Sunday, November 25, 2007
Fun at the Symphony
We were so excited to visit the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Before going we studied the different families of instruments: Percussion, brass, strings, and woodwinds. Did you know that not all woodwinds are made of wood but all brass instruments are made of brass? When we finally got to the symphony the students recognized many of the instruments up on the stage. Jeremy even got to tell the conductor that he was able to pick out several of the brass instruments. We saw the Heroes and Villains concert! Miss Lipsky's favorite part was getting to hear Darth Vader's theme music from Starwars. One of our own Chets Creek students was even chosen to conduct the symphony! His picture (well his back really) is below.
We think the students' favorite part of the day was eating and playing in Metropolitan Park! The park now has several different playgrounds in which we were able to run around and act like crazy monkeys! We also got to take many amazing photos that are going to look wonderful in the yearbook.
We think the students' favorite part of the day was eating and playing in Metropolitan Park! The park now has several different playgrounds in which we were able to run around and act like crazy monkeys! We also got to take many amazing photos that are going to look wonderful in the yearbook.
Monday, October 29, 2007
What a Difference a Year Makes! (Compare/Contrast Homework)
Slowly, Mrs. Phillips, read off the names the Literary Pumpkin winners. Miss Lipsky's fifth grade class held their breath as she announced "Ok Drivers and Crew Chiefs, that's all the winners this year! See you back at the racetrack for the carnival!"
"We didn't win?" asked Brandon.
"No, we didn't," replied Ana.
The students looked at each other surprised.
Last year, Miss Lipsky's fifth graders, made pumpkins based around a book-of-the-month called Train Song. They took three medium sized pumpkins and painted them to look like the engine, coal car, and caboose of a train. Ryan drew a picture of a conductor that was placed on the engine and Tia drew passengers sitting in the caboose. Many students got to help glue on all the tiny, black beads that made the "coal" on the coal car.
When Miss Lipsky and Mrs. Matthews triumphantly brought the pumpkins downstairs to the lobby they found that they had been misinformed about the pumpkin decorating contest. This wasn't a small event, this was a pumpkin extravaganza! They saw a stack of turtles representing the Dr. Seuss classic, Yurtle the Turtle. Mrs. Lehane's fifth grade class had made the entire cast of Agatha's Featherbed, complete with old Agatha lying in her bed and covered by a patchwork quilt! The three pumpkins Miss Lipsky and Mrs. Matthews held began to look small and insignificant next to all the beautiful displays. They decided that next year they would work even harder to create an amazing pumpkin show like everyone else!
This year Miss Lipsky has three English and Language arts classes (one more than she had last year). The three classes spent time brain storming what book they should use for the Literary Pumpkin Project. Miss Lipsky finally decided on Jimmy Zangwow's out of this World Moon Pie Adventure. The students were excited when Miss Lipsky exclaimed "We can each make a tiny martian like the ones in the book and we can eat moon pies!!" The students worked hard decorating their pumpkins. Slowly, they began to look like the main characters in the book and the tiny martians. When Miss Lipsky and Mrs. Matthews brought the pumpkins to the lobby, it took four trips to get them all downstairs in Mrs. Lehane's red wagon!
After putting all the pumpkins in their spots the two teachers surveyed the lobby. This year's pumpkins were even better than last years! They knew they'd be lucky to win a prize over any of the other pumpkins.
"Good afternoon, imagineers and dreamers, I'd like to read off the names of the Literary Pumpkin winners" Mrs. Phillips' voice came over the loud speaker. Miss Lipsky's third period class sat silently listening to the names being read. Down the hall Miss Lipsky's homeroom sat quietly in Mrs. Sterling's classroom, while second period tried to contain their excitement in Mr. Ruark's room.
"And the winner for Most Creative is Miss Lipsky, Mrs. Matthews, Mrs. Shannon, Mrs. Phillips, and Mr. Pinchots' homerooms!"
Miss Lipsky winked at Mrs. Matthews, "Told you we'd win" she said.
P.S. Thank You Miss Emma for finding all of our spelling and grammar errors :)
Thursday, October 25, 2007
And the winner for Most Creative Literary Pumpkin is...
...Miss Lipsky and Mrs. Matthews' 5th Grade ELA classes!! Hooray our pumpkins won the award for being the most creative out of all the intermediate pumpkins and as Breon said, "What good is a decorated pumpkin if it's not creative?!" Here are some picture of the amazing pumpkins in all their glory.
These are our martians before we attached the heads and feet!
The Moon, Jimmy, and Grimbly Grinder pumpkins...almost finished...almost...
The Moon, Jimmy, and Grimbly Grinder pumpkins...almost finished...almost...
The finished class project!
Toy Story Pumpkins! More winners from Ms. Lopez's ELA classes.
Our personal favorite, Tree of Cranes, by Miss Hoffmann and Miss Patterson's class.
The third graders in this wonderful class each made their own origami paper crane to go along with this book by Allen Say!
Toy Story Pumpkins! More winners from Ms. Lopez's ELA classes.
Our personal favorite, Tree of Cranes, by Miss Hoffmann and Miss Patterson's class.
The third graders in this wonderful class each made their own origami paper crane to go along with this book by Allen Say!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Literary Pumpkins
Have you ever hot glued 137 pipe cleaners onto 67 pumpkins? Well Miss Lipsky has (and she has the burns to prove it!). Last week we created "Literary Pumpkins" to go with this awesome book we'd read, Jimmy Zangwow's Out of this World Moon Pie Adventure. In this book, author Tony DiTerlizzi, tells the story of Jimmy a boy who just wants to eat one delicious moon pie before dinner. Obviously, Jimmy's mother says no, so Jimmy hops in his jalopy to travel into space and hunt down moon pies. While in space Jimmy gets to talk to the moon, make friends with 999 Martians, and almost gets attacked by the evil Grimbly Grinder! I don't want to ruin the rest of the story for you but I'll tell you that Jimmy does end up getting to eat a moon pie (but only after supper!). Miss Lipsky's homeroom created a giant Grimbly Grinder pumpkin. Mrs. Shannon's homeroom created the character of Jimmy by using a medium sized pumpkin for his belly and a smaller pumpkin for his head. Alyssa brought in a pair of goggles that work perfectly as Jimmy's flying goggles and Jimmy is currently wearing a pair of Miss Lipsky's old jeans (apparently Jimmy shops on the women's side of Express...don't tell!). Third Period, the Phillips/Pinchot homeroom, made the moon. C.J. brought in a "sleeping cap" and Krystal even let us break a pair of her old glasses to complete the display!
The real hard work however went into making the martians. Each student brought in a small pumpkin and painted it orange (painted an already orange pumpkin orange again?! Well, Mars is redish-orange, so Martians would be that color too. Deal with it.) The martians had their arms and legs hot glued on and Miss Lipsky took pictures of each student to cut out and use as the Martians faces. You have to see these creepy, little, aliens!!
Of course, everyones favorite part of the "Literary Pumpkin" decorating day was eating their very own delicious moon pie. Yumm! Even Miss Lipsky enjoyed one...or five.
None of this would have been possible without the awesome support of the parents and families of our students. The Amazing Mrs. Appleby (the Lipsky homeroom mother) organized the entire event. We want to say an extra special thank you to Jakob's family, Jackie's family, and Joe's family for donating so much for this project. And thank you to Mr. Lipsky (Miss Lipsky's dad) for giving us the book in the first place. Pictures are coming soon!
The real hard work however went into making the martians. Each student brought in a small pumpkin and painted it orange (painted an already orange pumpkin orange again?! Well, Mars is redish-orange, so Martians would be that color too. Deal with it.) The martians had their arms and legs hot glued on and Miss Lipsky took pictures of each student to cut out and use as the Martians faces. You have to see these creepy, little, aliens!!
Of course, everyones favorite part of the "Literary Pumpkin" decorating day was eating their very own delicious moon pie. Yumm! Even Miss Lipsky enjoyed one...or five.
None of this would have been possible without the awesome support of the parents and families of our students. The Amazing Mrs. Appleby (the Lipsky homeroom mother) organized the entire event. We want to say an extra special thank you to Jakob's family, Jackie's family, and Joe's family for donating so much for this project. And thank you to Mr. Lipsky (Miss Lipsky's dad) for giving us the book in the first place. Pictures are coming soon!
Friday, October 12, 2007
Our Vocabulary Comics!
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Vocabulary Project
Today, I got so excited to get out all the markers, colored pencils, sharpies, and crayons in order to work on our mini-vocabulary project. When I was looking over the spelling words this week I thought to myself, "Why are we asking the students to learn how to spell words they don't know?!" Mrs. Matthews agreed with me so we decided to do a quick, fun vocab project. Students are making comic strips using the spelling words we thought they might not already know:
Mercy, Sincere, Yearn
Career, Hermit, Merely
Severe, Rehearse, Kernel
Appear, Pearly, Dreary
Third period is going to use words off the Word Wall where we keep all the interesting words we've come across in our read aloud,
"My Life as a Fifth Grade Comedian" (words like eligible, ballistic, and genuine). I'll scan in some of the best comics when they're done. I can't wait to see what our crazy classes come up with!
Mercy, Sincere, Yearn
Career, Hermit, Merely
Severe, Rehearse, Kernel
Appear, Pearly, Dreary
Third period is going to use words off the Word Wall where we keep all the interesting words we've come across in our read aloud,
"My Life as a Fifth Grade Comedian" (words like eligible, ballistic, and genuine). I'll scan in some of the best comics when they're done. I can't wait to see what our crazy classes come up with!
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Off to a great start!
The 2007-2008 school year is going so well! Our students are so much fun and very kind to one another . We have learned so much about them already and so many special things have happened. Here is a quick look into the first seven weeks of school:
* Alandri, Sasha, Sareen, Sophie, Troy and the rest of the gang are reading so many books that Mrs. Matthews and Ms. Lipsky have to give Reading Bingo Quizzes everyday! (See our website for information on Reading Bingo).
* Joe and Miller both had their haircut and donated to "Locks for Love" to be made into wigs for cancer patients.
* Michael can perfectly imitate the voices on the "School House Rock" video. He's really helped third period learn about pronouns and proper nouns.
* You should see Breon, Kenneth, Charly, Tanner, and Jakob on the basketball court! Watch out or you'll get hit in the back of the head with a basketball!
* Alex's dad visited second period and told us all about his time serving in Iraq. We are going to collect yummy snacks to send to our troops overseas (apparently they have enough hand sanitizer!)
* We are writing plays about the September book of the month, "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick". Our typing and teamwork skills are getting better everyday.
* You should see Antonio, Adib, and Jackie play "Freeze and Justify". We might have three future actors on our hands.
* Ms. Lipsky finally learned how to put up the projector screen (special thanks to Mrs. Lehane.)
* We got a class fish and (after an extensive voting process) named him "Bubbles". Thank you William for feeding him everyday.
We can't wait to see what else this year has in store for us! We plan on posting on our blog weekly, so check it out. :)
* Alandri, Sasha, Sareen, Sophie, Troy and the rest of the gang are reading so many books that Mrs. Matthews and Ms. Lipsky have to give Reading Bingo Quizzes everyday! (See our website for information on Reading Bingo).
* Joe and Miller both had their haircut and donated to "Locks for Love" to be made into wigs for cancer patients.
* Michael can perfectly imitate the voices on the "School House Rock" video. He's really helped third period learn about pronouns and proper nouns.
* You should see Breon, Kenneth, Charly, Tanner, and Jakob on the basketball court! Watch out or you'll get hit in the back of the head with a basketball!
* Alex's dad visited second period and told us all about his time serving in Iraq. We are going to collect yummy snacks to send to our troops overseas (apparently they have enough hand sanitizer!)
* We are writing plays about the September book of the month, "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick". Our typing and teamwork skills are getting better everyday.
* You should see Antonio, Adib, and Jackie play "Freeze and Justify". We might have three future actors on our hands.
* Ms. Lipsky finally learned how to put up the projector screen (special thanks to Mrs. Lehane.)
* We got a class fish and (after an extensive voting process) named him "Bubbles". Thank you William for feeding him everyday.
We can't wait to see what else this year has in store for us! We plan on posting on our blog weekly, so check it out. :)
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