Week 2 in Review

Without sounding like a broken record, our second week of school was another great week. The kids are getting used to our schedule and I am getting to know them a bit better.

Last Week:

• We started getting serious with our integrated project - My Legacy, My Destiny. To get an overview click here http://sites.google.com/a/innovationsacademy.org/lisa-moncrief/projects . For one of the math components we started looking at career dreams and a quick look at salary ranges. We created a class bar graph of all of their careers and salaries. In Tony's humanities class, students worked on their "I Am" poems and started working on vignettes.
• We kicked off our first mini math project: Math board games. The 8th graders are creating games for 5th and 6th graders and the 7th graders are doing the same for the 3rd and 4th graders. We are hoping these games will help students at our school for many years to come. It is my goal that as they create their games, they will take the opportunity to review essential basic skills in order to be ready for the new skills they are going to learn this year.

For Week 3:

• During math we will continue with the Math Games mini project. We will also work on two components of My Legacy, My Destiny: 1) The Career WebQuest http://sites.google.com/a/innovationsacademy.org/lisa-moncrief/projects/my-legacy-my-destiny/career-webquest and 2) the Ups and Downs Timeline.
• Our Science class will take a look at genetic traits as we create Family Pedigree and Trait Trees for the Legacy Destiny project. We will also be learning about DNA on our fieldtrip on Thursday.

Upcoming Events:

• We are putting together a parent info night (or conference call?) to plan for an 8th grade trip to Williamsburg/Washington DC in the spring. You will be called or emailed with details this upcoming week.
• Tuesday Family Game Night 6:00 - 8:00
• Thursday Field Trip to Wild Animal Park. We leave at 8:30 am. Please do not be late.
• Oct 5-6 Picture Day
• Thursday Oct 15(?) 7th - 8th grade Field Trip to UCSD

Have an awesome week! Always feel free to contact me when the need arises.

Awesome First Week!

We had a great first week of school. I have a feeling we are going to have an awesome year together. Our class seems to enjoy one another and we have an amazing group of kids.

I will be blogging every Sunday evening before I go to bed. Each week I will try to include a synopsis of the past week and a quick outline of the week ahead, as well as upcoming events.
If you are having trouble looking at my website calendar, I am trying to figure it out. Hopefully I will have the kinks worked out quickly so you can access it.

Last week:

• We got to know each other as well as the seventh graders. We were introduced to Morning Circle, Class Council and Closing Circle. Tony and I worked together throughout the week with all of the seventh and eighth graders to establish expectations for our classrooms as well as taking a look at rights, responsibilities and privileges that we can all share. Since the students will be working in my class for Math and Science and Tony's class for Language Arts and Social Studies we found it more effective to be united in our expectations for our classrooms.
• We introduced our first big project, "My Legacy, My Destiny". We will be working on this for the next month and a half. More will be coming home about this project during this upcoming week.
• We started assessments for math, spelling and reading comprehension on Friday. We should be done by Tuesday. If you would like to be informed about these tests please contact me.
• A huge shout out to all parents who came to our first monthly parent meeting last Thursday night. It was a pleasure to get to know you better. I look forward to working with you this year. (There is still room to sign up to volunteer in our classroom or help out in other ways. I will be contacting those of you who signed up on Thursday to give you specifics as well as send out an email to all parents this week with a list of volunteer opportunities that are still available)

This upcoming week:

• We will continue to work on routines and start the My Legacy, My Destiny project.

Coming soon:

• I am in the process of working with Brooke Landau, a weathercaster from San Diego 6 news to come in next week to teach about the weather as well as broadcasting. Her information will help us in a math/science graphing project as well as help us learn some interviewing skills for our Legacy Destiny project.
• Thursday, September 24 - Field trip to the Beckman Center(a conservation education laboratory) at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Transportation, admission and lunch is free, thanks to special funding they secured just for charter schools! The field trip will last all day and we will be going with the 5th,6th, and 7th grades.