Monday, September 29, 2008

Bowser...and other crazy things.

Heeeeeere's Bowser!

I have to say, Noah...Bowser looks a lot bigger in person! Maybe we can take a picture of him next to Aria and Happy to really get a comparison. :)

So here is a crazy story about little dogs causing big trouble:

It all started with my kitchen light bulb. As light bulbs sometimes do, it burned out. So I took the glass cover off to change it. When the cover was off, I noticed that it needed to be cleaned, so I set it by the kitchen sink. The phone rang, so I left the kitchen to find my phone. While on the phone, Happy decided that this would be a fantastic time to jump onto the kitchen counter and lick my soup bowl clean. She was right. Just as she was finishing the last lick, I walked into the kitchen and exclaimed, "Happy! No!" She was afraid, and she stumbled, running straight off the counter, knocking over the glass light cover and the butter dish. I tried to catch the light cover, but missed, and watched it shatter with an incredible SMASH! Happy skittered away, and I stepped in the butter. Glass was everywhere. And yes, I mean everywhere. It had even shattered all the way into the shag rug of the living room. I was afraid the dogs would step in the glass, so I pawed my way out of my butter-smeared socks, grabbed my dogs by the necks, and shooed them into their crate.

They were safe. My socks, however, had suffered a major defeat. Butter, 1, Socks, 0.

I put on flip flops and began the process of cleaning up about 6 trillion pieces of glass. I vacuumed the rug, swept the floor, washed the floor...and then realized that I hadn't gotten under the kitchen table. It was hard to get, so I thought it would be best to pull the table from against the wall.

By the way, sitting on my kitchen table was our 10-gallon class fish tank.

What I didn't know was that all summer, the weight of the fish tank must have slowly caused a crack to form in one of the wooden legs of the table. When I pulled the other table edge, that was the last straw. The table leg creaked and cracked almost all the way off.

Almost.

I caught it. I put all my weight on the good end, preventing a 10-gallon tidal wave that probably would have resulted in the death of all 4 fish.

So there I am, hanging on my table, unable to move. My table was a dangerous see-saw, with me on one end, and a fish tank on the other. One slip from me, and the fish tank would win. I contemplated yelling for my neighbor, who lives on the other side of my kitchen wall. But I didn't want to look any crazier than I already looked, so I decided I could solve this problem on my own. I figured if I used my foot to hold down the good end of the table, I could use my arms to pull the fish tank towards me, putting the weight of it over the strong, unbroken table leg.

It worked. I thanked my lucky stars. I even thanked my unlucky stars, as well as the planet Saturn, just for good measure.

Sooooo...since I needed to somehow get the fish tank off of the kitchen table, and my buff muscles were not buff enough to lift it, I had to empty 7 of the 10 gallons from the tank. This is why anyone driving down my street at 9:00 at night probably saw me dumping water off of my porch while in my pajamas and wearing no socks.

The end of this story is that we will finally have the fish tank in our class. For those of you who are excited, you can thank a blown out light bulb, and a little dog who only wanted a little lick of soup.

The. End.

Ow! My throat hurts.

Oh my goodness, were you guys noisy today! I hope tomorrow goes better for the sub. Please remember to be on your best behavior! A $500 Respect Bonus is at stake!

Families: Today we went over a new set of vocabulary words, read part of our book in groups, and learned all about the importance of estimation in math. Aside from Ms. Medler asking the class to be quiet 3,764 times, the day went well. :)

Homework tonight is:
1. Illustrate 4 vocabulary words
2. Study Link 2.7
3. Study for tomorrow's social studies test
4. Bring in PEM materials for Mrs. Ardon
5. Return any fundraising materials

Have a good day tomorrow! Please!
-Ms. Medler

Friday, September 26, 2008

Rainy Friday News

Hello! Tonight's homework is math sheet 2.6 and a South America map . Also we have to get our math test signed by our parents. For todays lesson on math we had an expirement on pennies.

Hi! This is Ms. Medler. The girls ran out of time for their blogging today, so I thought I would finish up with the day's news. Our math experiment helped us to collect and organize more data, as well as to discuss what "probability" means.

The geckos had a fun week with our herpetologists of the week, Noah and Shanyce. They fed some crickets to the lizards today, though one cricket did manage to save his life by jumping away. Lucky fella. :)

Just a heads up: Next Tuesday and Friday I will be out on personal days. The kids will have the chance to earn a $500 Respect Bonus in their ledgers! They have to have outstanding behavior for the substitute! There will be a Social Studies quiz Tuesday morning. It will cover Christopher Columbus, map skills, and what a Viking is. The kids took home their social studies folder this weekend with some sheets to study. STUDY, STUDY!

Have a great weekend! See you Monday!


Thursday, September 25, 2008

Reactions & Estimates



Hello!

Today we talked a bit about a stimulus and tested our reaction times as a whole group and then individually, with our "Grab-It" activity. The kids will have this for homework, so maybe all you family members will get a chance to see how fast your reflexes are! Kids, what do you think: are you faster, or your family members? :) This is actually just a fun way to collect data, so we can learn how to analyze data and find its landmarks. (What's a landmark, you ask? Maximum, minimum, mode, median, range, etc. Ask your children!)

We also began reading about Christopher Columbus. We will be having a little quiz on Columbus, the Vikings, and map skills next week! Yahoooo!

Tonight's HW is:
1. Study Link
2. Reading Response
3. Most of you need to fix your North America map sheet.
4. Bring in your auction item if it is your week
5. Study vocabulary words for test tomorrow
6. Bring in portfolio items for Mrs. Ardon (if you want to)

See you tomorrow!
-Ms. Medler

Monday, September 22, 2008

THE CLASS NEWS



Happy Monday! We are about to embark on another exciting week! This week's webmaster is Cayra. Here she is with today's news:

Tonight's homework is math 2.3. Also for homework we have to put our vocabulary words on index cards and study them.Todays lesson on math's subject was to learn how to subtract with decimals.I think it was pretty easy for most people.

Thanks, Cayra! See you all tomorrow!
-Ms. Medler

Friday, September 19, 2008

Friday, contnued...

Okay, I think I have figured out why people could not leave comments. I had it on a strict security setting. I think now it should let non-registered users (such as all of you!) leave comments.

Hope this is better!
-Ms. M

YAY FOR FRIDAY!

Hello everyone!

Here' the report from today's webmasters!

Today in math we were working with partial sums and column addition. We also had a vocabulary test on the book we're reading, Dear Mr Henshaw. Some people when they were done got a math packet. We also did auction. At the beginning of the day we had a back to school assembly. And last we did SRI testing. Well thats all for today.Have a good weekend!:)

Hi, it's Ms. Medler again. The kids had a FANTASTIC week! I truly have enjoyed my time with them! Thank you to the parents to came to Back to School night. It was very nice to meet you, and I look forward to working with all of the parents this year!

Have a lovely weekend!
-Ms. Medler

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

What We Did In School Today

Today during guided reading, we wrote a story. We had to use the characters Barney, Bobby, Mr.Walsh,and Fligajam.It took place in NYC during the summer. The three events were:A car crash, a hospital visit, and a tornado! There were 6 tones: happy/excited, sad/disappointed,worried/scared,inspirational,funny and angry. During math, we did Factor Trees and Factor Strings. We have 2 geckos in the classroom. They are 2 girls. Their names are Riley and PeeWee. Today's homework is: Study Link 1.9, a reading response or book report for some people, studying our vocabulary, and fundraising.Bye for now!

(Hi, this is Ms. Medler. Thank you to Autumn and Curtis for today's entry!)

Monday, September 15, 2008

Ms.Medler's class Sep. 15

Today, Autumn and Noah were told to write this very blog entry! So we are. Today's homework is : Math Study Link 1.8 and Dear Mr. Henshaw vocabulary words need to go on index cards. Also, our class needs to read. Our class activities were: making an open circuit, finding conductors and insulators, and being poked my Mr. Wood's hand poker thing. That's all we have time for! Bye for now!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Week 2!

Happy Monday!

It is a beautiful and sunny day outside, and I hope you get to enjoy some of it before you sit down to do your homework! Today I am going to be quick, because my doggies are waiting to go on a walk. :)

Homework tonight is:
1. Put vocabulary words on flash cards (directions were put in your mailboxes)
2. Study Link 1.4

Great job during Factor Captor today! I was impressed with your teamwork!
See you tomorrow!
-Ms. Medler

Thursday, September 4, 2008

An excellent start!

Week one was a success!

I will let you in on a little secret: I have heard some rumors about this group. Oh, yes, it's true! Do you know what the rumors say? They say that this class is....WONDERFUL! :) I decided to see for myself, and I have to say, so far you folks are living up to this reputation you have earned. We seem to have so many fantastic personalities, and I am really looking forward to getting to know everyone.

This week we began with arrays and factors in math. We are reviewing multiplication skills, determining how to find factors of a number, and what you need to make a rectangular array. In writing, the kids are creating interview questions, interviewing one another, and will be working on composing short biographies to hang in our classroom. Today the class was given their first vocabulary list which corresponds to our first novel, Dear Mr. Henshaw. Everyone needs to save this list because next week you will have some homework assignments that will use these words and definitions. If I were you, I'd take advantage of the rainy weekend ahead to go over the definitions! Our test is next Friday.

Homework for this weekend:
1. Study Link 1.3
2. Return signed forms if you have not done so
3. $1 for HW folder, and $5 for the planners.
4. Review vocabulary words and definitions

Enjoy this photo of our class geckos, Pee Wee and Riley. Have a great weekend, and I will see you all on Monday!
-Ms. Medler

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Welcome to 5th Grade!

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to 5th grade in room 246! I am very happy to begin another year full of class projects, field trips, exciting lessons, and oh yeah, maybe a few TESTS! Tee hee hee! The purpose of this blog is to facilitate communication between home and school. Often, when kids go home, they are asked, "So...what did you do in school today?"

Would you believe that some kids actually reply with, "Oh, nothing."

Well. In room 246, we NEVER do nothing. Ever. So I have created a blog where parents can read about all the exciting adventures we have on a daily basis. There is a space where you can respond to posts, and I encourage you to add comments if you have something to say. I am hoping that this blog will eventually become a classroom endeavor, where the kids are the ones logging on to write about what they have done, and post the homework assignments. On some days, you may read a post written by me, and on other days, the post may be written by one of our classmates.

A few ground rules:

1. I will try to post photos when I have time, but I will not be posting any photos with children's faces, as this violates privacy rules.

2. If you are replying to a post, please remember that your comments are public, and any responses using children's names or discussing personal matters will be deleted.

Unfortunately, some days are busier than others, and we will most likely not be able to write a new post every day. However, I'll do my best. :) If you need to contact me, feel free to send me an email at: kristenmedler@salem.k12.ma.us.

Here's to a wonderful year!
-Ms. Medler

PS: Today's entry includes some photos of my new dogs! Their names are Aria and Happy. I just adopted them 5 days ago. I'm very excited, and wanted to share!