Newsletter: December 9, 2013

This week in ELA we are working on non-fiction exploration.  Today they met up with their PB&J partner, chose a text, and began taking notes on the topic.  They will take this information and explain the cause and effect relationship between the events in history discovered in the text. By the end of the week they will begin the writing process of an informative piece about their topic and cite their information.  This will be carried over into the next week when they complete the rough draft, conference with me and a peer, complete the final draft, and type the paper. They have all blossomed into stellar writers in the past month!

In social studies we finished Chapter 2: "Native Americans".  We are moving on to Science Unit 3: “Cells to Body Systems”.

In math we are completing Chapter 2: Divide whole numbers.  This week the students are working on “Interpret the Remainder”, “Adjust Quotients”, and “Problem Solving: Division”. They will have in class worksheet quizzes for these lessons on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the morning. They will have a Test on Chapter Two FRIDAY. This was announced last week to the students and has been on the calendar and agenda for a week.  There are worksheets for review called reteach and the answers attached to this paper. Also, they can and should bring their math “big books” home to study. They can even look at their quizzes to help them to see where they need to focus on studying.

Finally, we are working their third list of Words Their Way spelling list for the quarter.  Monday through Wednesday they are to work on their three choices of spelling homework.  Thursday, they are to study their words for the spelling test on Friday. Please remember to sign your child’s spelling homework and check the option they chose as their third type spelling homework.

 

IMPORTANT DATES: 

                                  -Math Test Friday Dec. 13^th

                                  -ES Concert Tuesday, Dec. 17^th
                                  -Holiday Party Dec. 20 @ 1:15-2:00
                                  -Interim Reports Distributed Dec. 20^th
                                  -NO SCHOOL December 23^rd -January 3^rd

5T Cartoonists

Since the newest fad of cartoon chapter books (i.e. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Nate the Great) my students have been fascinated with the idea of making cartoons. Instead of discouraging this wonderful outlet of literacy I have embraced it! Now in social studies students demonstrate their comprehension by answering the essential question by drawing a cartoon. The students really seem to enjoy this so I think this will be my new go to assessment tool! Here are just a few of the students' cartoons from chapter 2 lesson 4 and 5. Enjoy!

Homework? Yes or No? WHY?!

I wanted to share two of the students' opinion pieces.  They were asked to choose whether they thought they should have homework or not.  Then, they had to answer the most famous question heard in our room "WHY?"  To answer why they had to turn to college level journal articles published by experts in the field of education.  Students were asked to read over two to three articles and highlight three quotes they felt supported their reasoning.  As a class we completed a thesis statement to use as our introduction paragraph and the start of our concluding paragraph.  In the three body paragraphs they were required to have:
1. an introduction sentence stating a reason why
2. a quote from the article of their choice supporting that reason
3. the citation of the quote
4. a sentence stating a personal experience with this or how it could happen to a student

Surprisingly, I had 4 students that supported having homework and 15 believing they should not be given homework.  I will provide a piece from each side and you can create your own opinion just as my students have.

I am very proud of ALL the students! They even read their pieces aloud in front of Principal Conover, Reading Specialist Mrs. Benjamin, and a very supportive group of parents.  KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK 5T!!!!!! I am SO proud of you!
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Against Homework:

              Homework is defined as tasks “assigned to students by school teachers that are meant to be carried out during non-school hours.” (Cooper, 1989a, p. 7). A number of studies have been conducted disproving the implementation of homework.

            One reason that supports my opinion is that it is bad for student’s mental health. “By 1980k, the trend had reversed again with some learning theorists claiming that homework could be detrimental to students’ mental health” (Marzano and Pickering, 2007, p. 2). This would happen by students who are being overwhelmed with too much homework.

            Studies show that teachers who give little homework have students with great grades and test scores. “Many countries with the highest scoring test grades and achievement tests have teachers who give little homework” (Bennet and Kalish, 2006, p. 2). This could happen when a teacher gives little homework such as reading.

            Homework can cause students to have stress. “If teachers give too much homework, students may be over whelmed, not complete the assignments, and ultimately achieve nothing as a result” (Costley, 2013, p. 5). I’ve had a personal experience of this when I have gotten four assignments in one night, I got so stressed out, and over whelmed.

            Homework is defined as tasks “assigned to students by school teachers that are meant to be carried out during non-school hours” (Cooper, 1989a, p. 7). A number of studies have been conducted disproving the implementation of homework. I believe no homework, or even less homework is better for students because it causes stress, mental health issues, and bad grades for some or most students.
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For Homework:

            Homework is defined as tasks “assigned to students by school teachers that are meant to be carried out during non-school hours” (Cooper,1989a, p.7). A number of studies have been conducted supporting the implementation of homework.

I believe we should have homework because if kids did not get homework their grades may drop. “Across five studies, the average homework doer had a higher unit test score than 73 percent of students not doing homework” (Copper, 2008, p.1). If we do homework we will get good grades, and good grades results in going to a good college, if we go to a good college we will have good knowledge.

 Doing homework helps students develop time management skills. “Homework assignments can enhance the development of self- regulation processes and self-efficacy beliefs, as well as goal setting, time management, managing the environment and maintaining attention” (Benbenutty, 2011c, p.449). Even though I have homework I still have time to go outside.

Another reason we should have homework is that if we do an appropriate amount of homework we would be less stressed. “It was found that the average student in a class assigned appropriate homework scored 26 percentile points higher on tests than the average student in a class not assigned homework.” Once I was only assigned a little homework and I was less stressed than usual.
Homework is defined as tasks “assigned to students by school teachers that are meant to be carried out during non-school hours (Cooper, 1989a, p.7). A number of studies have been conducted supporting the implementation of homework. I believe that we should have homework because if no kids get homework than grades might drop and students might become below average. Another reason we should have homework is if we do an appropriate amount of homework we would be less stressed.

Newsletter- 12/2

Happy December!

I would like to start off by saying a HUGE THANK YOU to all who contributed to the Tuesday celebration before Thanksgiving. Also, thank you to those who were able to attend the class readings of their opinion pieces.  I know that the students greatly appreciated you attending and I was most appreciative of you coming to support and celebrate all their hard work. **I will post some of the students' work on the blog soon**

This week in ELA we are starting on poetry in the new guided reading groups.  Today they heard some wonderful poetry from Charles R. Smith.  I was fortunate enough to meet him and sit in on his lecture on poetry.  The class really seemed to enjoy the cool readings from his CD.  Attached is a poem they heard today twice called “I Am a Poet”.  His creative writings show the students that poetry can come in many forms. As a group they found two poems they liked from other poets, presented them and explained why.  This week they will experiment with poetry and find their personal style of poetry writing.

In social studies we are in the finishing Chapter 2: "Native Americans".  We are focusing on Lesson 4 today and tomorrow about “The Southwest and the West” tribes.  As groups, students are making a documentary presentation where they interview a tribe member from a southwest or western tribe.  By Wednesday we will by finishing the chapter with Lesson 5 “The Northwest and the Arctic”.  Thursday and Friday will be chapter review days.  I am trying to teach the students how to study and techniques they can use.  As you may know I had them create study guides in their notebooks over vacation identifying the lesson vocabulary and summarizing the information from the lesson headings.  I am going to send home more study guide sheets to help prepare the students for the Chapter Test on Monday, 12/9.  That gives them a full week to study for the test.  I will also be providing a Jeopardy Review Day for them Thursday and Friday.  They should bring home the text on Thursday to study and they can keep it home until Monday.

In math we are in the middle of Chapter 2: Divide whole numbers.  This week the students are working on “Estimate with 2 Digit Divisors” and “Divide by 2-Digit Divisors”. They will have in class worksheet quizzes for these lessons on Wednesday and Friday.  There are worksheets for review called reteach and the answers attached to this paper.

Finally, we are working their second list of Words Their Way spelling list for the quarter.  Monday through Wednesday they are to work on their three choices of spelling homework.  Thursday, they are to study their words for the spelling test on Friday.

REMINDER: THIS Friday 12/6 is a half day

Our Marble Jar is FULL!

Great news! The class filled the marble jar, AGAIN! Their reward is a whole class lunch date with me this Friday J

This week in ELA we are focusing on “comprehension” in our CAFE Model.  Some strategies we are using include: recognizing the main idea and theme.  I’m sure they would love to demonstrate their increased understanding in fluency at home! Last week we focused on fluency and we will enhance our fluency by improving our comprehension. They are really beginning to understand imagery and talking about how setting plays a part in that “picture in our mind”.  I can already see a great improvement in both their writing and reading in just five short weeks.  Continue to have them reading 15 minutes a day at home in their independent reading book.  Some techniques we have found useful in the classroom you may want to adopt for their independent reading at home. Our behaviors that support reading are:  read the whole time, work quietly, select a good fit book, start immediately, and stay in one place.  Every Friday I will have them complete an independent reading book response to tract their reading and writing progress. Our goal for the year is to read 100 chapter books.  I know it seems like a lot, but the students are given time to read in class in the morning. I also count 150 pgs as one book, therefore if your child read a book 300 pgs long that equals 2 books.

In science we are wrapping up our Unit 1: "How Scientists Work?" with a focus this week on: "How can scientists learn from observations?" We will be reviewing all we have learned in science from Tuesday-Thursday with a Jeopardy review game on Thursday. Friday the students will take a unit test and I will encourage them to take their Science textbook home with them on Wednesday to study Wednesday and Thursday.

In math we are focused on multiplying by two-digit numbers.  It is always a good idea to brush up on your multiplication facts at home or in the car.

Finally, we are working on week 4's prefixes and our new Words Their Way spelling lists.  The children are to write one prefix + root word = definition for each prefix tonight (Monday) and complete 3 types of spelling activities in the packet provided by Friday.  Thursday, they are to study BOTH prefixes (weeks 1-4) and their WTW spelling lists. 

IMPORTANT EDIT** I have also allowed the children to decide (since the Science Unit Test is on Friday) individually if they rather take the spelling & prefix quizzes on Thursday OR Friday. It is up to you (parents) and them together. I know it is difficult to study BOTH Science & ELA so I wanted to give options as to not overwhelm them or you**

REMINDERS:
**SCHOLASTIC BOOK ORDERS ARE DUE FRIDAY OCTOBER 11TH**
Parents- thank you for participating in the scholastic book club as we are building up our classroom library and the children are whipping through all the books I have bought over the summer :)

**COLUMBUS DAY IS MONDAY OCTOBER 14TH AND THERE IS NO SCHOOL!**

Seeing "my kids" in action

As explained to "my kids" I love seeing them in action outside of school hours at their extra curricular events. On our calendar I asked that the kids write when and where their activities were. I am willing to travel within a twenty minute radius and will try my best to bring Willie since they are all so interested in meeting him. So my and Willie's first outing was to the girls' soccer game! We had a blast and we were so excited to see them play soccer! It was great to watch them do what they love and they even won! Willie and I cannot wait for our next adventure!!!

I wanted to let everyone know of what our focus is this week in all subjects. 

This week in ELA we are focusing on Fluency in our CAFE Model.  Some strategies we are using include: using intonation for different punctuation marks (i.e. ? !), and using punctuation to enhance phrasing (i.e. stopping at periods, pausing at commas semi colons, etc.).  Last week we focused on comprehension and we will enhance our comprehension by improving our fluency.  We are also diving deeper into our understanding of imagery and talking about how setting plays a part in that.

In science we are focusing on "How Scientists Work?" with a focus this week on: "How do you perform a controlled experiment?" and "What are some science tools?"

In math we are focused on multiplying by one-digit numbers.  It is always a good idea to brush up on your multiplication facts at home or in the car!

Finally, we are working on week 3's prefixes and our new Words Their Way spelling lists.  The children are to write one sentence for each spelling word tonight (Tuesday) and one sentence for each prefix word on Wednesday.  Thursday, they are to study BOTH prefixes (weeks 1-3) and their WTW spelling lists. 

REMINDER- dismissal is at 10:55 AM on FRIDAY! Have a great week!

PBIS carnival

Today was positively a positive day to celebrate PBIS! Shout out to the PBIS team who made this awesome day happen including Mr. D and Mrs. Minute! 

It started with a whole school parade around the track led by our fifth graders! They were awesome role models for the younger students if I do say so myself. Together we sang/chanted "be safe, responsible, be respectful!" And held the banners created by the art teacher and painted by each team! 

Then, we went into the auditorium for an assembly about PBIS. We watched a cool movie of DES staff demonstrating PBIS rules to the tune of "Respect". It got huge applause!  Then, Ms. Conover and Mr. D  picked several gold tickets for students AND teachers! To our surprise three of our students won gift certificates from local stores and I won a tablet for our class!!!! It felt like I was on the Price is Right going to pick up the prize and high-fiving all the kids. The whole class is very excited to use it throughout the year :) 

The rest of the day we got to visit 6 stations including: llamas, Schenectady's Sheriff K-9 unit, Duanesburg's Volunteer EMT and fire department, PTSO carnival games, face painting, banking, dental health, pictures with our eagle, and even yoga! It was a beautiful day and boy did we have fun celebrating our school and PBIS! 

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and the only homework is to read for 15 minutes a day! Enjoy your last weekend of summer!!!!!!

Open House!!!

Today is open house night and to say I am excited is an UNDERSTATEMENT! This class is so wonderful that I cannot wait to meet the wonderful people who make these children the positive community of learners that they are. We have a few favorite quotes to inspire our learning.  Here are a few to get you hooked to come in tonight! See you at 7PM!! :)

 

Hurray for the first day!

What a great day! Parents you should be so proud of your kids! They did an excellent job today as first day fifth graders. Not only were they kind and helpful to each other, but also to the younger students in the school! That is a great way to represent the fifth grade, keep it up! Since most of them said when viewing the blog today that they liked the pictures most I will post a picture below showing that all 18 students earned a clip on the respectful and responsible posters.  Our school rules are: be Respectful, Responsible, and Safe. If they are caught by any staff member they earn a gold ticket and their clip goes on the rule they are exemplifying. They also get to put the ticket in a receptacle. The receptacles from all staff rooms will be emptied into a large bin and each quarter tickets will be drawn at the school assembly. The tickets will also be saved for a giant end of the year drawing! Since all the kids in 5T earned a golden ticket today they are all in the running! Every day, all day is another chance for them to earn multiple tickets. So they could up their chances of winning a prize! Also, in our class the kids get to put a marble in the marble jar for each ticket received and when it is full they get to have a party of their choice.

There is a lot of wonderful things going on in 5T! I hope all the students had a great day, I certainly did! See you tomorrow :)

Eagle pride!

I'm very excited to see everyone tomorrow. But here are some more sneak peaks of the classroom! I've even added a Tygertbook in our classroom! This is like a handwritten classroom Facebook! This is on the TLN or Tygert Learning Network where you can write a comment or question about things we have learned or are going to learn. This will be done mainly in the morning before morning meeting and any free time after finishing work. I've never used this before but I found it on Ms. Hale's blog! Check it out:
http://teachitivity.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/facebook-inspired-classroom/

Each student gets their own white board!

Check out our cool Eagle Pride shirts! Do you see Uncle Si in the background?

Here is our class events thus far! See you tomorrow(:

Hello everyone! I have GREAT news!  My Duanesburg email is up and running! I do check it periodically throughout the day so feel free to email me (ctygert@duanesburg.org).

I would like to do a little shout out to those of you who attended my meet and greet last week! Thank you for coming. Those of you who couldn't make it, don't worry I will be at school Tuesday after 2:30 PM if you would like to meet with me.  Some parents were also wondering if they could swing by and drop off school supplies. Absolutely! That is a great idea.  I know all those supplies are a little heavy to carry on the first day of school.  Come on in anytime and you can place them on your child's desk.  If I am not here the secretaries will be able to buzz you in. I will leave my room open and you can leave the supplies on their desk.

One more day until the first day of school! Who is excited?! I certainly am!

Email and classroom updates!

Unfortunately, my Duanesburg email is not working YET. If you need/want to get in touch with me you can email me at tygertc372@strose.edu until this problem is resolved. 

Now on to some happy news! I have leveled half of our classroom books! HURRAY! I can't wait for everyone to dive into reading! I hope everyone has read over the summer too! I've read three books over the summer and two were novels that are at your reading levels. One is called "Petey" and the other is "Out of my Mind". They are both about children who have special needs.  They give the reader a great perspective into the life of these two children. They will be available to you in our classroom library. See you all soon!

An introduction

August 19, 2013

Dear Parents/Guardians,

My name is Miss Tygert and I am so incredibly excited to be your child’s teacher and part of the Duanesburg Elementary fifth grade team!  I cannot wait to meet everyone, which is why I have set up an event to meet before the school year begins.  There will be a meet and greet in our classroom Tuesday, August 27^th at 3PM.  All students and family members are invited to attend.  I hope to see you there!

            Here are some interesting facts about me to hold you over until then:

·      I have an Australian Shepard puppy named Willie

·      I LOVE Duck Dynasty (hence Willie’s name)

·      I grew up just one town over in Princetown

·      I am a HUGE Dale Jr. fan

·      I went to The College of Saint Rose for my Undergrad and Masters Degrees

·      I have started a new blog for our classroom (misstygert.blogspot.com)

·      I completed my student teaching in 2009 with Mrs. Lyons

·      I enjoy waterskiing and camping

·      I have two nieces (two and six years old) and a nephew (five years old)

·      I have taught in the Albany CSD for the last two years

Sincerely,

Miss Tygert (ctygert@duanesburg.org)

Our classroom!

I've been working really hard on getting our classroom into a place we can call home for the next ten months. I hope you all enjoy these pictures! I won't be showing everything though because I want some surprises for the meet and greet day :)