixth grade and things seem a little different, this is why. I believe 2015 is the deadline for the entire state to have adopted the Common Core through all content areas and within all grades, k-12.

Here's our week at a glance:

* In math this week, we've started into our unit on ratios and proportions.

* Our first reading story is "The Best School Year Ever".

* In science, they began diving into the Scientific Method: Question, Research, Hypothesize, Experiment, Analyze, Conclude, and Report.

* Arts and Technology has started right into the beginnings of I-Movie, which they will use to edit the newscasts and other videos they produce throughout the year.

* Social studies has started the year by teaching them about different personality types and having them figure out which personality type they were.

* In Writing and Grammar we have been learning about how to construct a complete sentence, the four sentence types, and the 6(+1) Traits of Good Writing: Ideas, Organization, Voice, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, Conventions, and the (+1) Presentation.

All in all, I'd say it's been a pretty productive week. These kids have taken on each project with class. I truly am blessed to be teaching your students this year!

"Always shoot for the moon because then, even if you miss, you still land amonst the stars."

August 19, 2011

2011-08-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well, we survived our first week! I don't know if the students felt it, but let me tell you something, we have an incredible class this year! Lots of amazing, sweet, wonderful kids waiting to have a wonderful 6th grade year. I'm right there with them. I hope this ends up being my best year yet!

Our picture from this week comes from the 6th grade team building activity we did. The classes were each given a scooter and a line of rope and told they had to cross the "crocidile infested waters", the width of a basketball court, without touching the "water". We did the activity two different days and it was truly amazing to see how much more team talking was going on the second day. They're well on their way to making our class a family.
We also started an art lesson on perspective. It won't be completed until Monday though, so more details on it will come. The rest of the week was spent learning policies and procedures, getting to know the students, and taking beginning of the year pre-assessments. You know, all of the boring, formality stuff that has to take place at the start of every year. But it's all done and I think we're ready to move forward and really see what this year has to offer!

All in all, I think if you were to ask the Magic 8 Ball, "Are we going to have a good year?" I'm positive this is what you'd see:

WELCOME TO SIXTH GRADE!

2011-08-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

Hello Parents!

It's that time of year again! Time to fly our dragons into the 2011-2012 school year! I would like to start by welcoming us all together for what I hope will be one of your student's greatest years yet! Yes, welcome to the sixth grade. My name is Aaron Pratt and I will be your child's teacher, mentor, and confidante throughout this next year.

I am excited to be teaching here at Syracuse Arts Academy! I am more than proud to deliver what SAA has written as their charter. In my opinion, to teach the core through the arts is not doing anything special, it is just good teaching. It helps to get all corners of the child's mind into what is being learned.

I plan on being available to you and your student as much as possible. I am usually available at least an hour before and after school if either of you have questions. I am also available by e-mail or phone. My e-mail address is apratt@syracuseartsacademy.org and of course the school number is (801)779-2066. If I am unavailable to answer, please leave me a message as to what your call was regarding. I will return your calls and e-mails within 24 hours.

If you have any questions throughout the school year, please feel free to contact me. Also, keep an eye on this blog. I will be updating it at least a couple times a month.

I am looking forward to having a wonderful year together!

With warm regards,

Aaron Pratt

June 5, 2011

2011-06-05T09:35:00.001-07:00

Well, we've finally made it through the school year. The end was very bittersweet. I am glad that we finally have summer break, but I tell you what, I will miss these kids. I know they'll miss each other as well. We had an emotional last day. Unfortunately, our class is splitting up more than any other. We only have a little more than half our class returning to SAA. It's sad, yes, but it also gives us room for growth. We can expand, meet new friends. Don't forget your old ones though.

There's an old saying goes something like this:

Some people come into our lives and quickly leave. Others stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts so we will never be the same.

Though you may not see your friends on a daily basis anymore, you never have to forget them. Keep that in mind as you move on.

I'm going to post a few videos from the talent shows, to leave us all on a good note. One, the students got to see performed, the other was performed at the junior high talent show, so they did not. Parents, you may have not seen either of them. Here they are, for the enjoyment of all.

I became a teacher to make a difference in the lives of children. Though this is only my second year, I feel as if I am doing that, and I want to end by thanking you parents for helping me know this. They always say teachers don't get paid enough, and though I'd never turn down more money, I get paid plenty in the notes I received from you and the students letting me know that I've done what I set out to do. These kids are the reasons I teach!

Thank you for a fantastic year, and students, you'd better keep in touch!

I Am Part of a Lost Generation

2011-06-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

We had a guest speaker named Kyle Johnson come to our school and give a motivational talk about summer safety and making your own life. He shared this poem with the students that I thought was too good not to pass on. I realize it starts out negative, but trust me:

I Am Part of a Lost Generation
by Johnathan Reed

I am part of a lost generation
And I refuse to believe that
I can change the world
I realize this may be a shock but
Happiness comes from within
Is a lie
Money will make me happy
So in 30 years I will tell my children
They are not the most important things in my life
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
Work
Is more important than
Family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stayed together
But this will not be true in my era
This is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
30 years from now I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this Earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope

And this will all be true unless we reverse it

There is hope
It is foolish to presume that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It will be evident that
My peers and I care about this Earth
No longer can it be said that
Environmental destruction is the norm
In the future
I will live in a c ountry of my own making
I do not concede that
30 years from now I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
Experts tell me
This is a quick fix society
But this will not be in true in my era
Families stayed together
Once upon a time
I tell you this
Family
Is more important than
Work
I have my priorities straight because
My employer will know that
They are not the most important thing in my life
So in 30 years I will tell my children
Money will make me happy,
Is a lie
Happiness comes from within,
I realize this may be a shock but
I can change the world
And I refuse to believe that
I am part of a lost generation

May 22, 2010

2011-05-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

This week's blog is just going to be a short, quick blurb of upcoming dates. Put them on your calendars for your records:

May 23 - Missing Assignment/Grade Sheet sent home
May 25 - Last day for graded assignments/missing work
May 26 - Field Day 1:00
May 30 - Memorial Day, No School
May 31 - End of Year Field Trip to Syracuse 6
June 1 - Awards Assembly 9:00
June 1 - Graduation 2:00
June 2 - Talent Show 9:00
June 2 - 6th Grade T-Shirt Creation
(A note with more info will be coming home)
June 3 - Yearbooks! Last day of school!

If you have any questions on any of this, feel free to e-mail me or call me here at the school. Only 9 school days left until year end! Unbelieveable!

May 13, 2011

2011-05-13T13:34:00.001-07:00

Hello!

So that countdown that nobody is doing, there's only 14 school days left! It's unbelieveable how quickly it's gone by! It feels like just yesterday that I was really getting to know these kids and now they're going to be leaving me! I'll just have to make sure we have some fun these last few weeks so I know they won't forget me! Haha! Our picture this week comes from the work we did in my rotation. It's called a "Tree of Life". There are five kingdoms that all living things are classified into. Each branch of the tree is dedicated to one of the five kingdoms and each leaf is dedicated to something within the kingdom it's connected to. 625 or so leaves later, and our tree filled in pretty well.
As we move into next week I want to remind you that we do take our final end of level tests this week. The first section of the math test is on Monday and the second section is on Wednesday. Please do your best to be sure that your students don't miss those days so we don't need to make any tests up.

Grades are updated online as well. I am pretty close to being done giving out assignments that will be graded. There will be a few other small things, but for the most part, the lists are close to complete. There is still time to get in any missing assignments. My last day to accept any late work will be May 25. Please keep a close eye on your students and make sure they are caught up. It's a tough time of year for them to focus, so a little extra support could do them good.

A short note on things that are coming up. DARE Lagoon day is next Friday. We are pleaing with you that your students at least come to school so we can mark them here. Lagoon doesn't even open until 10:30, so if they can come until 10:00 to keep our attendance up, that would be greatly appreciated. Field Day is going to be Thursday, May 26. 6th grade will be doing their portion of field day in the afternoon. May 31 is the 6th grade end of year field trip. We will be walking up to the Syracuse Six and watching Kung Fu Panda 2. We will then head to the park right behind there and have some pizza and play some games. There is a permission slip required for this. I have about half of them in. There is also a $10 fee associated with it. The sixth grade talent show will be on June 2 at 9:00. The graduation will be held that same day at 2:00. June 3 is yearbook day. It's the final day for this school year. A day for bittersweet tears to be cried.

These last few weeks are going to go by super quick. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure your students enjoy the time we have left. I hope they do the same for me!

"But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day." ~Benjamin Disraeli

May 2, 2011

2011-04-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

I have a few videos that I'd like to share this week. The first one comes with a huge thanks to Scott Ramsden, one of our many wonderful parents. He came in on Friday this last week and taught the kids a bit about his homeland of New Zealand. Part of that came with a wonderful demonstration of the Native Haka dance. The below video is a bit of that presentation. The last 30 seconds or so is a full on show of the dance.

The other video comes from our PE class. First off, a huge thank you, thank you, thank you to Deb Pullum who has taught out PE class for us the entire year! She has done a fantastic job with it! I had afew of the girls in the class approach me and ask if they could teach a dance during PE. Their rationalization behind it, "We did football with the boys, they can do dance with us." I was all for it, but I figured I'd let Mrs. Pullum have the final say considering she's been running our PE program for the year. She let them do it, and after one days work they produced this video. They did work on it a second week, but I promised them I wouldn't record the second one.

A few bits of important information to pass along. After a few bits of heartache on Thursday, we did finally begin end of level testing today. Our schedule has changed just a bit. We did the first Language Arts test today. We will do the second tomorrow. Because of the issues last week, on Wednesday we will now be taking both sections of the science test. We still have next week off of testing, and we take the two sections of math the following week.

The days are really winding down quick. Only 22 school days remain. It will be a bittersweet ending as I know we are all ready for summer vacation, but I really will miss these guys.

April 21, 2011

2011-04-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

I feel as If I've been a terrible slacker at keeping you all updated here via the blog. I apologize! It's been a VERY busy couple of weeks both in and out of school The Friday before Spring Break, my wife and I signed on a house so the past few weeks, I've been leaving from school as soon as contract allows to try and get us set up in our home. Aside from the moving in, it seems we find one repair after another, and though none are major, it's still very time consuming. All in all, none of this is really an excuse for my slacking on the blog, just an explanation.

Here we are, back and at it though. We've been doing so much here! For about a week and a half of math time, we created game boards, with questions and rules, and everything! I have them being displayed in the halls right now, and I'll make sure I keep them up until conference time, so you'll have the opportunity to see them. As for what I've been teaching in math, it's all been review. Everything your student needs to learn in the sixth grade has been taught. The next few weeks we will spend reviewing some of the key materials they seem to need support in. Can you believe that end of levels are right around the corner? We're only exactly one week away from our first Language Arts test.

Here is what our testing schedule looks like as far as the last revision of the schedule goes:

Thursday, May 28 - Language Arts 1
Monday, May 2 - Language Arts 2
Tuesday, May 3 - Science 1
Wednesday, May 4 - Science 2

(We then take a week break from testing)

Monday, May 16 - Math 1
Wednesday, May 18 - Math 2

And with that, end of level testing is complete!!! With these testing days, I'm going to get down on my knees and beg that you have your students here. It makes it so much easier to have everyone here for testing, rather than trying to squeeze them into the make-up sessions. We do hold the make-up sessions for emergencies, but if at all possible, please have your students here on these days!

Also during this time, we will be having conferences. They will fall on Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May 6. Both of these days will be early out. These conferences are not mandatory conferences, therefore no schedule will be sent out. I will be my classroom from 1:30 to 4:30 both of those days, so if you want to conference, feel free to swing by at any time!

All in all, things are moving at a VERY rapid pace. The end of the school year is coming up quick! Only 29 days left of the school year! (Not that anyone has been counting!) It has been excellent ride this year, and I'm just going to start now with my several chances to thank each and every one of you, parents and students, for the fantastic year we've has this year! It wouldn't have been the same without all of us! We've been the only sixth grade class this year to keep all 27 students the entire year and I wouldn't have had it any other way! Thank, you, thank you, thank you!

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

March 18, 2011

2011-03-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

The results are in! Hopefully your students have shared with you if they placed in the Science Fair. The top six places all got prizes, and the top student from each grade gets to go onto the next level of competition. In sixth grade, we actually had one student from each class, but our class was the lucky class to have two placers. Congratulations to Sami Christensen for placing fourth place in the sixth grade science fair! As I said last week though, the number one student in the sixth grade science fair came from our class as well. a HUGE congratulations to Jayden Bowles for being the top student this year with his project on "How does our lifestyle effect our pH balance and how does our pH balance effect our health?"

This week we also celebrated "National Pi Day," March 14 (3.14)! As part of reading contest, the top readers in each class got to throw a pie at the brave teachers and staff that volunteered. I, of course, was among those that did, which meant that I bravely took a pie in the face from Kristin Lawrence, our top reader in our class!

Just a few updates for this week. Most of the teachers within rotations ended their grades for Term 3 today. They should have at least close to final grades uploaded onto the gradebook. I, however, want to finish our "Genres of Literature" book for third term, so even though the assignment lists for Grammar, Spelling, and Math are complete, I have given the students one extra week to turn things in. I will be assigning the final story in the book, biography/autiobiography, this Wednesday. They will only have until Friday to turn it in before I will no longer accept it.

And with that, the third term will be over. The year is three-fourths done. I can hardly believe it. Most of the students have done really well this term. For those who could have made some improvements, use this fresh start to make them!

"For every ending, there is a new beginning." -Ancient Proverb

March 11, 2011

2011-03-11T14:39:00.001-08:00

There's not a whole lot of news to report this week. Everything is rolling on as normal. We did have the Science Fair, and I can tell you so much as first place for sixth grade was in our class. But I can't officially make the announcement until after the assembly on Monday. I might have to have a "Special Bulliten" blog just for it.

We had a deadline put on us to have a DARE box finished by today, so the past week we worked hard to get it finished, just to find out that our DARE Officer cancelled DARE on us this week... and next week... so our finished DARE box is now finished three weeks early. Oh well, like the best of them say, "Those who finish early get the reward... of being done early." Our picture this week is a class shot with our finished DARE box.

The finished product turned out beautiful. The project was entirely student driven, and though not every student had a hand in it, I tried to make sure as many students as possible were represented in one way or another. We are all a family though, so the work of one of us, represents the work of all of us, so the whole class should be proud of this box!

I guess the big thing to keep in mind right now is that the end of the third term is just two weeks away now. March 28 is the last day. I will be having a make-up day on March 22 and the deadline for ANY work for the term will be March 25. Keep an eye on the gradebook, and I'll do my best to push the kiddos to get everything turned in on time. Let's end third term strong!

March 5, 2011

2011-03-05T20:05:00.000-08:00

Can you believe that we're only 3 weeks away from the end of third term? Incredible, is it not? Where has the time gone? We keep moving along at the same pace, 60 minutes to an hour, yet somehow time is flying and standing still all at the same time! It's one of life's wonders.

Our picture this week is a glimpse of what's to become of our DARE box, which is a box the students can drop questions into to have Officer Penrod answer. Every year, there is a competition to see which class can design the best DARE box. Our class has come up with quite an awesome idea! Can you tell what it is from the picture? If not, you'll have to wait and see the final product.

Most of the subjects are moving along at their standard pace. For the last few weeks in grammar, we've been learning about verbs, which is also what we'll be learning about for the next couple of weeks to come: Past, present, and future tenses, participles, perfect tenses... etc. Lots of verbs to learn about in the English language. Science is continuing to learn about the planets. In reading this week, they learned about Louis Braille and how he designed the Braille reading system for the blind.

Math is continuing to march forward, but unfortunately for some, we're getting into material that I feel is leaving them behind. This is the time of year that we get into the hardest things we learn. We only have 3 weeks of math instruction left, then we use April to review for the End-of-Level testing. I tested something this month, and because of that, I'm going to ask a HUGE favor when we get closer to the end of the new month. Without the students knowing, when we reviewed for the test on Wednesday, I gave them the test, word for word, number for number, question for question, and answer for answer. Some of them noticed, others did not. Some of them did really well. In fact, I was able to award my first 100% this year for a math test. Unfortunately, they weren't all so well. You can look on gradebook to see your student's score. The fact that the scores were still all so spread out is a key indicator to me that very few of the students actually studied for the test which I gave them 100% of the answers to. This is a little disappointing. If the month goes as planned, the next review will be sent home on Thursday, March 24, for the test on Friday, March 25. Can you please keep your eye out for it and help your students study for this month's test? I won't be giving them the test question for question again, but I will be giving them questions that are worded identical to the test, just different numbers. I'd appreciate your support on this matter.

With that said, I have been very proud of these kids in many aspects: Their science test scores were up; Their Theme 4 Language test scores were up; And they had a fantastic idea for a DARE box; just to name a few. We've just got to find some way to make Math seem a little less scary.

"I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally." ~Calvin Trillin

February 27, 2011

2011-02-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

"Chugga, chugga," said the train. Or was it, "I think I can, I think I can!" Either way, it's relevant! I have two pictures to share this week. The first one comes from the author we had visit this week. His name is David Greenberg. He came in and gave an excellent talk on civil rights. I'd expect nothing less than that, considering his father was Martin Luther King's lawyer.

The second picture comes from our Pillow, PJ, Popcorn and Movie Party! We had a great time on Friday watching Despicable Me. Well, all of us except for my microwave that is. I guess 13 bags of popcorn in a row is too much for a little microwave. Luckily, once it cooled off, it worked again, good as new. At any rate, the kids earned the little bit of extra work from it and me. We just completed the Jazz/Usborne Reading Contest. We had set a class goal at 53,460 minutes, which was an hour per student per night of the contest. With a few stragglers, we not only passed our goal, we blew it out of the water, reading a grand total of 78,670 minutes. They earned every bit of that party on Friday!

As a whole, our school reached their goal as well, meaning that we will be having a jeans and movie day, coming up sometime soon (date still to be announced). We also were one of the top 10 reading schools in the contest, which means that this Wednesday at 1:00 we will have an assembly starring one the Utah Jazz players! We never know who they're sending us until they get here, but I can tell you this much... it won't be Deron Williams!!! (Bad joke, sorry :)

There's currently not a whole lot of big news for the classroom. Most things are moving along as normal. We will be taking the February Benchmark test in Math this week. Also, Science Fair projects need to be completed soon. Judging for the projects is the start of next week. They are looking for volunteers to help judge the science fair projects. Your child should have a paper with all the details. If you have any questions on it, please contact Mrs. Dezember.

Other that, class will move on like normal! I'll keep teaching, and hopefully they keep learning!

“A happy life is one spent in learning, earning, and yearning” -Lillian Gish

February 4, 2011

2011-02-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

Onward and upward we continue! Our picture this week comes from the hall of dioramas we have set up throughout the sixth grade halls. Our story from this week was about a girl who built a diorama for a school project. This was a three day in class project I designed strictly on the basis that too many kids claimed to not know what a diorama was. I felt it would be unjust of me as a teacher to let them leave elementary school having never made a diorama. Once we started making them, most of them realized they had made one before, but oh well! They still turned out to be super cute!

They will be set up to, and most likely beyond, conferences. So when you're here to chat with us, check them out! They put a lot of hard work into them!

This was most of what we did in my rotation this week. We did have an assignment on linking verbs, but after that lesson on Monday, my room became a mess of mayhem with 130 or so dioramas being built at the same time! I'm excited with how well they turned out, but I'm not going to lie, I'm also excited to have them and the mess out of my room.

Math this week we worked a lot with integers. I reintroduced them, reminding them on Monday that an integer is any whole number, positive, negative or zero. Tuesday went into comparing them: -3 is less than 5, etc. Wednesday we added integers: -7 + -3 = -10; and Thursday we subtracted integers: -3 - (-5) = 2. Friday we did a fun graphing activity which incorporated adding integers and absolute values. Once they were done with the graphs, they had to color them with one of the sets of complementary colors: red and green, blue and orange, or yellow and purple.

Quick run down of the last couple of subjects, Mrs. McGuire's Art's and Technology groups have been moving forward on their newscasts, Mr. Albrecht's Social Studies have been moving further into Ancient Egypt, and Mrs. Dezember's Science class has been studying about the Seasons and Moon Phases! Also, keep in mind that the Science Fair projects should be in progress at this time.

Couple of big things coming up this week. Thursday is the second of our field trips this year! In conjunction with the science core, we are going to the Planetarium. It should be a fun trip! On that same day we are having the Maturation program. Both of these are things that we need permission slips for. They have gone home with the students, so if you haven't seen them, please ask for them. Also on Friday, Officer Penrod will be officially starting DARE!

He was here with a fellow officer of his today, but they held a 6th-9th assembly focusing on other topics: Bullying and Cyber Bullying, and the extremities of consequences these can have on the bully as well as the victim. They also talked about other inappropraite uses of technology going into subjects I wouldn't quite feel appropraite about posting on my class blog.. Please feel free to open a discussion with your child about any of them as I do feel these are things should be heavily talked about in the home. I hope these are things that your children, though they may not feel comfortable talking about, realize it is important to talk about, and if there is ever a problem or issue with any of them, I hope they realize they can talk to their parents, myself, or any other member of our faculty here at the school.

They said something in that assembly today that I think really made a lot of the students think. At first they referenced themselves as police officers and how their day to day job would be to sacrifice their lives for these children. Then they referenced us teachers, and talked about how we care for them so much that we would do the same. The kids questioned this during the discussion we held when we got back to the room. "Mr. Pratt, would you really be willing to give your life for us?" I do believe I would. I truly love each and every one of your children as if they were my own because for eight hours of the day, they are and there are very few minutes of any day that go by that I'm not thinking about them, and what I can do for them while they are here at my school, in my classroom. It's the life I've chosen as a teacher, and I don't for one minute regret it!

"A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to." ~Robert Brault,

I Have a Dream!

2011-01-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share with you a video we took this week. I decided this year that I wanted to do something for Martin Luther King Jr. that would mae it real to the students. So rather than just giving them some silly worksheet, I took them, as well as another sixth grade class and two fifth grade classes, into the auditorium, and after some from first hand experience from Mrs. Carlson, and some preteaching from Mrs. Lawrence, I gave the "I Have a Dream" speech. I really think it had the affect I was looking for. If your student hasn't mentioned it to you yet, bring it up with them, and see what they have to say.

"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'" ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

January 15, 2011

2011-01-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

Might I just say that this has been one stressful week... at least for me. I certainly over worried about our play, and like usual, the kids pulled everything together, and we put on not just one but TWO fantastic performances. I think that's a definite feather for our hat that word about our play made it around enough that we were asked to perform it again. Bravo to these kids, they did wonderful! I've watched it several times now and it never gets old.

Do you find yourself craving it again? Well, I have just the thing. I will be sending home an order form on Wednesday allowing you to purchase both a DVD and Photograph. There are several options for the photograph: one would have just our class in it, one would have both our class and Mr. Albrecht's class, and then I will also be offering, for Mr. Albrecht's class, one with just his class in it. Below is what the photo would look like with both classes in it.

Both the DVD and photograph are going to cost $5 each, mostly to cover my costs in producing them.

With a little less stress on our plate, we will march our way into Term 3. The deadline for any missing assignments was this last Friday, so any work we do now will go onto third term. Report cards are scheduled to go home on Monday, January 31.

When we get back on Wednesday, I will be hosting the classroom spelling bees. The top two from each class will move onto the school spelling bee, which will be held next Wednesday, January 26.

Math for the next little bit will be some review assignments on topics which last month's benchmark test told me we needed some extra work on. Next Wednesday, January 26, will be a review day for the Second Term Benchmark test which will be next Thursday, the 27.

All of the other subjects continue to March forward as well. Reading will probably not have a full story this week with it being a short week, but Science will move on into the Third term material: Seasons and Moon Cycles.

All in all right now, I am a very proud teacher. These students took all of my pushing in stride, and even dared to bring me back down to Earth when I needed it most. That brings me the first ever quote of the week from a student:

"Mr. Pratt, it's just a sixth grade play. The parents will understand if it's not perfect." ~ Anna Smith

I can't thank her enough for saying that to me. I will certainly never forget it! Enjoy the long weekend!!!

January 7, 2011

2011-01-07T17:31:00.001-08:00

THE NEW YEAR IS HERE!!!

And the first week of it is already over. With our big play coming up, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at what was to come:

This is the setting for our stage. I spent the evening setting up the lights and sound. Unfortunately, where we share the stage with the school, some of it will have to move after rehearsal on Monday, but at least it's all works!

With all that said, I do want to remind you about the play. Little Red Riding Hood will be performed by my class with Mr. Albrecht's class as our accompanying chorus. The one and only performance will be this coming Thursday, January 13, 2011, at 10:00 in the morning. All parents are invited to enjoy. I will also be filming it and putting together DVDs and pictures. If you are interested in those, I will be sending home an order form after the performance. They will cost $5 a piece, basically to cover my expense to put them together.

Even with a big performance on the cusp, school is progressing as usual. We have been working more with fractions this week. We have learned to multiply and divide both fractions and mixed numbers. Grammar has taken a slower progression, putting the play in forefront, but we have still learned about adjectives the last few weeks: proper, demonstrative, and comparatives.

Reading continued into Theme 4 this week with an exert from My Side of the Mountain.

Science wrapped up term 2 by taking their Heat, Light and Sound test.

Social Studies has been working on their country reports as well. There are a few assignments coming up for it: a political map, and a physical map of their country. Those are due by January 13.

As a warning, the end of the term is near. The actual ending date is January 20. All missing assignments are due by the end of this coming week, otherwise they will be counted as zeros on the report card. Can you believe we're already half way through the year?!

With that, I'll bid an end to this week's blog. I hope to see you all on Thursday for the performance!

"I try to give the best bang for the buck. I love performing more than anything else." ~ Jimmy Buffett

December 17, 2010

2010-12-17T13:49:00.000-08:00

WINTER BREAK IS HERE!!!!!

YAY!!!

Let's start off with our picture from this week. It is actually from an activity we did today. Every year I do a Holidays Around the World activity where the kids color and create a globe with picture representations of the different Holidays. As they are coloring, I teach about the many different Holidays: Christmas, Advent, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Saint Nicholas. We also talk about how Christmas is celebrated down in Australia where they don't dream of a white Christmas, they dream of a nice hot summer day. We had a special guest in this year to add to the discussion as to why Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate any. Again, much thanks for that! Below is a picture of one of the students working on her picture:

Just a few announcements to make before I wrap it up for the next few weeks. With the movie day at hand, I was able to get in just about all of the missing assignments to this point in the year. Thank you to the students (and parents whom I'm sure supported them) for getting those in. It'll be nice to be able to start the new year off fresh.

Our class play has finally been scheduled. Please keep your schedules clear for January 13 at 10:00. That will be our one and only performance of "Little Red Riding Hood". Our class is doing the acting, and Mr. Albrecht's will be our choir. It finally looks like it's coming together and will be a great performance! With that in mind, I have talked with the students about what they will need for their costumes. Please do your best to work with them to get in the parts that I need them to bring. Again, I truly appreciate all you do from home to support us here at school!

I wanted to take just one quick second to say thank you for all the gifts that were brought. It touches my heart and really just brings it home to me why I teach. These kids mean everything to me, and these gifts are a great reminder that I really am making a difference for them. Thank you so much!

With that, I will bid you all a happy break! Our class's grades are as updated as they can be online. Take a look at them, and be proud of your students for getting their work caught up before the break!!!

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love." ~Hamilton Wright Mabie

December 12, 2010

2010-12-12T09:36:00.001-08:00

Only one week left until the biggest break of the year! Are we all excited for it?! I realize that Thanksgiving break just happened, but I think we're all in need of Winter break. If nothing else, it will clear our minds (hopefully not literally), and let us begin the new year fresh.

A lot has been happening at the school the last little bit. I think it might be easiest just to give you a quick run of pictures. A few weeks back, the students had a visit from author Frank Cole, who wrote the Hashbrown Winter series. The first picture is during his assembly.

A week or so after that we had a visit from the University of Utah's Tanner Dance clinic. It was a fun assembly because it was their students, ages 5 to 15, performing for our students.

The final picture I have is actually a bit of a collage. With just a few to be made up this week, we have most all of our masks completed. They turned out super cute! Can you find your student's mask?

With that quick run down of the exciting parts of the last few weeks, let's take a quick look at the future. This week, we will have only a couple of math lessons, one on fractions and decimals, and one on finding the percent of a number. The week will conclude with a day of review and then the December benchmark test.

In reading this week they will be doing The Skill of Pericles, which is based on Greek Mythology. This is the last story of the theme which means on top of the story quiz, we will also be taking the Theme 3 test this week.

Science is continuing even further into the heat, light and sound unit. This week they are having a fun activity where they are going to be making tin can phones. Mrs. Dezember has asked that each student bring in one can, like a soup can, for the project. If your student has already, thank you, if not, please send one. If you can't for whatever reason, I know there's at least a few students so far that have brought extras.

Arts and Tech will moving on with the Newscasts.

Social Studies should be wrapping up their unit on Mesopotamia this week.

All in all, the craziness is continuing. With one week left until the break, I hope we can come in, work hard Monday thru Thursday, and then have an enjoyable day, with some fun activities on Friday. This hint should give part of Friday away to the students: They'll want to make sure they have no missing assignments on Friday!

Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

"What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it." ~Thomas Simmons

November 28, 2010

2010-11-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

The year is quickly moving forward as get ready to say goodbye to November and hello to December. Can you believe we're a third of the way through the school year already?! It's crazy to think about how quickly time is flying by.

This past Tuesday, as a part of Mrs. McGuire's Arts and Technology class, with ties to many different cultures within our Social Studies core, we had a plaster mask making day. Our picture this week comes from that:

With the same promise I make to my kids each year, if we can be done and cleaned with enough time, I allow them to make a plaster mask on me. They succeeded in giving us enough time. Mrs. McGuire decided to join me in the excitement this year!

Needless to say, we had a pretty fun day before going out for break!

As we come back in session, we have to be ready to hit the grindstone. This week in math will be a couple of review lessons, with the week ending in our benchmark test!

Reading Class will continure into the nonfiction theme our our book.

Science will continue on into the heat, light and sound unit of term 2.

All in all, we keep moving forward in the curriculum of sixth grade, learning all we have to learn, and trying to have some fun while doing it. Hey, just think, only 3 weeks until winter break!

"One kind word can warm three winter months." ~Japanese Proverb

November 13, 2010

2010-11-13T06:43:00.000-08:00

Hey all! This has been one long week! From the sad way it started, to our monologue assembly, to the Veterans Day assembly, there's just been so much going on that it's been hard for me to keep up. First off, and this will be all I mention the subject, our hearts go out to the Nelson family. I couldn't even imagine what they're going through. I just hope they can find the strength from somewhere to get themselves through it.

Our "photo" this week wasn't going to be a photo, but rather, it was going to be a copy of our monologue assembly this past week, but blogspot doesn't seem to want the video to upload. I will, however, have DVD copies of this available. I'll be sending a note home on it, hopefully Monday if I can get it ready, allowing you to purchase a copy. It'd be the DVD, with a nice label, and slim case. All I'm asking is $3 to cover my supplies.

This week at a glance: They've begun the nonfiction theme in reading beginning with Stone Age News. In math we've been dealing a lot with fractions, decimals, percents and ratios and will continue into that next week. I believe we also get into circles this week as well. My big announcement for the week however, will be the parts for our play. Now, I hope the students will understand that not everybody got the part they wanted to get, so I'm sure there will be some disappointments, but I did the best I could to get people what they wanted, while still filling parts with appropriate people. Without further adieu, here is the list for what will be our production of "Little Red Riding Hood":

Storyteller A1 - Kristin
Storyteller B1 - Kendyl
Storyteller A2 - Aubrey
Storyteller B2 - Kaila
Mrs. Riding Hood - Anna
Little Red - Hailey
Townsperson - Haylee
Townsperson - Causley
Townsperson - Brock
Townsperson - Conner
Flower - Sarai
Flower - Kassie
Flower - Madison
Flower - Brooke
Squirrel - Brenda
Squirrel - Braydon
Squirrel - Tyler
Squirrel - Josh
Wolf - Duncan
Granny - Sami
Woodsman - Coty
Junior Tracker - Mehkai
Junior Tracker - Jake
Technical - Payton
Technical - Jayden
Technical - Kaden

I still have yet to actually set a date for the performance. Practice time has been so scarce that, unfortunately for the other classes, this will probably be the only 6th grade production of the year. I'm thinking it will probably be January time frame that the production is put on, but like I said, nothing is set in stone yet.

With that, we'll move into the next week, hoping with all we have that it's better than last. This week, it was events completely out of our control that threw the week off. I believe this next week should slow down a little, allowing us to have a good, relaxing, week that's full of learning. That's the goal at least!

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Confucius

2010-11-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

It seems like so much longer than two weeks since I've last posted, but dates don't lie. It's just been a long couple of weeks with the end of the term and all. Our picture this week is brought to us by an entire term worth of writing. I've been collecting all of the poems we've written this term, and I put them into books seperated by class. That's 135 students represented by 5 poems each. That means there's roughly 675 poems sitting on this table; Quite a feat by these kids!

With it still being the start of the term, there's not a whole lot of new things to report. We took the Theme 2 test in reading. We've moved into our Heat, Light and Sound unit in Science. We haven't made the transition yet in writing. I figured I'd take a bit of a break after poetry before moving into Genres of Literature. Everything else is moving forward at its own pace.

The only other announcement I might make at this point in time is that reports cards will be coming home on Monday. After reviewing them, please sign the envelope and return the envelope to school.

With that, we'll put on a smile, move into the next week, and muscle our way through term 2. I'm hoping that our students will come back next week with a little better behavior than we had this week. I don't know if they were still hopped up on Halloween candy or what, but they were awfully chatty and had troubles calming down to learn. Hopefully, next week, we'll put that smile back on, and come back ready to learn!

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. ~Phyllis Diller

October 22, 2010

2010-10-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

Another week gone by and we're having a great time! Lots going on! First off, our pictures for this week are student examples of the two art projects we've done in math recently. The first is a factor tree, which is used to find the prime factorization of a number:

The second is the story of the Frog and the Dog, which helps the students understand dividing with decimals: This week at a glance: In science they took bacteria samples and watched them grow under a microscope. Once that project was complete, they began learning about mushrooms and other types of fungi. Quick note, their Microorganisms end of unit test is next week. They should have a study guide for it at home with them.

The reading story this week was Old Yeller, always a good story.

Arts and Technology can be summed up just by saying Cultural Fair. Their Cultural Fair projects turned out amazing. Also, the informace this week was based around the Cultural Fair. I was happy to see as many of you as I did there. Thanks for your support!

In social studies this week, the students have been reading a book called 20 and 10. It's a book about a school with 20 children in it, 10 of whom are Jewish. They've also been really getting the basics as to what history is through definition, and by thinking about their own history.

Math this week we focused on angles and their measurement and dividing by decimals, and writing and grammar we did our second to last poem, the Shape Poem, and learned about common and proper nouns.

Unless I can find the time otherwise, we also had our final Cancer Awareness lesson today. A huge thanks to Deena Bigger, a cancer survivor, for coming in and sharing her story. I think it did the students a lot of good to hear a first hand account of it.

Last couple of announcements, the end of the first term is this week. Unless other arrangements have been made, the grades online, at least for my parts of the rotations minus spelling (so grammar, writing and math) are complete. I have two more groups to give spelling tests to this week before I can upload the final test and be done with those grades.

I seriously can't believe the first term is already over! Can you?! Where has the time gone....

~ "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." - Grouch Marx

October 14, 2010

2010-10-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

It feels like so much has happened in such little time, that I don't know where to start. At the same time, I look at my calendar just to see that the first term ends in just two weeks. In one hand, time seems to not be moving, and the other it's flying by. It's hard to tell which is which. This is part of the inspiration for this week's picture. It's an action shot playing football during P.E. Time is going in just about as many directions as the students are.

Keeping in mind that the term does officially end in two weeks, I'm making a deadline for all missing work. This coming Friday will be the last day I accept any late work. To help encourage the students to get caught up, I am making the class time during my rotation on Monday a period to catch up. Those students with no missing work, will have free time, those with missing work will have the 45 minutes to work on it. I will also be giving them new copies of eveything they are missing, so there will be no excuses. Remember, this all needs to be in by Friday, October 22, 2010.

I wanted to take a minute to bring up the discussion we had in class last Friday. It was the first time I had a minute to really get the students to focus on why I've been wearing pink all month. The "goal" of the discussion was to find out what the students knew about cancer, so we filled out the first level of a KWL chart, which is simply what the students know about a topic. The screen shot of that is pictured below.

There's only six things that actually got listed, but more importantly than that was the discussion we were able to hold. Almost every single student was able to share a story about someone close to them who has fought the fight with cancer. It was so neat for me at the end of the lesson to be able to say, "If you listened, almost every single one of you shared a story today. This is why we need to be more aware. There is not one of our lives that has not been affected by cancer."

I could take some time to list out everything the classes have done in the past week, but I would rather just ask you to watch the gradebook closely. The end of the term is coming quick. As I've said, for my room, they will have a list and copies of all their missing assignments on Monday. You might need to be a little more proactive for the other teachers. Either way, keep a close eye so we can end the term strong. Again, my last day to accept any late work will be Friday, October 22, 2010.

A few other important dates coming up are the Cultural Fair, which is this Monday thru Wednesday, October 18-20. The informance is also this week. For those that were here last year, you have previously experienced an informance. For those that were not, an informance is an informal, informative performance. The students take about a half an hour to forty-five minutes to show you just some of the ways that we've been incorporating the arts into the curriculum. If possible, please show your support by attending. It is Wednesday, October 20, at 8:45 in the morning.

With that, enjoy the long weekend. Have your students rest up and be ready to come back working hard!

~ "I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." ~ Thomas Jefferson

October 3, 2010

2010-10-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, I could like to say congratulations to our classroom's very first student of the month, Sami Christensen! She was not only high on my list, but when the students were given a chance to nominate, she was nomitated by several of her peers. She is a fantastic student who always gets her work in on time, and always has model student behavior! Congratulations Sami!!!

In math this week, we finished up the September lessons in our curriculum map. This lead us to a review on Wednesday and a test on Thursday. As a whole, I'm happy with how the class did. Remember though, anyone below 80% has the required assignment of fixing their test. Now, they're not only supposed to go and circle the correct answer, but they either need to show the work for it, or explain why that would be the correct answer. Doing this will earn them half the credit they missed back.

In science this week they have been diving further and further into microorganisms. This week, they specifically looked at the three different kinds of protists: plantlike protists, animal-like protists and fungus-like protists, as well as the the traits that classify into the different categories.

In the reading rotation this week, they did take the Theme 1 test. After that, they read through an exert of Number the Stars. If this is a book they've never read all the way through, believe me, it comes highly recommended. It is a powerful story about the happenings in Denmark during World War II.

In Arts and Technology this week, they began learning how to use the cameras and tripods. They also began discussing their first whole-class newscast. Our class has decided to do a newscast on Halloween Safety. Whether we trick-or-treat or not, this is a high traffic night, and it never hurts anybody to learn how to be safe during it.

In social studies this week, they have continued learning about the different types of maps. This week focused specifically on time zone maps and precipitation maps.

Finally, in grammar and writing this week, we learned how to write Haikus. We also learned about complex sentences and how they are the combination of a dependent and an independent clause.

Now, this month is a big month in my household. For the entire month, the students will see their teacher wearing either a pink tie or a pink shirt. That's right, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Did you know that about 190,000 women a year are diagnosed with breast cancer and around 40,000 a year die from it? Kids are never too young to start being aware. With that, I am planning a few activities this month based around it. One thing I would like to do, but I will need parent help with, is finish the unit with a visit from a survivor. I know a few survivors, but am not certain they would have time to come in. Also, I think it would be a lot more powerful if it came from a family member of one of our students. I will be sending out an e-mail asking this same thing, but if you happen to know anybody who is a cancer survivor and would be willing to come in and age appropriately share their experience, please contact me. I think it would have a powerful affect on the students.

If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like (no other). ~Lance Armstrong

September 6-10

2010-09-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

I remember where I was September 11, 2001, and I'm sure all of you parents do, too. It's strange to me that I'm teaching something in school, that I've lived through, that's considered history. Give it two more years and I'll be teaching kids that weren't even alive when it happened, but it won't make it any less real to them. I have decided that 9/11 is a good time of year to really teach the students the difference between a celebrity and a hero. The students have learned the definition of hero to be a man or woman of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his or her brave deeds and noble qualities.

Day 1 of the unit we talked about different heroes and the deeds they have done. On day 2, we discussed the different heroic things the students might do in their time. On day 3, 9/10, the closest I could get with 9/11 being on Saturday, I had the chief of the Syracuse Fire Department and one of his men come in and visit with the students. Hearing the firemen talk about how many of their fellow brothers they lost on that day really brought home the lesson better than I ever could. It also gave the kids a chance to honor some of our hometown heroes. The picture below is our class with the two firemen.

Well, with week 3 down, I think there are finally enough grades loaded into the computer to make it worth while to give out the user names and passwords for our online gradebook. Keep your eyes on your e-mail, I should be sending those out sometime this week. Another thing I meant to do on Friday, but will do on Monday, is send home missing assignments sheets. What I've told the students is that assignments will only make it to a missing assignment list once. So if it was on this week's list, when I print them again in about two weeks, if the assignments were not turned in, they will be entered into the computer as a zero. I will still accept the assignments past that, but I am not going to spend the entire term chasing after assignments from the start of the term, so after the first list, it is up to the students to get missing assignments in.

Other than that, things should be as usual this week. We will finally begin the spelling program. With the rotations, it took me a while to get everything ready for 135 students, but, thanks to the help of several parent volunteers, it's finally done. If things go as planned, our class should also be starting the first sixth grade play of the year this week. Everything else, reading, science, social studies, should be steady as we go!

"Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family who lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children." -President George W. Bush

Mrs. Lawrence vs. Mr. Pratt

2010-09-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

By Cathy Taylor

Part 1

Mrs. Lawrence welcomed the very first day of SAA.
When out jumped Mr. Pratt and said, “Introduce myself, if I may?”
Mrs. Lawrence took a shook of her head,
When a student broke his pencil led.
When Mr. Pratt jumped all about,
Mrs. Lawrence started to shout.
When Mr. Pratt left the room,
Mrs. Lawrence knew she was doomed.
Then she shouted out, “No test on Friday! We must protest!”
With Mrs. Lawrence and her trick,
She laughed and took a sip of her Dr. Pepper.

Part 2

On Friday the students had no test
Because today they had to protest.
The students made protest signs
While Mrs. Lawrence knew they had creative minds.
Once they were all done,
Mrs. Lawrence knew she had won.
When they went up the stairs,
It was as still as air.
When what trembled before Mr. Pratt’s eyes,
In his sight was only protest signs.
Mrs. Lawrence at once came,
To see Mr. Pratt’s shame.
The only thing Mr. Pratt thought was funny,
Was the shoutings of no more impersonating bunnies.
Once the students had gone,
Mr. Pratt told Mrs. Lawrence,
“It’s on!”

Part 3

While the students were all about,
Mr. Pratt snuck in like a scout.
Mrs. Lawrence came in to see,
A letter signed by Mr. P.
As Mrs. Lawrence starts to read,
The children came in like a stampede.
All children start to hear,
Mrs. Lawrence and her class scream loud and clear.
Mrs. Lawrence starts to think up tricks
While pulling on her froggy sticks.
Mrs. Lawrence and her class start to think,
How to get Mr. Pratt and his magazine link.
Someday we will get revenge,
To Mr. Pratt’s feeding cookie binge.

This poem was actually written by a student from Mrs. Lawrence's 5th grade class, but it pertains to our class as well so I figured I'd share it. It sums up the "extra-curricular" activites we've been doing in class the first couple of weeks. The upper picture is of the crew that kidnapped Mrs. Lawrence's chair and the ransom note we collaged to leave behind.

I'm a firm believer that if we as teachers can make the kids enjoy coming to school, they will be more receptive when it comes to teaching the core curriculum. So we do learn everything we need to, but we have fun also!

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. - Dale Carnegie

August 18-27

2010-08-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

The school year has started with a bang! All of my students this year are so cute! I know I've said this to some of you before, but it deserves some reiteration: your students pretty much make me wish sixth grade didn't rotate, so I could keep them the whole day long. They are such great kids!

I was told I was brave for doing it, but during the first week, our class did a watercolor art project which I then segued into a character lesson on perspective. A lot of our character lessons this year are going to focus on the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. This is the book the junior high is basing a lot of their activities around as well, so when we were asked if we wanted to participate with it, we jumped on board. One of the first chapters of the book focuses on Paradigms and the different ways you might perceive people, and the world, which might not be true. In the end. we discovered that being principle centered is the way to be: honest, service, love, hard work, respect, integrity, etc. It was the first time I had taught the lesson the way I did, and I feel it worked extremely well. Our picture for this week's blog comes from that lesson as the students were walking through the line, looking at all of the different watercolor pictures, which all derived from the same 4x6 photo and view finder:

The upcoming week is going to be moving forward at full steam. Math will move on into order of operations, expanded and scientific notations, and properties of equations. We will also get our first glimpse into variables and expressions. During their reading rotation, they will be reading about Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs. Science should be moving forward into microorganisms and social studies should continue on with map skills, possible moving into their first of the early civilizations.

I want to take a minute to give some praise to the parents this year. I sent out a e-mail earlier this week just kind of prodding to see what volunteers I might have this year. Let me tell you what! I was bombarded with your willingness! I have never had such an outpour of support. For those that said they would want to correct from home, I will send things home as often as I can, from math papers to spelling tests, etc. For those that wanted to come in, I should be sending out an e-mail today with a schedule. I believe I've actually talked to all of you about your time but if what I have you for does not work, let me know. Again, thanks so much for your support! It might take me a while to get used to having this many parents volunteering, but I will do my best!!!

With that, I will conclude for the week! Your students are fantastic and I am looking forward to a wonderful year with them!

- Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. ~ Robert Collier

WECOME TO SIXTH GRADE!

2010-07-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

Hello Parents!

It's that time of year again! Time to fly our Dragons into the 2010-2011 school year. I would like to start by welcoming us all together for what I hope will be one of your student's greatest years yet! Yes, welcome to the sixth grade. My name is Aaron Pratt and I will be your child's teacher, mentor, and confidante thoughout this next year.

I am excited to be here at the Syracuse Arts Academy for my second year now. I am more than proud to deliver what SAA has written as their charter. In my opinion, to teach the core through the arts is not doing anything special, it is just good teaching. It helps to get all corners of the child's mind into what is being learned.

I plan on being available to you and your student as much as possible. I am usually available at least an hour before and after school if either of you have questions. I am also available by e-mail or phone. My e-mail address is apratt@syracuseartsacademy.org and of course the school number is (801)779-2066. If I am unavailable to answer, please leave me a message as to what your call was regarding. I will return your calls and e-mails within 24 hours.

If you have any questions throughout the school year, please feel free to contact me. Also, keep an eye on this blog. I will be updating at least a couple times a month.

I am looking forward to us having a wondeful year together!

With warm regards,

Aaron Pratt

Goodbye!

2010-06-03T19:00:00.001-07:00

I suppose this will be the last post I write for this year's students. I cannot explain the mixed amount of emotions I felt the last day of school. It was very bittersweet. I was glad the end of the year was here and summer break was upon us, but at the same time, I'm not going to teach this group anymore. They were fantastic. Parents were fantastic. This year was nothing short of fantastic!!!

I cried a few tears. In fact, I had a student deliver me a box of tissues, which was little exaggerated, but nonetheless, it was such a thoughtless gesture, it showed the true meaning of why it will be so hard to let this group of kids go! We've laughed, cried, smiled, cheered, sweat, thought, fought, and played together. For those 9 months we were a family and I wish the very best to each and every one of my children! I know you all have the potential to do great things in life, I just hope that once you're rich and famous that you don't forget us little people who helped you get there!

Cheers! To the best things in life: live, push and fight for them, because they really are what make life worth living! Good luck to all of you!!!

May 15, 2010

2010-05-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Only 12 school days left... not that anyone's counting. Things are wrapping up pretty quick. Faster than I can really keep up with. Our pictures for this week will be two different things. The first is of some of students and their puppets that we've worked so diligently at for the last weeks. They've written puppet plays and created the puppets for those.

The other is what is hopefully going to become the book cover for a book that each of our students will write a part of and each of them will get to take a copy of home. "525,600, 2009-10". The question asked of them, there are 525,600 minutes in a year, what was your favorite of those this school year? There is so much coming up, I'm just going to make a list in hopes that I get it all on here:

May 18-19 - Puppet Shows (Performed throughout the day, just how up to see them)

May 21 - Term 4 Reading Miunutes End

May 21 - DARE Lagoon Day (Student's are encouraged to be at school, it will be counted as an absense if they choose to go to Lagoon instead)

May 25 - Theseus and the Minotaur (In case any of Mrs. Dezember or Mrs. Johnson's parents check this)

May 27 - Field Day (The school is still in need of volunteers if you need hours)

May 27 - Sixth Grade Graduation, 7pm

May 28 - Sixth Grade Boondocks Field Trip

June 2 - Talent Show

June 2 - Last Day of School

As I said, there's a lot coming up. I probably missed something, but that's a good chunk of it. I have pretty much finished collecting things that are actually going to be on grades. Student have until Friday to get missing assignments turned in. I will be giving them a list as well as progress reports on Monday, so keep an eye out for those Monday evening.

All in all, I think that sums it up. Time is moving so fast, and I really am going to miss each and every one of these students!!!

"Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you."

May 10, 2010

2010-05-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

I realize it's been some time since I've written here and I must apologize. It's been an insanely busy month. Here's a couple of our highlights though: Earlier in the year, we wrote a letter to our President of the Unites States. Two weeks ago, we got a reply letter from him that included the letter, a picture of him, and a picture of his dog, Bo. It was pretty exciting.

We also had several from our class participate in the school play, 101 Dalmations!

We've made our way through almost all of our End-of-Level Testing. We'll be taking our last CRT this afternoon. We have a couple of graded tests to take this week as well. The L.A. Theme 6 test as well as the L.A. 4th Quarter Test. Also, a 4th Quarter Math test. After this week however, all of our testing for grades will be finished!

We finished our last story from our reading books last week and turned in the books, so this week will begin something a little different for reading. I have gotten my hands on a class set of the book Tuck Everlasting. We will be reading through it in little Book Clubs (groups of 5). There will be a packet to fill out as they go. Once we've read the book and quizzed on it, we might take a bit of class time and watch the movie as well.

After we test in Math, I think I'm going to just give them some different Math lessons that they might see next year. There will be assignments, but they won't be so heavily graded on how well they do on the concept as if they attempted it or not.

We have also been working heavily on the puppets we are going to be showing in our Informance. That will be coming up the 20th at 2:30 here in the auditorium. All parents are invited to come. It shuld be a fun time.

There is also a ton of things coming up, which information has gone home for already. The 6th Grade Graduation is on Thursday May 27th at 7 pm. Our sixth grade end of year field trip will be on Friday, May 28th. Permission slips should be home and returned ASAP. There were two different forms to fill out for it. I know DARE Lagoon day is coming up soon but they have yet to give us final information on it.

All in all, the end of the year is coming up SUPER quick! Only 17 school days left! (Not that anyone is counting.) I should hopefully be able to find the time to write on a semi-weekly basis again after this one. I'm sorry it has taken this long. At any rate, I'm just happy to still be trucking along with everything that has been going on! You're students are great and I really am going to be sad to see each and every one of them go. I'm not a crying man, but the end of the year could bring a few tears...

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!

"In the end, it's not nexessarily the time you've put in, but what you've put into the time."

March 29 - April 2

2010-04-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK!

That's about all I've got to say! We'll see you all when we resume on April 12!

"A vacation is having nothing to do and having all day to do it in." - Robert Orben

March 15-26

2010-03-26T12:38:00.001-07:00

It's been two weeks time since my last post and things have seemed a little rushed and busy, as always. It has a lot to with the end of the term on the crest. This coming Monday, March 29, is the end of the third term. I sent home missing assignment sheets with the students. Unless they turn in more work, their final grades are posted online at https://www.classactiongradebook.com/members/login.aspx If you need your login information, feel free to e-mail me. I'm taking our picture for the blog this week from our trip to Hale Center Theatre. I think the tour of the theatre was a real neat experience for the kids, especially those who are really interested in the acting field. It gave them a lot of insights into theater that they might not have had otherwise.

As I've already mentioned, the end of the term is here. Monday is the last day to turn in any work. We continue forward in our newest language arts theme with the story "Dive! My Adventures in the Deep Frontier."

Math is going to be a little bit different from here on out. Throughout the year, so far, we've been following a curriculum map which has lead us through the entire sixth grade curriculum. The entire month of April is going to be strictly review. We are going to start the month off with a practice end-of-level. I'm going to make them take it exactly as it would be during the end of level testing where they cannot ask me any questions whatsoever. With the results of that test, I am going to review the topics that they seem to need the most. After we've reviewed what that test said we needed, we'll take another, and so on until testing time is here. We are also going to be practicing taking the tests with the computer to get them used to that. All of their end-of-level testing is done on computer, so it's another skill they're going to need to establish.

Science is going to be similar to Math after this week. This week however, we're going to wrap up our solar system unit. We're going to be discussing how to navigate with the North Star. Then we review and test!

Spring Break is just one week away, and I think it's definitely time for a bit of a break for all of us, the students and myself included! Third term can get a bit long because there's no real break in it besides the weekends, so the week of Spring break will certainly be good for us all!

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'" ~Robin Williams

March 8 - 12

2010-03-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

Science Fair is done and gone! I'd like to congratulate the students. Their projects looked fantastic! They all did well enough that anyone that had their project in on time, got full credit on the board. I was so pleased by the turn out. Thanks for the support you gave at home on this project!

Also, thanks to Eric Allen for supplying us with the project that will be our picture of the week.

The kids had fun creating these rockets and then going out to the field to set them off. It was a good time that would never have happened without his stepping in, so thanks again!

That project also gave me my picture that is my entry into the school's fine arts contest, but I can't show it to you. It's a seeeeecret! :) This year's theme is The Power of One. Entries can still be turned in, it's not too late! They're looking for entries from either students or families in the categories of photography and musical composition. The winners will be announced at the Night of the Dragon Art Gala. More information on it can be found on the school's website.

We have a few things up and coming this week. Term 3 book reports are due starting Monday. The kids have had their assigned dates for over a month now, so even with the treachary of the science fair, I hope we can work our way into some great book reports! Also, Wednesday this week, we will going to Hale Center Theater in Salt Lake for a tour of their building and insights into how a theater actually runs! I think it's going to be a great experience for the kids. We could still use some volunteers, so if you're willing and able, let me know. It's going to be Wednesday, March 17. We'll leave about 9:00 in the morning, and be back by about 1 in the afternoon.

I would say that other than that the week will be pretty normal, but I suppose all of these things keep it from being that. So, let's have yet another fantastically irregular week and we continue to give our all, all the way to the end! And in this instance, I refer to the end of the third term, March 29.

"I've got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end." -Larry Bird

March 1 - 5

2010-03-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

We had a little bit of the insane sanity again this week, but not near as busy as last week. The only day that truly felt like a circus was Thursday because we spent the day working on our D.A.R.E. box, so sending people out on that amidst trying to do our everyday learning made it a bit three-ringed. The box turned out fantastic though! We started planning on Tuesday. The kids all designed an idea, and then we voted through them as a class to come up with a gigantic donut. Mmm...mmm.... It looks great! And what better than to bribe our DARE officer with than a huuuge "power ring" as he would call it. I decided to take advantage of the nice weather we've had this week. For one of our science lessons, we went outside to the field and created a human solar system. The planets were approximately in scale with each other, and their distances apart were the same. As hard as millions of miles are to conceive, I think this lesson might have put it a little more to scale. Coming up this week, we have one our parents coming in to build rockets with the kids. Weather permitting, we will build the rockets on Monday, paint them on Tuesday or Wednesday, and then take them to field on Thursday to launch them.

Our story this week is Anne of Green Gables. It's the story of a family who wanted to adopt a young boy, and mistakenly were sent a girl instead, and the struggles that came with them trying to grow as a family.

The students are going to be just heartbroken to find out that out math lessons are cut short this week to make some extra tim for the rocket building. We will still however be continuing into our lessons on fractions, including solving equations with fractions. We will then end the week with multiplying and dividing both positive and negative integers.

The BIG excitement for this week, however, is the Science Fair. 5th Grade judging is Tuesday, 6th grade judging is Wednesday, and 7th and 8th grade judging is Thursday. This means that our completed projects have to be here on Tuesday. They've been working on them a better part of the term so far, so I'm excited to see how well they're going to turn out. Being my first science fair, I'm sure these kids are just going to blow my expectations out of the water. They're a great bunch!

"People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them." from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

February 22 - 26

2010-02-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

This has been one, busy, busy, crazy, crazy week. Let me give you the run down through a barrage of photos:

On Tuesday we had Jazz player Kosta Koufos visit our school for being one of the top 10 schools in the reading contest.
On Wednesday, Clark Planetarium brought their Astro Van to our school to give the sixth graders some extra insight into the solar system.
Also on Wednesday, we had POEC President Cameron Almond introduce the Fine Arts Contest to us.
And on Thursday, we had a visit from Author Mike Knudson ....
.... and professional story teller Donald Davis.

As I said, it was one busy week. There never seems to be a dull moment, which is good, but also keeps us a bit on edge. Hopefully, this weeks things slow down a little and bring us a bit of normality.

I will be sending home Progress Reports on Monday. Attached to these will be a few things. First off, I am going to be changing my late work policy. It will be outlined in an attached note, but basically, every either Monday or Tuesday I will give the kids a list of their missing assignments. Assignments will only reach this list once before I will enter them as a zero into the gradebook. Credit will still be possible, but it's will be the student's responsibility to get the work in, rather than my houdning them week after week for the assignments. I am doing this mostly because I feel as if I'm doing them a bit of a disservice by not better preparing them for how things will be in school years to come. The last few months will be a little closer to the stricter standards they will be held to in future years. Also attached to the progress reports will be this weeks missing assignment list, if your student has any, as well as copies of the worksheets for them to make it up.

Other than that, I'm hoping this week will be a little more normal. I've been hoping that for weeks now, so maybe I should redefine normal in my dictionary. Anyway, we will be reading a story this week called Out of the Darkness. It is the story of Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille alphabet for the blind.

Math this week we will be reviewing adding and subtracting integers, fractions and mixed numbers. We've only got one month of teaching left for math before we begin reviewing the entire year and prepping them for end of levels.

Science this week we will be creating a human solar system, learning about comets, asteroids and meteors, and also touching on technologies used on the ground and in space to study the solar system.

Also, please remember the basket our class is building for the Art Gala. I've only gotten a few donations in, so please, if you can add to our cause. You have until March 10 to send any Twilight themed items in with your student.

Considering I talked a bit about normality, I figured I'd end with a quote on the same:

"For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity." - Jean Dubuffet

February 8 - 19

2010-02-20T12:19:00.000-08:00

D.A.R.E - Drug Abuse Resistance Education!

Our kiddos started it this week. They've gotten their dose of Officer Penrod, and I'm not sure they can get enough. They found him hilarious. He captured their attention this week and got them excited for the 13 weeks or so with him. Our picture this week is of him teaching the group. While we're on the subject of DARE, your student should have brought home a permission slip for them to be in the class. Those need to be back by Friday for them to be able to participate. If by chance they lost the actual form, you can just write them a note saying they are allowed to participate in the program.

Believe it or not we're getting pretty close to being halfway through term 3 already. The term ends the end of March. Time seems to just be flying by! Things are going really well though. This week is going to be a busy week for us. The Jazz/Usborne reading contest is over and we were one of the top 10 schools in the competition. This mean Tuesday we will be having an assembly starring one of the Jazz players. On Wednesday, we have Clark Planetarium bringing a field trip to us. We will have an assembly with them and then they will dedicate about 50 minutes to each 6th grade class. It should be a pretty good presentation. Then coming on Thursday we have a visiting Author and a visiting storyteller. It's going to be a fun week!

On top of all the fun though, we will still be following our standard procedures. Our story this week will be My Name is San Ho. In Math we will be working a bit with graphs, and then reviewing for our February Benchmark test. Science will be reinforced by the Planetarium's visit, but we will still also be diving into our exploration of the planets.

A note has gone this week telling you parents about the Art Gala. It's a fundraiser the school does each year where each class participates by donating an item. This year, the items they have asked the classes to donate are gift baskets. The theme for our gift basket is going to be Twilight. We are asking that each family help by donating something to our basket. We already have the baskets, so we are looking for just different Twilight collectibles and memorabelia. If you would like to purchase the books or movies, please talk with me first to be sure that someone has not already purchased it, so we won't have duplicates.

Thanks for your support in building our class basket. In fact, thanks for your support in everything!

"The beautiful thing about being human... things change." Edward Cullen, Twilight

January 25 - February 4

2010-02-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

I feels like it's been longer than it has since I last posted, but it's been a long couple of weeks with the end of the term and conferences and all. In fact, I put in the picture this week because, as candid as it may be, it describes about how I feel.

The end of the term is past, and we are breaking fresh into the new term. I can see the year is starting to wear on the kids as it seems to be a rough start around on missing assignments. Please have a talk with your students just to make sure they realize the importance of keeping up on assignments and staying strong throughout the entire year. Just a reminder, you can keep watch at home from https://www.classactiongradebook.com/members/login.aspx. Feel free to e-mail or call me if you need your username and password for the online gradebook again.

Science Fair is in full swing. By this point in time, the kids should have their question posed and be just about to begin the researching, experimenting, and observing. The science fair will be worth about half our science grade this term, so please make sure that your student is keeping up on the work. With the questions I have seen, it looks like there are a lot of creative ideas out there this year. It's going to be fun to see the results.

We have a fairly normal week this week. Our story is called "Catching the Fire". It's a story about a blacksmith and his adventures. We'll be finishing up our pop-up book by either writing a story or a series of poems for them. We continue on into our unit on the solar system. And in math, we continue learning how to manipulate integers, and then move onto equations and the patterns they make.

I'll try to keep up on here a little better now that things are back a little closer to normal. I believe that's all we've got for this week though.

"The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.” - Tom Bodett

January 11 - 22

2010-01-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

So the Jazz/Usborne reading contest is among us! You should have received a note on this. There are several in-class rewards offered as well as schoolwide rewards. It's time to read, read, read! On Friday, the school offered a PJs, Pillows, and Pancake reading party to help students get excited about the contest. Below is a picture of a few of our many students that attended the after school party. It was a lot of fun!

This week also marked the end of the second term. I am working on and almost finished with grades. A few parents should be expecting a phone call early this week to get the at-home reading minutes for the term. I am still missing several of the calendars, so to finish report cards, I plan on just calling home and speaking with a parent. The reports will given out at Parent Teacher Conferences, which are February 3 and 4. A conference schedule has gone home. If you did not get your copy of it, or need to work out a different time, feel free to contact me.

This coming week is going to be about as normal as weeks get, except for one fairly intensive activity I have planned. Our story is going to be, "Girls Think of Everything". This is a story that takes the kids through several inventions that were invented by women. We finished our Heat, Light and Sound unit in Science. This week we will be starting into the Space portion of our Science Core which will take a good part of the rest of the year. After we finish this unit, we will be done learning new material and will begin reviewing for the end of level. Science Fair also begins this week so be looking for a packet with a parent letter in it coming home on Tuesday.

I'm sure most of you know about the Earthquake in Haiti and the efforts that are going on to help aid the Haitian people. I'm going to be taking a few of my language arts periods this week on this subject. The first one, we're going to introduce the Geography and Science of it, so that I know the kids know where Haiti is in the world as well as how earthquakes happen. After that I plan on showing them some images of what Haiti used to look like compared to what devastation this earthquake has done. On the second day, I am going to show a Haiti Tribute video, only about 5 minutes long, to get their minds moving, and then I'm going to ask them to write a poem. They will have two choices: 1.) Write a poem expressing their feelings as if they were one of these Haitian children, or 2.) To write a poem around the theme Sending Hope to Haiti. We have a really talented and emotional bunch when they want to be. I'm excited to see what they will produce on the topic. At any rate, it has the potential to be a fairly emotional lesson, so if the kids come wanting to talk, that is why.

With that, I'd just like to say my prayers and thoughts go out to the Haitian community. It's times like these that the world really needs to ban together to help out their fellow man. I have done my part in donating, and whether it be time, money, or just passing along the message, I encourage you all to do the same.

"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal." ~Albert Pike

Welcome Back!! (January 4-8)

2010-01-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

Well, we made it through out first week back from the biggest break of the school year. I don't know if it was the same for the students, but that 6 o'clock alarm clock was hard to get used to. It was a very refreshing week though. I'm certainly glad to be back into it. We certainly got a lot accomploished. From multiplying with fractions to learning the basics of sound.

The biggest weight lifted off my shoulders will also be our picture of the week. It was certainly a lesson I got to be taught by my first class. I had decided, considering the Solar System becomes big in our science studies third and fourth terms, and we're learning area and diameter of circles in math, I wanted to combine the two and make mobiles that contained the planets in order with their radius, diameter, circumference and area of their circle. I slated 2 hours for this project before the holiday break thinking we could more than finish it in that time. After another hour before the break and three more hours this week, we've finally completed them. A total of six hours on project I originally hoped to finish in two and they turned out fantastic and are currently hanging above our desks in the room! Here is an example of one of or students' work:
There's one other picture I'd like to include this week just because it shows the class in action. One of the ways I informally assess the students is through whiteboard participation. Every kid has a whiteboard that they do the work and write their answer on, and then all hold it up. This shows me that each student is participating. It also shows me how well all the students are understanding the content. Here is our class in action:
As for the coming week, the students have quite a bit of studying to look forward to. At the end of the week, we will be taking our term two assessment in Math. We will also be finishing up our unit on sound and then reviewing the term: heat, light, and sound, which we will test on the following week. Language arts this week will be normal. Our story this week is called "Fall Secrets". Keep in mind though, that our term 2 assessment for language will be the following week as well.

With all these tests coming up, I guess I'll send out the reminder as well that term two will be ending on January 21. Current progress reports were sent home to be signed on Monday, so if you didn't see it, talk to your student. :) Book orders were also sent home this week. They will be due back by January 15 if you wish to order anything. My final reminder is that book reports are this week. Your student should have their assigned date. There will be five presented a day.

And with that, I will bid my adieu for this week. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!!!

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” -Edith Lovejoy Pierce

December 14-18

2009-12-20T08:34:00.000-08:00

I'm going to make the blog this week short and sweet. We've made it through 2009. By the time our class reconvenes, it will be the new year. We're going to hit the ground running. We'll start a new story, we'll continue with our spelling groups, we'll start our sound unit in science and we'll march forward in math. December's math was a lot of review, but January starts again with the new material.

With that, I'll give you our picture for this week. On Friday, we took the time to learn about some of the different holidays around the world: Christmas, Advent, Yule Time, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa. We even had some expert input on how the holidays are celebrated south of the equator, where there is no snow in December. Ending with the picture, I'd just like to wish everyone a Happy Holidays! Whichever holiday it is you celebrate, celebrate it twice for me!

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. -Hamilton Wright Mabie

Just make sure you

Love the giver more than the gift. -Brigham Young

November 30 - December 11

2009-12-11T16:17:00.001-08:00

So, I really meant to write a blog for last week, but before I knew it the weekend was over, and the week was flying by, so I'm here now, writing for two weeks. With that in mind, I'll go ahead and post two different pictures because over the course of the two weeks, there were a couple of really fun projects we did. The first comes from the previous week. In science we've been learning about light. One particular lesson, we learned about the colors of light and how a prism can separate white light into all the colors of the spectrum. So we made ourselves a prism and hung them in the window of the school for all to see.

The second pictures derives from our story this week. We learned about the ancient Greeks and Romans. With that, we learned that our modern alphabet comes from the alphabet of the ancient Greek. We took the Greek alphabet aligned side by side with our alphabet and made ourselves nametags written in Greek. The picture below is just a sampling of how well they turned out.

The past now behind us, we look to the future. Only one week left until the Holiday break! I can't believe that 2009 is almost past! We have a busy week ahead of us this week. A couple of school wide items, Tuesday we're having the Geography bee. We have two students that have made it into the semi-final tie breaker on Monday to see who all will compete on Tuesday. We also have our school choir performing for us on Tuesday afternoon.

In class this week, we will be reading our story, "The Skill of Pericles". Accompanying that in language we will divulge ourselves a little deeper into adjectives as we learn about proper and demonstrative adjectives. We will also be writing our second story in the adventures of our Flat Stanleys. This week we will be writing about our Stanleys visit to the Great Saltaire. I'm hoping that they will have returned from Australia by the time we get back from break, so we can write about our adventures down under, and then send them somewhere for their newest adventure!

Math this week will be a review of the measurements of circles through the books, "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi" and "Planetary Circles". We will also be reviewing for and taking our November benchmark test this week.

In science, we will be finishing up our unit on light. We have a visit from an optometrist on Monday, a video on Tuesday, a review day Wednesday, and then the quiz on Thursday. When we return from break, we will beginning our unit on sound!

I would just like to take this moment to throw out a HUGE thanks to all of the parents who volunteer their time. I would like to share my upmost gratitude to those who have come in and shared their special talents with us. A special thanks this week to Justin Holt, who will be the optomestrist who comes in on Monday and shares his expertise as to how light works with the human eye. Also to Gina Mills, who comes in once a month during our PE time to share with the students her expertise in Yoga.

I think I'll send home a note on this as well, but I know all of you parents have special talents such as these. If you have a talent you'd be willing to share with the class, feel free to let me know via e-mail (apratt@syracuseartsacademy.org) or through a note to class. If you let me know what your talent is, I will do my best to find a place we can tie it into the curriculum.

Thanks, thanks, thanks again for everything you all have done and will do!

Volunteers don't get paid. Not because they're worthless, but because they're priceless. ~Sherry Anderson

November 16 - 24

2009-11-24T12:23:00.000-08:00

And it's here! Thanksgiving break is upon us. Before I head home to celebrate the holiday, I'll make a quick update here. Below is our picture for this week. It comes from our field trip down to the channel 4 station for Good Things Utah. It was short and sweet, but I think they got a great deal out of the tour of the production studio and watching the live taping.

Just a quick look at the week to come. We're not going to have a full on spelling list this week because on Monday we are going to be retaking the placement test for possible group rearrangement. So the students can enjoy a week of break as I grade those tests and reset the groups. Math will keep chugging along as we talk about proportions, circle graphs and probability. For science we'll be doing a bit of wrap-up for the heat unit. After that we will begin our light unit. Our story this week takes us back to ancient Egypt as it talks about the Pharaohs, Pyramids, the Sphinx, and all other aspects of that time and place.

Keeping it short and sweet this week I'd just like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and let you know that one of the things that will be in my mind and heart during this thankful holiday will be your students. I truly could not have asked for a better class to begin my career with. They're fantastic and so are you parents! Thank you all for everything you do!

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

November 9 - 13

2009-11-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

I finally feel, at last, that I've gotten back on top of my game. Entirely up-to-date grades for second term are now posted online at http://www.classactiongradebook.com/, and I'm back on top of my planning in advance, where I really like to be. Our picture this week is the finished products of the plaster mask making activity we did. We took some time this week, pulled out the acrylic paints, and went to town. The masks turned out fantastic! Now here's a game for you... can you figure out which one is your students?

Just a reminder, we are still selling DVDs and 8x10 Photos of our play, The Turkeys Go On Strike. They are $5 a piece. If you'd like a copy of either one, or both, just send in the money with a note telling me which it is you'd like.

This coming week should be just about as normal as a week gets. Our story this week is going to teach us a bit about Ancient China. During math, we are going to be learning about circles, including the fabulous number π, which is used to find the circumference and area of the circles. Who knew that 3.14152965358979323846... (and so on) could be such a magical number! For writing this week, we will be focusing on the three different points of view: first person, third person limited, and third person omniscent. This week we also finish up our science unit on heat. After a few fun demonstrations next week, we will begin our unit on light once we return from break.

Ah yes! Break. I'm sure your students, as well as you, are counting down to our first real break of the school year! Gobble, gobble! Thanksgiving Day is coming and so is the break associated with it. We do not have school November 25, and then we maintain that freedom through the weekend, returning fresh on November 30. Only 7 school days to go!

In homage of our masks, I felt that ending with a quote about taking off our "masks" would be appropriate:

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else." - Judy Garland

October 26 - November 6

2009-11-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

At long last, I'm hoping things have settled down. Reports cards went out on Monday and our long awaited play was performed Thursday. Having that pass lifted what seemed like the world off of my shoulders. I can't express in words though how proud I am of your kids. The hooting, hollering, and cheering of the audience during the curtain call of our performance told me that those kids had achieved what we'd been working all term for. Being backstage running the sound, it was hard for me to tell exactly how the performce looked from the outsiders point of view. That same night, though, I watched the DVD I made of the performance, and I tell you what, I was almost in tears watching the show. I am so proud of them for how well they performed the show. Our picture this week is certainly a great tribute to them for how hard they worked on the performance:

I should be sending home a note on Monday offering sales of an 8x10 of the picture above and a DVD copy of the play. Both will be $5. Any profits I happen to make off of it will be turned around and put right back into the classroom. Again, I applaud your children! They put on a great show.

The second term is now off and running. With the play behind us, we will be starting our new art elective rotation on Monday. Our class will be with Mrs. Dezember for the Movement and Music rotation. In her class, on top of the different movement exercises she does with them, they will also be the choir for the second term production. They've got one more term of performance to come, so be prepared for yet another great performance come end of term.

With the end of term 1, we finished out Science unit on microorganisms. With the start of the new term, we began our new unit on Heat. This week we will be taking a closer look at the different types of heat sharing: conduction, convection and radiaton.

All in all, things are still going strong. One fantastic term behind us, but still three more to go!

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." - Scott Adams

October 12 - 23

2009-10-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty crazy busy couple of weeks here at the SAA and I don't think it's going to settle down until after the term ends this coming week. Hopefully, the craziness ends than at least. Just because it's crazy, doesn't mean it hasn't been good or fun, though. Our picture for the week (or two weeks, I guess), is of Stanley, or Staci, or Shirley, etc. We finished Flat Stanley in a matter of two read alouds. With that, we created our own Stanley's. I took them over the weekend, last weekend, down to the south side of the Great Salt Lake by the Great Saltaire. Below is the picture I took with them there.

Accompanied by a note written from each of the students to my friend, the Stanleys are currently in route to Australia, where she will snap some photos of our Stanleys, write us a note, and send it all back so the Stanleys can continue on their journey.

There is a lot of up and coming news. Firstly, with the end of the term coming Wednesday, first term reading minutes ended over the weekend. The tracking calendars are due Monday.

We have a pretty good sized project coming up this Thursday that we could use some volunteers for. I will be sending a note home with more details Monday, so keep an eye out for it, but in short, as a sixth grade, we are going to be making plaster masks. As I said, more details will come home Monday night, but we could use some volunteers if you're looking for hours.

Our class play is coming along great. I get more excited for it as we go! The actual performance will be during school on Thursday, November 5th at 2:30. Parents are invited, so feel free to come and support your children. They've worked hard and I think it will be great performance. Please be ready to help your child come up with the correct color of clothing for their costumes. We will be discussing exactly what we will be doing this week. They should be able to tell you by Tuesday what they might need, if it's not creatable here in class.

On a final note, we have been having problems in the Junior High half of the school (5-8 grades) with kids adhering to the uniform policy. I know I have been pretty relaxed on it, but as a whole, the school is wanting us to crack down, so please make sure your child is in proper uniform when they leave home. If you need to review it, the dress code policy is addressed on the school's website. (http://www.syracuseartsacademy.org/Dress_Code.html) Students out of dress code will have a friendly reminder sent home with them at the end of the day that you the parent must sign so we know that we are all on the same page.

As a whole, besides being busy, busy, busy - the class and I are learning and growing side by side. With each day, we all get a little older and a little wiser, as it should be for the rest of our lives!

"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." - Abraham Lincoln

October 5 - 8

2009-10-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

Term 1 Parent Teacher Conferences are behind us and I feel pretty good having now met the parents of all of my students. These conferences were really good for all of us, helping us get parents, teacher and students all onto the same page. The conferences went really well and I feel that we are now readier than ever to finish out the last month of the first term.

This last week at a glance might seem pretty dry after how exciting it started out. One of the parents of one of our classmates is a Yoga Instructor and has agreed to come in once a month during our P.E. time to teach the class. Below is a picture of the class in action.

I was really unsure exactly how the class would take to doing Yoga, but I was pleasantly surprised with the overwhelmingly positive response from them. Having come so accepted, we are going to continue our once a month schedule.

With the conferences done, and some extra time in the classroom without the kids on Friday, I feel like I'm all caught up. I have grades all up to date except for a few papers I have out with parents to be corrected. (Which by the way, thank you for all the support.) This coming week we will be spending a bit of time making sure that all of the students have their work in. My goal is to hopefully have a class without any missing asaignments by Friday. This will, however, depend on how well the students work with me, so let's hope for the best!

This previous week, we dipped into a different culture reading a passage out of our Basal Reader from Number the Stars. This week we will be reading an exerpt from Summer of the Swans. They are both great pieces of literature. In math this week, we will be focusing on geometric relations as we look into area and perimeter and how the two relate with each other.

After two short weeks on the same list, we tested our spelling words Thursday. We will be starting a new list on Monday and considering it's a full week, we will testing them on Friday.

With that, we just need to keep in the forefront of our minds that the end of the term is only two and a half weeks away. That's plenty of time to get caught up what we need, but it's also plenty of time to let things slip. I'll do my best in class to make sure things are kept on top of. So long as the students do their part, we can finish the term strong!

"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best." - Bob Talbert

September 28 - 30

2009-10-03T08:42:00.001-07:00

This having been such a short week, there's not a whole lot to update on. We took our September Benchmark tests for Language Arts and Math on Tuesday and Wednesday. With the results of those in, I will be sending home progress reports on Monday, which I will expect the students have you parents sign and then return on Tuesday. This will alleviate any surprises for Parent Teacher Conferences, which are this week as well. I've sent home a notice on that already. Your time will also be printed on the bottom of the progress report. If you have any problems with his time, please contact me and I'll see what else we can arrange. With that, I think I'll bid adieu for this week. With another short week ahead of us, another post is not too far away!

"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them."

September 21 - 25

2009-09-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yet another exciting week down! Our in-class schedule got rearranged a bit this week because of some visitors we had to our school. Missoula Children's Theatre came on Monday. On the day they arrived, they held auditions for the show they were going to produce, The Princess and the Pea. And then over the course of the week, students who were accepted into the show left school a half an hour early and practiced until 7:30 at night for the performances they put on Friday and Saturday night. I've been doing theatre most of my life, and I tell you what, I was very pleasantly suprised at how delightful an evening I had coming to see the four of our students who were in the show. From Leperchauns, to dust bunnies, it was nothing like I thought it would be and far better than I would have expected for a production that went from audition to production in 5 days. Below is a picture of the four from our class that were part of the production.

Just a few reminders from this week. Book orders are due by Wednesday if you're wanting to get anything, I will be placing the order Wednesday after school. I sent home this week a note with my Parent Teacher Conference schedule on it. These are not until Wednesday and Thursday of next week (October 7 and 8). If you are unable to attend the time I have put you in, please contact me and we'll figure out a time that will work for the both of us. If the schedule happened to not make it home, also contact me and I can get you a copy of it.

I also did not realize until this week that our book reports were scheduled during the same week as Mrs. McGuire is doing the Culture fair with our kids. In an effort to alleviate a bit of pressure that week, I gave the kids the option to move it up to the week before (October 5-8). I have sent home a note that has a rubric for the Share-A-Books on it as well as your student's assigned date.

We have a short week coming up this week with Fall break giving us Thursday and Friday off. Being the end of the month, we have our September Benchmark tests we will be taking this week for Language Arts and Math. We will be using one day to review, one day to test and the other to grade. During the rest of the time in the mornings, we will be doing a Creature Feature, which is a fun little project where they will get to draw a creature and then write a descriptive enough paragraph that someone else could draw it off of just the description. The ultimate test will be when we give the descriptions to another class to see how well their drawings look like what they're supposed to look like.

In drama this previous week, we have begun reading through our script which will be the final project of the term. The script is for a short musical called The Turkeys Go On Srike. This coming week we will working on learning the rest of the songs for it. Hopefully by next week, I will have decided upon and assigned parts. Lastly, in science this week, we will be diving further into the Kingdom of Protists as we learn about animal-like Protists.

"Creativity is first of all an act of destruction." ~Picasso

September 14 - 18

2009-09-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

I want to begin this week's messages by giving Kudos to all of your children. We watched Bridge to Terabithia on Friday and used it to transition into a discussion on death. The discussion followed a script I had written (which I'd be more than willing to provide you a copy of if interested). We touched bases on several different ideas. First off I explained to them why I felt it was important for us to hold this discussion. I told them about my father passing away during my student teaching and how, when the students asked questions, I really didn't know how to answer them because I had no idea what their parents or teacher had taught them about death. From there the discussion focused on feelings. In the book, and movie, Jess' best friend dies while he is out at an art exhibit with his teacher.

I posed two retorical questions: How would you feel if this happened to you? How should you feel if this happened to you? The second question wasn't meant to invalidate any feelings they might have been considering, but because, in the book, Jess felt guilty. He thought it was his fault that Leslie ended up going to Terabithia alone and if he'd have been there, the rope wouldn't have broken and she wouldn't have died. With that, we talked about the guilty feeling, and how death is just as inescapeable as life, and it's never our fault if someone else passes on. I explained to them that there are a whole array of feelings that would be appropriate to feel in this situation, but guilt is not one of them.

I then handed them a paper with a few questions on it: How would you feel? How would you react? How would you want to be treated? Etc. After they filled them out, I asked for volunteer to share some of their answers and we used their answers for some more topics of discussion. Our discussions led perfectly into the poem that I ended the lesson with:

“You can shed tears that she is gone,

or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,

or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,

or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her only that she is gone,

or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind,

be empty and turn your back.

Or you can do what she'd want:

smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”

- David Harkins

With this poem and the idea of it in mind, I had them end with writing a paragraph on why Jess' life was different now, not because she had passed, but because he had the opportunity of having her as a friend. It ended up being a far more powerful lesson than I could have ever asked for.

Our picture for this week comes from our class performance of "Don Gato" during our Drama period.

A few notes for parents: We started our box top collecting this week. The class that collects the most box tops, gets a soccer ball for their classroom. I also sent home book orders on Friday. Book orders can be done online now, or you can send in a paper copy and I will send them in online. If you do the ordering online from home, each order to come in online earns a free book for our classroom. Book orders are due by September 30. I am going to be getting the list of books the students are planning on using for their book reports on Monday. I will also assign them their exact date on Monday. I will make sure they write these in their planner, and then I will also give plenty or reminders. Again, the week for book reports is going to be October 12-16.

There's not a whole lot out of the norm coming up this week. We will be getting new spelling lists on Monday. Being a full week again, we will test them on Friday, so be sure they are practicing at home as well as at school. Our Basal story this week is going to be Darnell Rock Reporting. It's a story of a boy whose article on creating a garden for the homeless inspires others into action. We started measurements in math this week and will be continuing on with it for the majority of next week. The read aloud we will begin this week is Flat Staney. It's a pretty short read, but when we're finished with it, we are going to create Flat Stanleys and send them to a buddy class taught by my cousin in Wisconsin. Finally, in science we finished the Kingdom of Monerans this week and move into the Kindom of Protists next week.

"Practice what you know, and it will make clear what you do not know." - Rembrandt

September 8 - 11

2009-09-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

On top of the normal activities for the week, we added several fun activities. With just a shortened four day week, it was tough to cram it all in. Wednesday was 9-9-09, so we celebrated the number 9! We wrote a nine poem, drew a nine picture, learned a nine song, and shared them all with a class of 9 year olds (4th grade). Also, rather than the school standard "Give Me 5", for the day it was "Give Me 9". It ended up being a day full of fun.

On a more serious side, this week was 9-11. Though I'm sure you parents remember every vivid detail about it as well as I do, the six graders this year were only 3 years old when it happened. I wanted to find a delicate way to share with them the seriousness of the whole day, without overdoing it. I decided to use the day to give them a lesson on the difference between a hero and a celebrity. I invited one of our student's father, who is a Syracuse Firemen, as well as the Syracuse Fire Chief, to come in and talk to our class Friday afternoon. As a presentation for them, we drew some pictures of heroes in action, and wrote letter thanking the firemen for what they do for us. I bound this into a nice little book, wrote a letter from the class and had everyone sign it. We presented this to them on Friday as a token of our gratitude; as a way to honor our hometown heroes.

When push came to shove, the fire chief holding back tears as he talked about his 343 fellow brothers that lost their lives that day taught a better lesson than I could have ever done myself.

A few reminders for our parents. Remember I gave them homework folders this week. They should be bringing those home daily with their homework and any other letters that are for you. Monday is our picture day, so please send the picture packets back with your students. I sent home a missing assignment report on Friday that your student should have you sign and then bring back with them on Monday. Also remember in the front cover of the homework folder is the username and password for your access to your students grades online. On that same note, I will be sending home a progress report with the students Tuesday. This will have nothing that you can't see online. In fact, I'm going to be stapling with it a note. In an effort to help SAA with our conservation goals, I would rather keep this with a paperless system. So please read that letter, and sign and return it if you DO NOT have regular access to the internet and WILL NOT be able to keep a regular eye online. If I don't get that letter back, I will assume that you have regular access to the gradebook website (https://www.classactiongradebook.com/members/login.aspx) and do not need a paper copy of the progress report.

Just a short list of this weeks upcoming schedule: We will be finishing our class read aloud of Bridge to Terabithia. I have promised the students that IF every single student has NO missing assignments, we will watch the movie on Friday. If we do end up seeing the movie, which with a little pushing from me I think we will, I will use it to segue into a Character Lesson on death. I've learned through the loss of my father during student teaching that a preemptive lesson on this can be very helpful in the unfortunate event that anyone in the class experiences any form of death throughout the year.

We will be continuing on in our Basal reader and keeping the same Words Their Way spelling list we practiced with last week. We continue on studying microorganisms in science moving this week into monerans and other single celled organisms. Finally in Math, we will be discussing properties of equations, prime and composite numbers, coordinates, and customary forms of measurement.

Blue skies coming at us. Blue skies coming our way!

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." ~ Maya Angelou

Week 3! August 31-September 4

2009-09-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

A few pictures from the week:

During Drama this week we worked up to a couple of performances of a reader's theater I had adapted from the book, If You Give a Cat a Cookie. The first picture is from our performance for Mrs. J and Ms. Neilson.

On Friday this week, our Character Lesson focused on being Trustworthy. Along with other discussions, we built a Trust Tower. Each student came up with three different ways to build trust with someone and wrote their ideas on a sticky note. We stuck them to blocks and used them to build up our tower which ended up 12 at the base and 12 high for 78 blocks tall. At the end of the lesson, I had a ball with just one simple thing on it that could break trust. I used lying, but we talked about other possibilities, and then I used the ball to break the tower, to show them just how fragile trust could be. This picture is of a couple of our classmates adding their ideas to the tower.

“Trust is like a vase... Hard to build, and if it gets broken,

though you can fix it, the vase will never be the same again.”

To add to our excitement of this next week, we have two new students joining our class on Tuesday! I met them both Friday afternoon. They should both add their own personality to make our class that much more fun. Our original number, before the year started was 27 students, but we had lost 3, so adding these two, we have a class total of 26 students now!

This week has a lot of fun activities in store. We have the usual things, of course. We'll read this weeks Basal story, Knots in My Yo-yo String. We'll continue on with our Words Their Way spelling list. This first week had a lot of success. The kids did well with their lists, and we've all moved forward. We're going to look further in Algebraic expression and study prime and composite number this week. In drama on Monday we're going to work with a poem book called Joyful Noise which is poetry for two voices. The kids will partner up and practive a poem which will them perform for the class. After that we will have some fun acting out the dramatics in the song Don Gato.

There are a few special occasions going on this week. Wednesday is the special day of the YEAR! It's September 9, which is numeric form is 9-9-09. So we're going to celebrate the number 9 by writing a 9 poem, and drawing a nine picture, and then giving those pictures to some 9 year olds. If all goes well, we also perform a nine song for them.

Then, of course, for those of us who are old enough to remember, Friday is 9-11. I am going to do a couple of lesson this week using the events of 9-11 to teach them the difference between a hero and a celebrity.

All in all, it should be a fun filled week with lots of learning!

"The Holy Grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it." -Banksy

First Whole Week!

2009-08-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

We've made it through the first whole week! Yay! I hope your students are having as good a time in my class as I am having teaching them. It's been a fantastic week really getting to know the kids. All of our preassessments are out of the way. I'm really hoping that I can make it through the Words Their Way tests this weekend so I can hand out the leveled spelling lists next week. I didn't even test the spelling list this week because it wasn't a part of our program. The main concept behind this week's list was getting the kids used to the different sorts.

Thanks to everyone for getting all of our locker forms in this week! Our class has our lockers. The kids have been enjoying getting used to the combinations and how to open them. We are going to be focusing this next week on making sure we have everything out of our lockers before we need it. I have posted in the hallway a whiteboard that will tell the kids what they are going to need for the morning and again what they are going to need for the afternoon. So long as the students look at this list and abide by it, it will eliminate all the senseless trips to the lockers during class time.

On that same note, I sent home our Computer Usage Agreements on today (Friday, August 28). These need to be signed and returned before the students will be allowed to use the computers. Our first trip to the computer lab is this Tuesday. The ultimate goal is to have these all signed and returned on Monday, but Tuesday at the latest so the kids will be allowed to participate with our Computer Specialist this week.

We have a lot of fun things planned for the coming week. We will be moving on to the next story in our Basal reader, which is "Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs". On Monday we will be filling in our Words We Love Chart, which we will change once a month. We will be looking at prefixes, suffixes and root words and complete and simple subjects. As I said prior, hopefully I will have the leveled spelling lists ready by Monday this week. That is my goal at least.

We will keep pushing forward in our first chapter of Math. It is still a lot of review and solidification of things we should have learned last year. (You should ask your student to sing you our order of operations song. It was fun!) This week we will be looking at the distributive property and expanded and scientific notation and then we will jumping into algebraic equations.

We began our Drama art elective this week and we will continue with it for the rest of this term before rotating to our next elective. For the first few weeks we will just be doing small in class drama activities. It will only be either next week (Aug. 31) or the week after that we will begin looking at the script for this terms production.

Finally, in science this week we will begin looking at microorganisms. This is our focus for the rest of this term. More specifically this week, we will be looking at what the six characteristics of living things are and how we can apply them to the real world.

I'm looking forward to another fantastic week this week and I hope everyone else is too!!!

Days 1 and 2 down!

2009-08-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

And what a fantastic couple of days it was! My class is stacked with a good bunch of kids, which makes me all the more excited for this year. We all now know the policies and procedures of the classroom and school. We've seen it all in action and know how it all works. We're bright and ready to come in full steam next week.

Next week we start almost full bore, minus library and computer specialists. We're going to break into our Basal reader with the first story of the book, "The Best School Year Ever". The first week of math is a lot of review of basic concepts from last year: place value, exponents, estimating sums, differences, products and quotients, and order of operation. We are going to begin a class read aloud of "Bridge to Terabithia" which I'm sure is going to be a heart wrenching way to teach the kids the power of friendship. Finally, during science we are going to begin exploring the scientific method and different methods of measurement in the metric system.

I would like to thank all of the parents for the outpouring of support. The supplies we had donated for our classroom will be put to good use. Thanks you so much for all that you've done so far and all that you are willing to do in the future.

Mr. Pratt

Quote of the week:
"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." -Michelangelo

Welcome to Sixth Grade

2009-08-15T06:54:00.000-07:00

Hello Parents!

It’s that time of year again! Time to fly our Dragons into the 2009-2010 school year. I would like to start by welcoming us all together for what I hope will be one of your student’s greatest years yet! Yes, welcome to the sixth grade. My name is Aaron Pratt and I will be your child’s teacher, mentor and confidante throughout the year.

I am excited to be breaking my way into the teaching world with Syracuse Arts Academy. I graduated in December of 2008 from Weber State University with a Bachelors of Science in Elementary Education with a Fine Arts Emphasis. For the next few months, I kept myself active within the school system by substitute teaching, where I was referred to a long-term job at Eagle Bay Elementary where I finished the last four months of the school year with a fourth grade class.

When I did my screening with Academica West, it was with the Syracuse Arts Academy as my primary school of interest. I am happy to be one of the newest members of the faculty. I am even happier to be teaching your child.

I wish to be available for you, the parents, as well. My e-mail address is apratt@syracuseartsacademy.org and of course the school number is
(801)779-2066. If I am unavailable to answer, please leave me a message as to what your call was regarding. I will return your calls and e-mails within 24 hours of receiving them.

If you have any questions throughout the year, feel free to contact me with any of them. Also keep an eye on this blog, because I will be attempting to update it once a week, usually Saturdays.

I'm looking forward to us having a wonderful year together.

With warm ragards,

Aaron Pratt