Mr. González' Classes Homework/ Daily Activities Week 1, 9/6 to 9/10

Math - 1st period Monday - No School - Labor Day. HW - None. Tuesday - We are going to start the year with a get to know you activity. I'll start by introducing myself and the activity, which is called the NameTag MatchMaker. The data we create from this activity could be used in our math unit so this is a perfect first activity in many ways. I will also take some time to answer questions about the middle school and to share some school-wide rules (like no hats in the building and no gum). Unfortunately, our fire alarm system malfuntioned today and went off during the first minute of school! Really! It threw off my plan and I did more talking than I intended to, but at least I gave kids some good information. We were late starting the NameTag MatchMaker activity. HW - If you can tonight or sometime this week, please get some dividers. Our principal, Mrs. Meissner, purchased 1-inch binders for everyone in the middle school for our new math. Ask your child tomorrow what that's all about. When your child does not have math homework, she or he can really benefit from practicing their multiplication tables. It could be fun, races or games with flash cards work just fine. We don't have time in class to review basic addition, subtraction or multiplication so if your child is having difficulty, please help at home. Thank you. Wednesday - Yesterday everyone voted by consensus to meet in our class circle today to finish creating our class norms. We have some class norms and I will be sending those home tomorrow along with other pertinent handouts, like the Cispus packet. HW - Show your parents your math binder and explain how we will use it if you decided to take it home. Thursday - We need to start off today reviewing our norms in our class circle because even though the class created them yesterday, many students had a difficult time following the norms. HW - None Friday - Today we will start with Investigation 1 in class. We will get acquainted with our new book. HW - None

Science - 2nd period Monday - No School - Labor Day. HW - None. Tuesday - By this time we should be ready to discuss our class norms. For this activity we will need to meet in a circle and we'll do a quick name game while there. Right after science, we will always break for Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) time. Today I might just mention what time SSR will be everyday and give kids a chance to get a book, magazine, newspaper, comic book or whatever from home to read tomorrow. We finished the NameTag MatchMaker activity during Science and collected some good data at the same time. We did not get to norm setting at this time but I did show kids some examples of past work pertaining to our Water Quality Project. HW - Get something to read for SSR (here is the rule for magazines - if you pick a magazine you must read that issue for one entire week or 5 straight SSR days). Wednesday - We will either finish setting our class norms during science or we will take some time to put our math notebook together. HW - None Thursday - Today I am sending my students to Mr. Olafson for P.E. while I show Mr. Olafson's students a Mt. Saint Helens movie. HW - None Friday - Today I will show kids their science textbook. I will show kids how the book is put together, then I will introduce them to the SCAN-n-RUN reading strategies. We will also complete an Anticipation activity prior to reading the chapters and sections we will start with this year (Ch 12, sections 1 and 3). HW - None

Language Arts - 5th period Monday - No School - Labor Day. HW - Only the parents have homework, the In a Million Words or Less activity. Please have your child bring it to school this week, and thank you for taking the time to introduce me to your child. Tuesday - Students have already had Eagle Time, Lunch and either Band, Choir or Fine Arts. If you are curious as to what Eagle Time is, ask your child. If you are still curious, email me. During Language Arts we met in a circle and began a discussion about voting by consensus vs voting by majority rule. We also began creating our class norms. So far we have mainly discussed eating in class and keeping a talley record of good behavior so that students can earn some fun things. HW - None Wednesday - We will continue the group jobs activity where students will create a poster in their small groups to describe how to do the cooperative group jobs and skills we will use this year. HW - None Thursday - Today I will pass out a lot of paperwork. I am truly sorry but this is the beginning of the year and the one and only time I will need to do this. You will be getting your Cispus packet with all the paperwork you will need to fill out to get your child to Cispus. Please send that back to me with your child ASAP. I am also sending home a Cispus t-shirt order, which is completely optional. Please write a different check for the Cispus t-shirt order and have it to me by no later than Tuesday, 9/14 so that kids may have their shirts before we leave for Cispus. I'm also sending home Arrow Book Clubs book order forms in case you want a little something to come for your child to school after we get back from Cispus. Please send a check made out to Arrow Book Clubs. I recommend getting a copy of The Giver since I will start reading that to kids soon. I also gave kids some handouts about class procedures. Please sign the Classroom Expectations and Norms sheet. We made a contract out of it so that kids can follow the norms they themselves set up! Also please sign their Informed Consent Agreement for Internet use this year. Please sign both sides of the sheet. Your child will be creating class websites for projects. They do NOT need to put their photos on the websites, so if you don't want your child to do that, please just cross out the word photograph (not picture as I'd like them to publish their artwork), and please still sign. Your child will miss out on some great extended learning possibilities if they are not allowed to publish their projects on the Internet. Their privacy will be kept completely safe and no one needs to know who worked on which sites. See Student Work to see what kids have done in the past. I'm also including a permission form to be able to film your students as part of my certification process. That is the white National Board certification sheet. Your child's privacy is completely safe as only my teacher leaders will ever see that video. And last, but not least, please sign the Lab Safety Contract that students need in order to do labs in science. If you have time or energy, please make sure to read that with your child. HW - Please read through all the paperwork I'm sending home and sign and return all the Cispus paperwork, the T-shirt order (if you want), the book order (if you want), the Class Expectations and Norms, the Informed Consent Agreement (please sign the back too), the National Board Permission form and the Lab Safety Contract. Friday - We will finish and present our Cooperative Group Jobs posters. HW - None

Social Studies - 6th period Monday - No School - Labor Day. HW - None. Tuesday - We will either finish norms or work on the cooperative group jobs' posters and T-charts. If students are done with their posters, I will give groups time to share what they came up with. We took this whole period as well working on our class norms. This is very important and we had some great discussions so I don't mind taking time to do this. It will really set the stage for the rest of our year together and will, in the end, save us time. HW - None Wednesday - During this period, we will most likely continue the group jobs and skills activity. Students did skits to show examples of how to use the seven skills in a small group and started to create their cooperative group job posters. HW - None Thursday -We will keep working on the cooperative group job posters. HW - None Friday - Today we will visit the library and kids will check out up to two books. This year they can check out two books for up to two weeks, but since Cispus is the week their first books are due, students can return them the week after Cispus. HW - None

 

Student Tech Corps - 3rd period Monday - No School - Labor Day. HW - None. Tuesday - Today I will begin with an introduction to the class (I have a PowerPoint that I share, click here to see it). HW - If you don't have one yet, please get a three subject spiral notebook. Wednesday - Today we began the lesson on the district's Informed Consent Agreement. HW - None, unless you still do not have the spiral notebook. Thursday - Today I will give students the passwords to log on to the computers and the passwords to log onto the course website. HW - None Friday - We will practice together and then begin Unit 1, lesson 1 together. We will learn how to take notes Cornell Style. HW - None, unless you want to access the class website at home.

Email me if you have any questions or concerns.