A huge thank you

Thank you so much to our wonderful chaperones for our trip to Ottawa. You made the trip easy and safe and so much fun. Pam Billings, Connie Arceneaux, Amy Little, Dave Nicholson, Eric Barker, Matt Watson, Dick Sears, John Borch, Thad Luther, Mark Girourard, Ed RIddel, TJ Holloway, and Todd Wright. You are masters of the craft and I would recommend you to anyone.

Also thank you to Carolyn Dejong who helped us get things notarized. We got over the border with no trouble.

Thank you to all of the parents who showed up promptly (one and half hours later than we planned) and picked up your kids. Also, you packed them wonderful lunches and gave them spending money and raised them right because they were perfectly well behaved and wonderful travel companions.

Hail Ottawa.

Cheers,
Cate Lamb

Tuesday May 31, 2016

Reminder - no school for sixth graders on Thursday June 2 due to 4th grade move up day. Thank you to Sabrina, Edie, Troy and Jaymeson who agreed to come to school on their day off to be Move Up Day guides.

Homework tonight is finish quick reading chapter 6 in your O Canada text book. We have another open book quiz tomorrow.

Otherwise, please come to the science fair from 6-7 to see all of our amazing entries.

Also, science fair kids should be here today until 3:25.

More later......

Wednesday 5-25-16 Canada tomorrow!

No homework tonight except make sure your climate slide show is ready to present on Tuesday (we didn't get to it today)

We are super excited about the trip tomorrow. We ran through every scenario we could think of. We are ready to be a well mannered eager to learn group of visitors tomorrow.

We reviewed how parliament works in Canada so we are ready to visit. Make sure you take a lot of pictures and keep in mind "events that lead to Canada becoming an independent nation" while we explore and enjoy Ottawa.

REMEMBER:
Arrive at BRMS tomorrow at 6:30 am ready to board the bus with your lunch and snacks for the long bus ride. Bring appropriate dvd's if you have them and want to share them on the bus ride.

Bring money for dinner etc.

Review the checklist and itinerary

Chaperones - don't forget your passport or enhanced driver's license!

Here is the last piece of information for 2016 Science Fest!

Please make sure your students know schedule:

Tuesday, May 31st

-  Present AFTER SCHOOL 2:45 - 3:25

-  BRMS teachers act as Round 1 judges

-  Ride bus home, get picked up

-  COME BACK to BRMS from 6:00 - 7:00 for final round - Top 10

-  Final Judging and presentations - 6:00 - 7:00

-  Awards at 7:00

Science Fest! Schedule

Thank you all for your support!

Tuesday 5-24-16

ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT MOVE-UP DAY

All sixth graders, except for those who sign up to be guides, will be staying home on June 2nd.

Today we had our Energy Science Fair. It was great. Some kids still have to put some finishing touches before next Tuesday. Anyone can resubmit next Tuesday and 24 of us are GOING TO THE SCIENCE FEST. I think we may have some winners!

Homework:

Finish your science presentation on climate.

Math Page 87 to 89  #4,6,10, and 12

Monday 5-24-16

Today we had some science fair preparation time and work on our science climate slide show time. Tomorrow we present science fair and finish and start presenting climate.

In LA today we started looking at our non-fiction text O Canada. We will be reading chapter four and creating an illustration of an event with an explanation of how that event led to Canada's independence on Wednesday.

Tomorrow we have our library reading/writing retreat.

Homework:

Prepare for Energy science fair tomorrow.

No math homework

Read if you can fit it it.

Here is the itinerary for Ottawa
NOTE: We have changed our arrival time back at BRMS on Friday to 9 p.m. We need to stop for dinner on the way. We will make phone calls when we are in Vermont and call all parents with exact arrival time.

Friday 5--20-16

I missed a couple days here. I was out Tuesday and Thursday and Mr. Meadows was out today.

Students should be ready for the science fair Energy Expo this Tuesday May 24th.
Here is pertinent information and the rubric I will use to assess on Tuesday.

1.  Original flier - Flier

2.  Information sheet - includes websites and information about presenting - Info Sheet

3.  Rubric - how Fest is scored at the fair - Rubric

4.  Science Fest Schedule - day of the event - Schedule

Students will be allowed to make the project better and resubmit on Tuesday May 31st, the day of the actual evening science fest at school. Students don't have to go to the evening event, but there will be prizes and ice cream I think.

Don't forget about our trip on Thursday. Students will need to bring a lunch for Thursday and be at school ready to pull out of the parking lot at 7 am.

Things to bring list

Tuesday 5-17-16

I was out today. Here is what I imagined happened.

In social studies, we met as a large group to create maps. Given an outline of Canada with provinces outlined, students used atlases to create a colorful rendition of provinces, capitals, rivers, lakes, oceans, and bays - correctly spelled and capitalized.  This is to be finished for homework if it didn't get done in class.

In l.a. classes, students completed the edutyping test - for a words per minute and accuracy accounting. Students should be at 25 wpm and 90% accuracy - but we are aiming to just improve as much as we can. If we can fit it in, we will do one more accounting in June so keep practicing!

Then students were allowed time to work on science fair. We will do a class check in tomorrow to see if we need another work period on Thursday. Trifolds are due Tuesday May 24th. The evening science fest with PRIZES is Tuesday May 31st.

At the end of the day, students tried to perfect, or at least complete, their science weather report video projects.

Homework:
Math - I don't know what, but I bet there is some - maybe even a skill sheet

LA/SS finish map
make sure word study first sort and sentences are complete

Read your novel
Update reading record

See you tomorrow students.

Monday 5-16-16

Welcome back to non SBAC regular old homework week.
Today's homework:
LA edutyping - prepare for test tomorrow
1st sort and 8 sentences for word study Ms. Lamb's groups due Wednesday (vocab try to finish at least one page per day)
Science fair worksheet due Wednesday May 18th
Science fair trifold presentation due Tuesday May 24th
Math: pages 47, 48, 49 #7 to 13 area


Today we got back to the swing. In LA we had our penultimate visit to the library. We watched a bit more of Canada: A People's History outlining the First People of Canada. Their stories are very similar to the First Peoples of what is now the United States.

We all logged into edutyping to make sure we remembered how. Tomorrow we will ALL do the test again to track our progress.

Students can expect to have about 40 minutes to work on science fair planning and trifold making in class tomorrow. REMEMBER: Experiments must be done at home.

This morning we met to discuss Ottawa. Kids put in their roommate and group requests. We will try hard to honor as much as we can.

Here is a link to what to bring: Things to bring list

Science fest info from Mr. Warren

1.  Original flier - Flier

2.  Information sheet - includes websites and information about presenting - Info Sheet

3.  Rubric - how Fest is scored at the fair - Rubric

4.  Science Fest Schedule - day of the event - Schedule

Monday Important Ottawa and SBAC news

BIRTH CERTIFICATES (original) or PASSPORTS need to be handed in to Mr. Meadows. We are traveling to Ottawa two week from Thursday. Please contact him right away if you are having a problem or issue with bringing in your official document right away.

SBACs for math are tomorrow and Thursday. I have been promised that they are blessedly shorter than the ELA tests, but we shall see. Please come with a good night's sleep, a book to read after you finish, a pen or pencil for figuring on paper and your earbuds or head phones.

No homework this week due to SBACs.

Wednesday 5-4 May the 4th be with you

During SBAC tests it feels like we have to cram a lot in on non-test days.

Today we started our Canada Unit click here to see the unit links.  We watched a video from discoveryeducation.com and practiced note taking and creating visual representations. Then we all practice making an illustration for one event.

We will continue on Friday. We will also use the text book O' Canada and the CBC video series Canada: A People's History and of course, our visit to Ottawa and the Canada Museum of History in Ottawa and the War Museum in Ottawa along with their websites.

We also started our poetry unit. We will be writing poems, reading poems and slamming a poem.

Tomorrow we have round to of English Language Arts SBAC tests. In the afternoon we continue and finish (hopefully) our PSA videos for incoming fifth graders for Move Up Day.

Rest up tonight.
Read if you can.

Tuesday 5-3-15

First day of SBAC tests down!

It was a long one. Some students worked for more than 2.5 hours on it. Such hard workers deserve time off for good behavior.

In LA we are working on creating one minute PSA commercials for incoming fifth graders. Students work in pairs or threes explaining things like - what clubs can you join? what are the rules of recess? where are all the bathrooms?

We will try to finish these up on Thursday.

If you need things to do for homework consider:

reading
free writing
finishing your social studies assessment on Latin America
edutyping

Monday 5-2-16

Good news!
SBACs start tomorrow.
That means we have no homework today or for the next two weeks! Technically, we could have homework on Wednesday, but I know Ms. Lamb will not be giving any homework except for reading for the entire time.

This means the social studies assessment is going on hiatus today. We had to do an SBAC pre activity, so had just about 20 minutes to finish up. If it feels completely not done, students may revisit this after we do the CANADA assessment. That sounds weird, but the Canada assessment is very similar to the Latin America Assessment and we are going to work backwards this time. This should give students more of an understanding of how to complete a complex task like this.

Many many of us are very on the ball, so congratulations on that.

Tonight:

Rest
Read
Pack a good snack for tomorrow (no gum please)
Bring your luck pen or pencil for notes and planning.
Bring your earbuds or headphones for the test.
Bring your iphone or ipod for video projects after the tests.