Time flies when you are having fun . . . . or are busy beyond belief!
Two whole school years have passed since I've posted.
Going to Boston for the last "Teaching American History" *field trip* . . . an unbelievably wonderful experience . . .the class AND the field trips!
Friday, May 31, 2013
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
News Flash!
The Fourth Grades from Adams School are planning a field trip to Yellowstone National Park on Thur, Sep 22! Why?
Still to come this school year, our fourth grade classes will study geothermal energy especially in relation to volcanoes and geysers and their ecosystems. We also study the effects of the Fires of ‘88 in our reading curriculum.
Our field trip is planned to take us to Old Faithful Geyser, and hopefully we will see elk and other species of wildlife that make up the natural prey of the various packs of Yellowstone wolves.
Our route will also cross the Trail of the Flight of the Nez Perce which will be also studied in depth in Idaho History during the fourth grade.
We will learn that one of the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, John Colter, was one of the early explorers of the Yellowstone area.
Our intent and purpose of visiting Yellowstone Park is to begin the school year with first hand experience these concepts and curriculum we will study.
We will need to bring sack lunches that day. If your student needs to order a sack lunch from school lunch please indicate below.
For your child's safety and comfort, long pants should be worn as well as sturdy shoes or boots (no sandals or open toed shoes). A sack lunch is needed. If at all possible, send a water bottle with your child as there is no water available. A jacket or sweater will be helpful if the wind comes up --- or heaven forbid! A snowstorm! It could happen.
So excited! I love Yellowstone!
Still to come this school year, our fourth grade classes will study geothermal energy especially in relation to volcanoes and geysers and their ecosystems. We also study the effects of the Fires of ‘88 in our reading curriculum.
Our field trip is planned to take us to Old Faithful Geyser, and hopefully we will see elk and other species of wildlife that make up the natural prey of the various packs of Yellowstone wolves.
Our route will also cross the Trail of the Flight of the Nez Perce which will be also studied in depth in Idaho History during the fourth grade.
We will learn that one of the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, John Colter, was one of the early explorers of the Yellowstone area.
Our intent and purpose of visiting Yellowstone Park is to begin the school year with first hand experience these concepts and curriculum we will study.
We will need to bring sack lunches that day. If your student needs to order a sack lunch from school lunch please indicate below.
For your child's safety and comfort, long pants should be worn as well as sturdy shoes or boots (no sandals or open toed shoes). A sack lunch is needed. If at all possible, send a water bottle with your child as there is no water available. A jacket or sweater will be helpful if the wind comes up --- or heaven forbid! A snowstorm! It could happen.
So excited! I love Yellowstone!
One Week Down!
It's Wednesday, Aug. 31 . . . and we've been in school a week now. Well, depending on how you count but that's a discussion we'll save for a rainy day.
The weather here in Rexburg has been hot and boring but hot and boring is okay! No hurricanes, or flash floods. No evacuations. Just get up and go to school. We like it like that!
Back to School Night is tomorrow, Thurs, September 1st starting at 7:00 pm.
In today's math lesson we learned/reviewed ordinal numbers -- the "first" in September. We are reading about the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in reading and the official symbols of Idaho in Idaho History.
The weather here in Rexburg has been hot and boring but hot and boring is okay! No hurricanes, or flash floods. No evacuations. Just get up and go to school. We like it like that!
Back to School Night is tomorrow, Thurs, September 1st starting at 7:00 pm.
In today's math lesson we learned/reviewed ordinal numbers -- the "first" in September. We are reading about the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in reading and the official symbols of Idaho in Idaho History.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Took my class with me to Europe
No, really! I did and here are the pictures to prove it. By the way, we are in Salzburg, Austria!
Salzburg was the setting for the movie, The Sound of Music. I was so excited to visit this city because that is my all time favorite movie (just watched it again this afternoon).
Thanks to Erin Smith who created this yearbook for me, and since I left for my trip from school on the last day of school, the yearbook went into my purse and went to Europe with me.
In the top picture, I'm standing in the Mirabell Gardens. Several scenes from the Do-Re-Mi song were filmed here. In the next three pictures, the ones with My Kids, I'm standing in front of the fountain where Maria sang part of "I Have Confidence."
Next time someone says, "Put me in your suitcase and take me with you" I'll think of the time I took my class with me in my purse!
Salzburg was the setting for the movie, The Sound of Music. I was so excited to visit this city because that is my all time favorite movie (just watched it again this afternoon).
Thanks to Erin Smith who created this yearbook for me, and since I left for my trip from school on the last day of school, the yearbook went into my purse and went to Europe with me.
In the top picture, I'm standing in the Mirabell Gardens. Several scenes from the Do-Re-Mi song were filmed here. In the next three pictures, the ones with My Kids, I'm standing in front of the fountain where Maria sang part of "I Have Confidence."
Next time someone says, "Put me in your suitcase and take me with you" I'll think of the time I took my class with me in my purse!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Quarter Acre Farm
My cousin, Spring, is the author of a tidy fat little tome entitled The Quarter Acre Farm, How I Kept the Deck, Lost the Lawn, and Fed My Family for A Year. (See last post)
LOL. What a mouthful! But the book is an even a better "mouthful." I took it to bed with me the first night I started reading it. I was giggling so often that I decided it had to be a morning read if I ever thought I was going to get to sleep! Who would have thought that reading about someone gardening in their backyard could be so entertaining? Goes to show, if you have a story to tell, there is someone out there who can't wait to hear/read it!
Thanks, Spring for helping my blog along, for keeping me up at night, and allowing me a peek into your life!
LOL. What a mouthful! But the book is an even a better "mouthful." I took it to bed with me the first night I started reading it. I was giggling so often that I decided it had to be a morning read if I ever thought I was going to get to sleep! Who would have thought that reading about someone gardening in their backyard could be so entertaining? Goes to show, if you have a story to tell, there is someone out there who can't wait to hear/read it!
Thanks, Spring for helping my blog along, for keeping me up at night, and allowing me a peek into your life!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
A Note on Writers and Writing from My Cousin
This week is a reading-writing-workshop week and so I thought it was a wonderful, happy accident that a "guest blog" arrived in my email in-box from my cousin, Spring Warren. Earlier she had offered to write a on writing. After all, she is a published author of several works, including her latest on gardening! (She has a sister named Summer, and a brother whose middle name is Winter . . . my parents chose such boring names for my sisters and me!) So, here she is:
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
ARE WRITERS BORN, OR MADE?
One of the questions I get asked the most when I give readings or appear on a panel (where I have to pretend to know something), is if I think writers are born with the talent or if I think that fiction is a learned skill. When I answer that I think storytelling is a skill people are born with I usually notice several people sagging in disappointment. I figure those folks who look bereft are people who likely want to write stories, but have noticed that it isn’t a skill they themselves seem to have been fortuitously born with. I sympathise. I am one of them. And so I clarify.
Humans are born storytellers. Telling stories, both largely factual, or greatly fictional, is how we communicate and so we practice every day. “How was your day?” prompts a story. “Did you hear about the break in?” prompts a story. “Why didn’t you get your work finished?” prompts a story. Even jokes are tiny stories, and maybe the best indication that we are all storytellers at heart. Jokes have characters, a setting, a beginning, a middle, and a great ending. Everyone loves to tell a good joke.
But often someone will point out that lots of people can’t tell a joke well. Admittedly, lots of people can’t tell a story well, either. Lots of people bore the pants off lots of other people in life yammering on about dull stuff or good stuff in disastrous order.
True. Some people are better at telling a story than others. And some people work on it and become better storytellers.
Writers work on it. That they like telling stories enough to work on telling them better is pretty much the thing that makes writers sit for hours, days, weeks, and years in order to make books. So perhaps the real question is, are writers born with the talent for sitting for hours and days into weeks into years? That, I couldn’t guess.
GROWING food AND EATING well on -
www.thequarteracrefarm.com
TURPENTINE!
http://springwarren.com
+ + + + + + +
Check her out at Amazon.com!
Hope you enjoyed these insights from cousin, Spring!
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
ARE WRITERS BORN, OR MADE?
One of the questions I get asked the most when I give readings or appear on a panel (where I have to pretend to know something), is if I think writers are born with the talent or if I think that fiction is a learned skill. When I answer that I think storytelling is a skill people are born with I usually notice several people sagging in disappointment. I figure those folks who look bereft are people who likely want to write stories, but have noticed that it isn’t a skill they themselves seem to have been fortuitously born with. I sympathise. I am one of them. And so I clarify.
Humans are born storytellers. Telling stories, both largely factual, or greatly fictional, is how we communicate and so we practice every day. “How was your day?” prompts a story. “Did you hear about the break in?” prompts a story. “Why didn’t you get your work finished?” prompts a story. Even jokes are tiny stories, and maybe the best indication that we are all storytellers at heart. Jokes have characters, a setting, a beginning, a middle, and a great ending. Everyone loves to tell a good joke.
But often someone will point out that lots of people can’t tell a joke well. Admittedly, lots of people can’t tell a story well, either. Lots of people bore the pants off lots of other people in life yammering on about dull stuff or good stuff in disastrous order.
True. Some people are better at telling a story than others. And some people work on it and become better storytellers.
Writers work on it. That they like telling stories enough to work on telling them better is pretty much the thing that makes writers sit for hours, days, weeks, and years in order to make books. So perhaps the real question is, are writers born with the talent for sitting for hours and days into weeks into years? That, I couldn’t guess.
GROWING food AND EATING well on -
www.thequarteracrefarm.com
TURPENTINE!
http://springwarren.com
+ + + + + + +
Check her out at Amazon.com!
Hope you enjoyed these insights from cousin, Spring!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Algebra in Fourth Grade!
I learned last week that according to the guidelines / math standards which are being taught to these days, in the near future Algebra will no longer be taught in High Schools. It has become something to be mastered in Junior High so students will be able to go on to Advanced Math courses, such as Trigonometry and Calculus during their high school years. The bar has been raised and we need to work harder to be ready to successfully clear the hurdles when we get there!
So, back here in fourth grade, from now until the end of the school year, we are going to be stepping up the pace and practicing-hard / experiencing-first-hand-what-we-can the Algebra Standards which are outlined in the Idaho State Math Standard 3: Concepts and Language of Algebra and Functions which, if you have nothing more exciting to do with your time can be accessed by clicking on http://www.sde.idaho.gov/site/content_standards/math_standards.htm (or copying and pasting into your browser).
The standard specifically lists Identity Property of Multiplication, Zero Property of Multiplication, missing factor equations, and understanding the relationship between the different ways division problems can be written.
Another skill we'll be working on from here to the end of the year will be working with fractions. We will rename fractions, add and subtract fractions, and even multiply fractions.
The basic skill our students need at this point is to know their multiplication facts. These facts are as important to the algebra, division and fraction work we will be doing as the alphabet is to reading!
Whew! Life just gets faster and faster!
So, back here in fourth grade, from now until the end of the school year, we are going to be stepping up the pace and practicing-hard / experiencing-first-hand-what-we-can the Algebra Standards which are outlined in the Idaho State Math Standard 3: Concepts and Language of Algebra and Functions which, if you have nothing more exciting to do with your time can be accessed by clicking on http://www.sde.idaho.gov/site/content_standards/math_standards.htm (or copying and pasting into your browser).
The standard specifically lists Identity Property of Multiplication, Zero Property of Multiplication, missing factor equations, and understanding the relationship between the different ways division problems can be written.
Another skill we'll be working on from here to the end of the year will be working with fractions. We will rename fractions, add and subtract fractions, and even multiply fractions.
The basic skill our students need at this point is to know their multiplication facts. These facts are as important to the algebra, division and fraction work we will be doing as the alphabet is to reading!
Whew! Life just gets faster and faster!
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