September 15-16

Please remember that pictures are this Tuesday the 16th.


This week:

Math-Finish Place Value Unit-Test on Friday
Writing-Animal Research Reports
Word Work-Teton Vocabulary Words
Science-Volcanoes
Reading-Reading of 300 pages are due at the end of this month.

September 8th-12th

This week:

7-Habits-Be Proactive-Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.
Vocabulary/Spelling-We will be learning vocabulary words that we will be using at Teton Science.

Math- Rounding whole numbers.

Science-We will learn and make Pangaea.

Writing-Finish Important Thing About Me writing & text structure

Reading-Great Job Reading!! I have had several book reports turned in and students are doing very well on their summaries. Please continue to monitor your child's reading.

Mrs. Reina showing the layers of the Earth through body movement and music.

Moving from the core to the mantle.

Mrs. Reina teaching the layers of the Earth through music and body movement.

REFLEX MATH Is UP!!

Username:  janfarmer
Password:  child's lunch number

Let me know if there are any problems!!

Week of Sept. 2nd - 5th

Leader in Me-We will continue learning about Being Proactive.

Writing - Each student will be writing about themselves this week.  It's an activity to help me and others get to know them while I assess their writing.  (They will be displayed at Parent Teacher Conferences). 

Math- We will continue Place Value, practicing math facts, and number sense.

Science-What is inside the Earth?  Mrs. Reina will be teaching an artistic way to draw the inside of the Earth.  The later part of the week we will be learning about Pangaea.

Social Studies-Longitude and Latitude

Spelling/Vocabulary-We will have our first test on Friday.

Burying I CAN'T

The Leader in Me paradigm sees that every child is capable, every child is a leader. This paradigm changes everything.

This week we talked about using Proactive Language vs. Reactive Language.  Being Proactive means taking responsibility for your actions, not blaming others, having a positive "can do" attitude, and never giving up.  Then, we talked about being reactive.  Next, we went outside and buried a common reactive word (CAN'T).  Instead of saying I can't, we will say, "I will try, I think I can."

Second Week of School

Students playing first to 100

Last week we got to know each other, took some assessments, and tried to get everything accomplished to begin a scheduled day.

This Week:

*We will begin rotation classes.  The schedule is on this blog.

*We will begin learning about The Leader in Me.

*We will continue organizing our Homework Binders.  (more organizers)

*Remember to try and bring a snack every month to share with the class.
*Parents remember to write about your child in 500 words or less.  I also need your e-mail if you haven't given me one.  You can send everything to jan.farmer@usu.edu.

WELCOME TO 5TH GRADE!!

I am so excited to start the year!  Mrs. K and I have been planning for the year and it will be a great experience for all of us!  Here are some happenings that you should be aware of for the week:


Monday, August 18, 11:00am - noon. Teacher Open House - 
Wednesday, August 20, 8:30am - 1:00pm. First Day of School! - 
Thursday, August 21, 6:30 - 8:00pm. Back to School Night - 

Please remember to bring a few items on your first day of class to share.  

I can't wait to meet all of you!!

Mrs. Farmer

MOVING SCHOOLS!!!

I am so excited to take on a new challenge in my career.  I will be teaching 5th grade at Edith Bowen Lab School on the campus of Utah State University.  I am excited to get to know the new students and staff.  I will miss all the students parents and staff at Bridger!!

What can we do to help children understand what they are asked to read?

Parents-I found this is on Michael Rosen’s Blog and thought it would be useful to help every child become better readers.

So what can we do to help children understand what they are asked to read?

1. Arrange children in pairs or small groups to talk about something they are reading or have read - without intervention from adults.

2.  Take children to a library and encourage them to borrow anything that they want. Keep doing it.

3. Arrange for times when children can look at a book, or books, quietly on their own for a while.

4. Encourage children to collect printed matter so that they can browse it, sort it and re-sort it: e.g. comics, annuals, cheap second hand books, series, magazines etc.

5. If children ever ask you a question about something in a newspaper, on TV, in a book, on the internet, try any of the following: say a) that you're not really sure,  b) how can we find out? c) where can we find out? d) read the 'answer' together, e) discuss what the child or you find. 

6. In picture books, there are many illustrations and parts of the illustrations that are not expressed or described in the words of the book. Get into a conversation with the children about what that person or creature might be thinking or saying. If there's time, you or they can write this down - perhaps as speech bubbles on stickers. 

7. Try to avoid asking closed-ended 'right or wrong' questions about what children are reading. 

8. Try to think up open-ended questions which have different plausible answers which can be discussed: e.g. questions about whether you think things turned out in a scene in ways that were 'fair' or 'unfair'? whether this or that character was likeable or not? why do you think that this or that character did something? Was there anything else they might have done? What would you do? What would you think if that happened to you? 

9. Try to arrange for children to think up plausible story-lines that took place before what they've read or might take place after - i.e. 'prequels' and 'sequels'.

10. Help the children to talk about other books, films, TV programmes which the book they're reading might remind them of…why? how? 

11. Help the children to talk about events in their own life (or in the lives of people they know) which they are reminded of by the book they're reading.

12. Talk about what books or sources help us find things out when we don't understand something - dictionaries, reference books, wikipedia, encyclopaedias…

13. Arrange for some time when they can make up words and their definitions - like a mock-dictionary or nonsense-dictionary. 

14. Arrange for children to be in pairs or groups to read something out loud. Encourage them to direct each other so that they split the passage up into parts and think of ways of making their performance better (more interesting/exciting/funny etc).

15. Play the titles game - thinking up alternative titles for the chapter, poem or book that they've read. Discuss these together.

16. Imagining that someone else is reading the passage/poem/book. What if you weren't you, but you were someone else very different from you - choose that person…would you have the same thoughts about what you've read - or different? How and why? 

17.  Play 'substitution' games: what happens if you tell the 'same' story, but changing one or more of the characters into - e.g. animals? or from animals to humans? or by swapping the sexes of the people? or by changing just one character into e.g. someone you know? Or: what happens if you keep the plot and all the characters and change the time-frame to e.g. the future, the past, the present? What happens if you keep the plot and change the setting to somewhere completely different e.g. to a school, a beach, a shop, a party etc etc?

18. Recommendations: discuss amongst children what might be the best ways of recommending a book or magazine or comic to someone else. What are helpful things for someone to know if a book is good or not? Then, try to say or write to those guidelines. 

19. 'The message': (or messages). Discuss the idea that books, films, TV programmes pass on messages. You can use the example of the 'moral' at the end of an Aesop fable or a Jesus parable. So at the end of a poem or chapter or book, is there a 'message', some different messages, a 'moral', different 'morals'. Discuss what these might be. What would happen if things turned out differently…(different ending or outcome) would the 'moral' be different? 

20. In poems and stories, people and creatures can 'represent' things other than what they are. So, in Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf, we might say, is both a wolf and also 'danger' or 'threat'. So is the danger just that he might eat her, or is he any other kind of 'danger'? This is how 'symbolism' and 'figurative' language works. Or again, Miss Haversham in 'Great Expectations', we might say, is not only the strange old lady that we perceive, but she might also represent Dickens' view of the state of the aristocracy - its state of decay, its backward looking point of view, its potential for viciousness, its ultimate potential for self-destruction??? etc. So, with examples like these (fairy tales are very good as starters for this, but many modern songs are too) what kinds of symbols, representative 'figures' can we see in a book or poem?