Boyers’ Business

We had a wonderful week of testing! I know that sounds strange, but we were not stressed – we just did our best! The students were very careful, worked very hard, and I was very impressed! This week, we’ve finished up some loose ends in Math and Social Studies, and are gearing up for both Field Day on Friday, and our Field Trip on Monday! We have 5 more days together, and then these wonderful ladies and gentlemen will move on the Harrison County Middle School as 6th Graders!

Our Focus
Math – Mrs. Blanton read a book called Math Doesn’t Suck!
Social Studies – We finished our 20th Century Timelines for 1960s to the present
Reading – We read topical articles from the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s.

Remember:
Field Day is tomorrow! Wear comfortable clothes, tennis shoes, hats and sunglasses. Put on some sunscreen, and maybe even bring a change of clothes – some stations have water!!

Monday, May 21st is our field trip to the Cincinnati Museum Center. Don’t be late, because we are leaving Southside as close to 8:30 as a bus will take us! Itineraries and directions will be available at school Monday morning. Remember: We will arrive back at Southside around 5:00, so students will need to be picked up from school at that time. Wear comfortable clothes and walking shoes. We will change into our shirt creations when we get to school on Monday!

Tuesday – no school for students. Go Vote!

Thursday – Last Day, we will have awards then be dismissed at 11:30.

Students will start bringing home items from school soon. Start checking at home for items that need to be returned to school!

We’ve had a great week, even though we’ve been testing, testing, testing! The 5th Graders have really stepped up to do their very best on the K-PREP assessment. Wednesday was a really hard day. We had to take 3 parts, and one of the parts is really long. We are so glad to have that day done! We finished up Social Studies today, and tomorrow is our last testing day! We will have 2 On-Demand Writing tests, and then we are DONE!

In 10 more days, your child will be a 6th grader! We’ve started talking about what to expect, how to behave, and how to ask for help!! Next Monday, Mr. Allison will be coming over in the afternoon to answer more questions about middle school. As much as I don’t want to think about this, we are trying to make sure that these great Southside 5th Graders are prepared for what’s ahead.

Our Focus:
Testing, Testing, Testing…..
We have enjoyed watching “The Waltons” in the afternoons. Our study of the Great Depression has been greatly enhanced through this show, and the students have seen some life lessons played out as well.

Remember:
Pictures or $ should be turned in ASAP.

White t-shirts for our project are due Monday. (5-14)

Cincinnati Museum Center permissions and $ are due ASAP. The deadline for parent tickets and lunches is next Wednesday, May 16! We will call the museum to confirm our numbers- we don’t want to have to pay extra for people that are not going. We also have to have our final lunch counts for Mrs. Patti that day as well.

Friday, May 18th – Field Day

Monday, May 21st – Field Trip! We leave school around 8:30, and return by 5:00 pm. Be sure to make arrangements to pick up your child at Southside at 5:00.

Tuesday, May 22nd – Election Day, no school for kids.

Thursday, May 24th – Awards Day, we dismiss at 11:30.

**Be sure to check out the link on my blog for our testing video: “You’re Ready and You Know It”. (I expect to be a hip hop music mogul any day now!)

2 more days to K-PREP! On Friday, we have a Pep Rally scheduled for the morning, and we will be on the move towards Proficiency on Monday! We’ve worked very hard this year, and really cannot wait to show what we know! 5th Grade tested areas are Reading, Math, Social Studies, and Writing On Demand. We have one week to take 3 Reading, 3 Math, 3 Social Studies, and 2 On Demand tests. We are READY!

There are 15 days left in the 2011-2012 school year. When school dismisses on Thursday, May 24th, your child will be a Middle Schooler! They are so excited, and a bit nervous, about this exciting time in their lives. (Mrs. Blanton and I are excited and nervous for them, too!)

After testing, we will be gearing up for some end of the year activities here at Southside. During the week of May 14th, we will be wrapping up our content studies, preparing our writing portfolios, decorating t-shirts, and having Field Day on Friday.

The following week, we will be taking our end of the year field trip to the Cincinnati Museum Center. That will be Monday, May 21st, and permission slips and other information about this trip is in the Thursday Folder. Tuesday is Election Day, the kids stay home to help remind you to VOTE! Wednesday, we start gathering up and putting away! Thursday is the last day of school. Our awards program will be that day, and school will be dismissed at 11:30.

Our Focus
Math: Volume (the measurement of capacity – how much something will hold!)
Reading and Social Studies: The Twentieth Century, 1950-2000.
Writing: On Demand Task Analysis – We’ve been looking at situations and directions and figuring out which type of writing piece we would need to writing to satisfy the task! AND, we’ve done a trial run of an On Demand Writing task!

Remember:
K-PREP is next week. Be smart: Get plenty of rest, eat a good breakfast, don’t panic, and COME TO SCHOOL!

Send a plain white t-shirt by Monday, May 14th. We are decorating them to wear on our field trip! Thanks!

Friday, May 18th is Field Day for 3rd – 5th Grades. By now, our 5th graders have had 5 field days already, so they really know the routine. Wear “sports” clothes – shorts and a tee (or sweats if the weather turns cold), tennis shoes, bring a change of clothes (some stations involve water!), hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen. Oh, and bring great behavior. There’s very little that’s worse than being removed from your station to go sit by your teacher!!

Monday, May 21st – Field Trip to Cincinnati Museum Center. We will depart around 8:30 a.m. and return at 5:00 p.m. An important information packet is in this week’s folder!

Tuesday, May 22nd – No school – go VOTE!

Thursday, May 24th – Awards Day, dismissal at 11:30 (And Mrs. Boyers’ 27th wedding anniversary!)

So….is this March, or is this April. The calendar says April, but the weather lately sure seems like March. Let’s just hope we don’t have snow in July!!

We are down to single digits on the number of school days until testing – 7. K-PREP begins on Monday, May 7th, and ends on Friday, May 11th. Don’t forget about rearranging or avoiding appointments during those 5 days!

Our Focus:
Math – Graphing, especially line-plots. Students should be reviewing Math notes for our upcoming assessment.
Reading/Writing – Key words and Key vocabulary. We are mostly reading informational pieces. We are identifying key words and matching them to various text features to locate answers to questions. We are also brainstorming key vocabulary words as a way to enhance and focus our writing.
Social Studies – We’ve begun our study of “The 20th Century”. This week was World War Week. We have a very cool, and very lengthy (literally) time line project that is ongoing. The time lines are so long, that we can’t work in the hallway on them anymore – we block classroom doors!

Remember:
Next week is the last week for “graded work”, so 5th graders need to jump on work if they want to bring up grades. After next week, we have a week of testing, a week of writing portfolios, and a week of end of the year events! Time is flying now….

Next week is the last week for student checkouts in the Library. Start digging under 5th Grade beds, couches, and treasure piles, and begin returning any library books or other item belonging to Southside.

May 7 – May 11: K-PREP testing
May 18th – Field Day
May 21st – Cincinnati Museum Center field trip. Trip packets will come home in next week’s Thursday folder.
May 22nd – No school for students on Election Day (go vote!)
May 24th – Last day of school. This is a half day. Each 5th Grader will be recognized before the student body and guests!

May 25th – My baby, Lucinda, will graduate from HCHS. Parents, your 5th graders are going to HCMS next year. Time will fly by fast….

12 days to K-PREP, 25 days to 6th grade. Ladies and gentlemen, no matter how much we want to slow down the hands of time, they tick on….

I think that Spring Break was very beneficial. We’ve all come back refreshed and ready to work towards our finish line. We do have one diabolical plan: Prove them wrong!! (We found out that some people, just around – you know, think that 5th graders, and 8th graders, and 12th graders get too rowdy at the end of the school year! We surmise that “those” people are worried that because “those” students are moving on, that they don’t always take things seriously at the end of the year. Trust us, operation “Prove them wrong” is working just fine….Just don’t let out our secret!)

Our Focus
Math – Metric system, and skill practice, practice, practice!

Social Studies – Review of Civil War, Reconstruction, and Industrialization

Reading – Skill practice in matching key words to text features,
skimming for information, previewing questions to provide reading focus, and text look-back for answers.

Writing – Opinions: We’ve Got ‘Em! We are writing opinion pieces!

Health – Mr. Crisp is continuing his Peer Pressure/Alcohol-Drug Abuse Prevention lessons.

Remember
Mid-terms went home Wednesday. Even though this is the “mid-term” of the 9 weeks, we really do NOT have 4 and 1/2 weeks of “graded work” time left. K-PREP testing, and end of the year activities will reduce the amount of time that your child has left doing graded class work. There IS still time to bring up grades, but your child needs to use his/her time wisely from here to the end!

K-PREP – After this week, we have 2 full weeks of instruction before we begin testing. K-PREP begins Monday, May 7th, and ends Friday, May 11th. (I’ve been reporting that we test for 4 days, when we actually test for 5 days. We have A LOT of work, so that extra day is a benefit!!) Please help us with testing by avoiding appointments and absences during that week.

Friday, May 18th is field day for 3rd-5th grades. If any parents want to help, contact Mr. Crisp.

May 21st – End of the year field trip to the Cincinnati Museum Center. We will send details home later, but parents are welcome to come. Make plans now!

May 22 is election day. Students will not be in school that day.

Students last day is Thursday, May 24th. That is a half day.

We are anticipating Spring Break, which is next week. When we return to school, we have 3 weeks before K-PREP! Today is 17 days until testing, and 30 days until 6th Grade!!

Our Focus

Math – Measurement. We’ve especially been focusing on conversions from one unit to another, and memorizing both metric and standard measurements.

Reading – Review and Common Assessment. We tested over Point of View, Elements of Plot, and Proverbs.

Social Studies – Civil War

We’ve also had some Easter fun….shh….don’t tell! Everyone thinks we are way too old for bunnies, chicks, and eggs!

Remember
Mid-terms will come home after Spring Break on April 18th.
K-PREP testing is Monday-Thursday, May 7th-10th.
Cincinnati Museum Center field trip is Monday, May 21st. Paperwork will come home closer to the time.

Well, this has been a really “mad” March! The temperatures have felt like summer on many days, and I think that we’ve had really great weather. We’ve studied “proverbs” this week, and we are wondering if it is going to rain a lot in April – you know, “April showers bring May flowers”! We’ll see….

Our Focus
Math – fractions and division

Reading – Proverbs: Those are old sayings that teach lessons or give advice.

Social Studies – We are finishing up Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny. We will be studying The Civil War next week.

Writing – We’ve been covering some pretty intense parts of speech this week. You know, correlative and coordinating conjunctions, and past, present, and future perfect verb tenses. Don’t worry, we’ve got this under control!

Band – Mrs. Lucky came to Music Class today to talk to students about joining the 6th Grade Band. I highly recommend that children learn to play a musical instrument! Take a peek into a high school yearbook – the majority of students who are top notch students are also students who are in band. Learning music taps in areas of the brain that help students in so many other areas. Myth Buster: Band kids are “band geeks”. Well, yes they are, except for when they are archers, athletes, dancers, and academic team members! (You CAN do other activities AND be in Band!)

Remember
Friday – Wear BLUE AND WHITE to cheer the CATS on to victory this weekend. Also, wear walking shoes for our Recess Relay at 2:00 tomorrow.

Friday – Also, tomorrow is the last day to make book fair purchases.

Mid-Terms will be coming home soon.

Monday, May 21st – Our field trip has been approved. We will be going to the Cincinnati Museum Center. Parents are welcome to come help chaperone. Students will be arriving back at school around 5:00, so start lining up rides. More details to come later on.

K-PREP testing will be May 7, 8, 9, and 10th.

It has been awhile since we’ve ALL been in school for a full week. I think that the worst of the “winter” ailments are behind us, now we’ll need to tackle the “Spring in Kentucky” aggravations! “Kerchoo”, “Bless You”!!!

Our Focus
Math – Fractions, and division practice. The division practice is really paying off for many of our students!! If you are concerned about your child’s math grade, be sure to talk to them about Minute Math assignments. Students do these assignments, turn them in for a score, and then Mrs. Blanton goes over each problem. Students need to take notes on these solutions, and then use the notes to make corrections. Mrs. Blanton allows students to correct Minute Math assignments, and the grade is taken on the corrections. The ONLY way to have a low grade in math is to ignore those Minute Math assignments! (I tell my students, “If someone tells you the winning lottery numbers, PLAY THEM!!”)

Reading – We read a story called By the Dawn’s Early Light, by Steven Kroll. We learned interesting details about how naval battles were conducted during the War of 1812, along with getting the background about the writing of our National Anthem. We also studied the actual poem, “The Defense of Fort McHenry”, which was the original title of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. When a student studies an original piece of writing like this, they are studying Primary Sources. Primary Sources are the words, ideas, art, or any other document left for us by the actual people who were there when the history was made!

Social Studies – We are finishing up our study of The Young Republic Era of history. We’ve tried really hard to study US history in chronological order: We’re not able to do this very well!! We’ve found that when we are studying historical concepts, it is easier to follow the idea, instead of following the calendar!! We’re just finishing up the concept of “Manifest Destiny”, so we are ready to study the actual history of the expansion of our country. We are working on an ongoing time-line project. Right now, each student has about 10 feet of time line on some of the high points of the history in our country!!

March Madness – We can’t beat ‘em, so we’ve joined ‘em!! We are using our excitement about this huge sporting event, and are studying some of the history of basketball, doing some basketball related math, and are reading stories with basketball themes. We’re learning a lot and practicing a lot of skills, and some of us still have teams in the tournament!

Mr. Crisp is conducting a Health Class with us every Monday. The topics include the hazards of underage drinking and smoking, and how to avoid peer pressure. This is great information for these soon-to-be 6th Graders.

Remember:
Report cards went home on Monday, and the new 9 weeks is in full swing. We need to make every working moment count! We are 27 school days away from K-PREP testing, and 40 school days away from 6th Grade!!

Tomorrow is a “Go Team” day for us. Students can wear their favorite team shirt. (I assume they will all be blue and white!!) For a $1 donation to Storm Relief, students can also wear a hat.

Book Fair is next week. We will browse on Tuesday, and purchasing begins on Thursday.

Be sure to be here next Thursday! Mrs. Lucky will be coming during Music Class to discuss Beginning Band. (Myth buster #1: You CAN be in band AND be in sports! My own daughter has played high school softball for 7 years, and has been in band for 7 years!)

In 27 days, we will be K-PREP testing. The dates are May 7-10, and we have a lot of testing to get done in 4 days! Start now to rearrange any appointments that you may have prescheduled during those days. Be sure to tell any doctors or dentists that we are avoiding appointments during the school day on May 7, 8, 9, and 10. Thank you so much for helping out with this!

We sure are enjoying a lot of things about March. First, the beautiful weather is a guarantee that we will be on the playground! Then, we are getting all of the basketball that we could ever hope for!! Also, we have started our last 9-weeks of 5th Grade. This is bittersweet, so for now, we are accentuating the positive!! 43 days to 6th grade!

Focus
Math – Fractions and Division, and practice, practice, practice!!!
Reading – DEA testing, and The Invention of Basketball!
Social Studies – US History time line project – This will be ongoing!
Writing – Narratives, focusing on elements of plot – exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Remember
Today – Battle of the Books and 4th/5th Grade Dance
No school tomorrow, Friday, March 16th.
Report Cards come home Monday, March 19th
Book Fair starts later this month.
Spring Break is the week of April 9-13.
K-PREP testing is May 7-10.
5th Grade field trip to Cincinnati Museum Center on Monday, May 21st – pending board approval. This trip will require parent pick up after school at around 5pm. Chaperones are welcome, so mark the date. More information will be coming soon.

The Pot at the End of the Rainbow:
This last 9 weeks is action packed and event filled, and we will be extremely busy. I am reminding students that they need to stay focused in class and stay responsible. We do not have excessive amounts of homework, but assignments do have due dates. Students are expected to get work done, get it turned in on time, and do all of this fairly independently. We want the pot at the end of the 5th Grade rainbow to filled with gold, not sad grades……

Welcome to Kentucky weather! Lucky you – you have a teacher that is forever reminding you to dress for the weather! We will definitely be outdoors when the weather permits – dressing in layers might be a good strategy!!

The 5th Graders were excellent role models during our emergency early dismissal. They had paperwork in place, and were even able to reassure younger siblings about their dismissal plans. I am so proud of their leadership and maturity. I am so glad that we were spared the wrath of the storms. My thoughts and prayers are with those who are mourning and rebuilding…..

Our Focus
Math – Fractions: adding, subtracting, finding equivalent fractions.
Social Studies – Finishing Colonies and Reviewing Revolution and Government.
Reading – Story elements, especially the events or action in stories.
Science – Inventions

Remember
Yearbook orders are due TOMORROW. No late orders can be taken. If you’ve lost your form, bring $10 in an envelope marked with your name and “yearbook order”.

The nine weeks ends tomorrow. All make-up assignments are due!

Battle of the Books is next Thursday, March 15th. The Intermediate Battle begins at 1:00 in the High School Auditorium.

Last Dance! We are having a “Shamrock Shuffle” next Thursday, March 15th after school. The cost is $5 – $4 of is goes for our field trip fundraiser, and $1 goes to tornado relief efforts in Eastern Kentucky. Permission Slips are coming home today!

NO SCHOOL next Friday, March 16th. This is KEA Day for teachers.

Report Cards will come home the week of March 19th – probably ON March 19th!

The last book fair starts the week of March 26th.

The testing season is upon us. We will finish up the last of our DEA assessments next week. The last 9 weeks are going to be busy! We have to finish up our studies by the first week of May. K-PREP testing will be May 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th. We have the same amount of testing as always, but the time has been reduced from 2 weeks to 4 days!! Attendance is critical. PLEASE avoid scheduling appoints during those 4 days, and PLEASE try to reschedule any appoints that you might already have. I know this is an inconvenience, but students will be much more comfortable staying with classmates and testing with everyone else. Students who miss test sections have to do make ups and have to be isolated from classmates during make ups!