Week Eight 2012

October30

Number 8 on 08-08-08-F8-8th sec-ISO 800

Once again, I’m not keeping up with my work life online. Part of this is because I’m spending more time staying in touch with parents this year, so I thought I’d start this week’s report by sharing how I’m doing that.

First, I am using the Googles to simplify my life in a couple of ways. I started a Gmail account for class administrivia last year, and I’ve carried it over to this year. When I got my class list, I looked up all my parents’ email addresses and cell phone numbers, and started to add them to my contacts.  I use this as the base to send out a weekly email update about what the class is doing.  Here is last week’s communique:

This week:

  • At last Monday’s Sixth Grade Class Meeting, we prepared to sell BooGrams by making die-cuts, and students sold at the end of the week.
  • We started new units/chapters in all our subject areas. Social Studies was early civilizations. Science was about climate and weather.
  • Our class will be starting a new novel, From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, thi
  • Ms. Noelle visited our class and we learned about African Art. I will be posting pictures in the next few days, and the art will be featured in the office in the month of November. She will return to our class on November 13.
  • Class Progress Reports went home with your child on Thursday. Students who stay with me for mathematics also received progress reports on Wednesday. If you need a copy by email, let me know.

Next week:

  • Monday will be another Sixth Grade Class Meeting. All sixth grade students are invited to attend. The meetings go from 2:00 – 2:30. The next few meetings are to work on a project to sell BooGrams to help students do fundraising for their Sly Park trip. Please let your child stay to participate.
  • We will be learning more about early farming communities, and weathering and erosion (including a video on Grand Canyon).
  • Students will be getting their own individual blogs. I had them write a request for this last week, and next week on Thursday, I will set them up blogs with students.

Calendar:
10/29 Sixth Grade Class Meeting
11/12 Veterans Holiday
11/15 – 11/16 Parent Conferences/Minimum Days
11/19 – 11/23 Thanksgiving Holiday Week
11/26 – 11/30 Parent Conferences/Minimum Days
12/24 – 1/4 Winter Break

Our calendar is on on our blog http://sacschoolblogs.org/msmercer2012/ and http://tinyurl.com/room11calendar

I have all but one parent email address. I’ve gotten a lot of kudos for providing them with this information, so I think it’s working well.  By keeping it to a bullet list, I can just move up next week to last week, change the tense, and add some details and voila it’s done. Not a ton of work, but worth the time.

In addition, for more immediate and individual contact, I use GoogleVoice to send SMS/txt messages to parents. This is very helpful for parents who have quick questions about homework, etc. to get a hold of me, and for me to contact them about their child.

I’m also trying to post photos of student work on our class blog, etc. Since I have Acrobat X, I turn all homework sheets, etc. into PDFs which I attach, so if their child “loses” their homework, they can just print the sheet off. I also can send electronic copies of academic updates for their child. I’ll share a bit more about how I’m tracking student work, and where I’d like to go with that in a future post.

Image Credit: Number 8 on 08-08-08-F8-8th sec-ISO 800 by settme3, on Flickr

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