FLASH Starts in January

We will be starting F.L.A.S.H. (Family Life And Sexual Health). It is state required and  approved. It will be taught as part of life science. If you have questions about the content or curriculum don’t hesitate to contact me. There is an Opt Out form, but you are required to review the curriculum at the below link sign the Opt Out form.

http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/personal/famplan/educators/FLASH.aspx

Here is the list of topics we will cover.
Family
Self-esteem
Sex Roles
Friendship
Decision-making
Sexual Exploitation (abuse)
Puberty
Reproductive System
Pregnancy
HIV/AIDS

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Josh Hill
Jdhill@seattleschools.org

Dogboy Review by Amelia J

Dogboy by Christopher Russell,

Dogboy is about an orphan boy who lives with Sir Edmund's Dogs in medieval times. He is betrayed by Sir Edmund's huntsmen when they go to war, but becomes the huntsman himself later on.

This book was really good! It is exciting and really suspenseful. I love how there is no explicit "bad guy" Although the cover is weird, this book is awesome.

Weekly Update

This week in science we have looked at several aspects of gravity. Reading about Sir Isaac Newton and his theories and watching a video about how gravity shaped the universe. We will continue to delve into gravity and how it's force effects us on Earth. Next week we will be look into the seasons and how the moons phases look to us.

In Reading we are finishing up with The Giver by Lois Lowry. Students are writing about theme or other main ideas from the book and are practicing, paraphrasing, citing and taking notes.

Candy Drive

Hi all!

I received an awesome email this morning from the Dentist office, Fidler on the Tooth, that sponsored our challenge for Halloween this year. Check out the post that they put up about us on their social media and their blog! Cascadia is famous! Nice work everyone. J Thank you for all your support! We will be work with the teachers whose classes earned extra PE days when we get back from the holiday break to schedule in their extra days. J

Check out the link for the story on us: http://www.fidleronthetooth.com/blog/seattle-dentist-candy-buy-back/

Have a great Thursday,

Mrs. Shirley Briones

Book Review by Yoshi Takeno

Chicken Hare by Chris Grine

Chicken Hare is the name of a the book and the main character, a rabbit with feathers and the legs of a chicken. Chicken Hare and his friend, Abe, are sold to the taxidermist Klaus. Chicken Hare and Abe must escape from Klaus and his staff and also help a mysterious goat which Chicken Hare is seeing.

In the beginning, it is not apparent where Chicken Hare and Abe come from. Also, the story plot does not describe much.

Weekly Update

Reading
In reading we have been reading the giver and looking at elements of a story. Them, Power Imbalance, Setting, Mood & Tone. We have read both All Summer in a Day by Neil Gaiman and read about half of the Giver by Lois Lowry. Both have these been used to talk about elements of fantasy/distopia and we have written quite a bit about both. Investigating central ideas and theme's of literature.

Social Studies
We watched the following video and are getting ready for looking at American colonization.
Native America before European Colonization

Science
We did our last experiment in our stream tables this week. Student's conducted experiments to test their own experimental question. These ranged from, "What is the effect of the state (ice) of water on erosion and deposition" to "What is the effect of obstacles on erosion and deposition?" and much much more. The students had a great time conduction their experiments and are writing up conclusions to go along with them.

That will conclude our land and water unit and when we get back we will be doing a short, two week unit on space. Looking briefly into seasons and gravity.

Weekly Update

Science
This week in science we ran our last set experiment on our water tables. Using grass seeds to model trees and scrubs we saw the effect of vegetation on erosion and deposition. Next week we answer our own experimental questions about streams and every group is different. Ask your student what their experimental question is and how they think it models something in the real world.

Science Update

We have been working with our stream tables to investigate erosion and deposition for a while now and we are getting to the point where we are designing our own investigation. I am very excited to see the questions they have come up with in action. We will be doing those last investigations next week and the following week. After that I will be packing up the science kits to go back and we will start a short unit on space.

Ask your student what their question is and how they are going to prepare their stream table. They are looking forward to the chance to design and run their own tests. Also ask them how erosion effect the surface of the Earth. They should be able to go into great detail about the water cycle, erosion and deposition and the components of soil.

Have a great weekend.

Shakespeare Details

Shakespeare performances are happening in one month! The students are so excited to show you their excellent work.  Please note the dates and times for all classes below.

We prefer parents to come to the evening shows (the theater is reserved just for parents on those nights), however, you are also welcome to come to a matinee.  Just let Ms Savage know if you're going to do that and how many guests.

All shows are in The Little Theater located in the building behind the school (sort of behind the big auditorium).  The best way to access the theater is from 43rd Street.

Students will need to arrive at the theater by 6:15pm in order to warm up and change into costume.  The show will run about one hour with no intermission.

Thursday Dec 10

10am Savage Homeroom 

2pm Hill Homeroom   

Monday Dec 14

10am Savage Homeroom  

2pm Hill Homeroom 

7pm Savage Homeroom

Tuesday Dec 15

7pm Hill Homeroom  

Wednesday Dec 16

2pm Underdahl

7pm Underdahl

Thursday Dec 17

2pm Underdahl

Volunteer Needs

I would love to have several volunteers from each class to help with the show.
Here's what I need:

-Greeters and ushers (two or more people to give out programs and tell people where to go night of show)

-Kid water/snack manager (make sure kids have access to water and provide take away snack for after--in goody bag preferably)

-Photographer (someone to take still photos during dress rehearsal)

-Videographer (If we happen to have parents who can do a good taping of the shows, then I might cancel the professionals so we can do this for free)

Please email Ms. Savage if you would like to volunteer. ejsavage@seattleschools.org

Update

Conferences

If you haven't had a chance to sign up for conferences, here is the link http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f4da9ab2ea7fb6-2015. There are still some spots left. I also wanted to encourage you to bring your child because I think it is good to involve them in these things and they will have a good insight into what we are learning. If there are some concerns that you would rather not share in front of them, we can make time during the conference, that they can sit in the hall and read.

Math

This week in math students learned to add and subtract fractions. This was a review for some but was complicated by the new negative numbers information that was put into play! Next week we will work with mixed numbers before moving on to multiplication and division.

Reading

Students are enjoying their work with science fiction! We have looked at setting and how characters respond to setting. They are starting to look at theme and common character types in fantasy literature.

Science

We are still working with our stream tables but have begun to think of our own scientific questions. This week, students will formalize their group question and write a procedure for it. I have already heard some great ideas and I look forward to seeing them in action.

Writing
This week in writing we continued our exploration of poetry.  The students are working on creating a poetry anthology of their own writing which is due Nov 16.  This is an in-class writing assignment.  My goal is for them to complete the whole thing at school.  However, there may be students who want or need to work on it at home.  However, it should be student only work.  We are continuing to work on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the students are really outstanding.  I’ve booked a professional company to video tape the shows.  They DVDs cost $35 each.  I need to estimate whether it’s worth it for them to come by finding out how many of you might order the DVD.  They need a total of 35 orders (over three classes) for them to come.  They do any amazing job with professional sound equipment, etc.  It’s an awesome keepsake of hard work.

Weekly overview

Science: In science we are doing stream tables. We are doing many different interesting experiments. Some pictures you can see the evidence of a river.

Reading: In reading we are using what we learned to write an essay.

Book reviews

Name: Rowan
Book: Animal Farm
Author: George Orwell
Rating: Five stars
Animal Farm is a story about farm animals rebelling against the farm owner and taking the farm for themselves. At first they have complete freedom. But what was at first their noble leader becomes more of a dictator.

Name: Amelia F.
Book: Breakaway
Author: Alex Morgan
Rating: Four and a half stars
The setting is no one place but Alex, the main character, is mostly on the soccer field. One of the main events so far is Alex winning the U-20 cup. Alex was also able to score a goal in the U-20 world cup! She says in the book that, "Making that goal was one of he best feelings of my life"

Name:Paige
Book: Flush
Author: Carl Hiaasen
Rating: Four stars
The main character in this book is named Noah. His dad thinks that a gambling boat is dumping its holding tank into the ocean, so he sinks the boat. he goes to jail for it. Noah proves that his dad is right with the help of his sister Abby.

Parent teacher conferences the week of Thanksgiving

Here is the link to the signup genius that will allow you to schedule conferences.

Update

IslandWood:

Islandwood was so much fun! We had many amazing adventures! We hiked to the harbor, explored the canopy, learned about ecosystems and got up close and personal with some banana slugs. We also got to hike in the dark, letting our leader guide the way with just their voice. Thank you for your support of this program.

Math:

We are finishing up our first unit on Integers. They are going to be working on their projects and correcting their tests next week. On Friday you will be getting a packet that shows their progress in this content area.

Reading:

We are also wrapping up our first reading unit. Students have shown amazing growth in letting the story guide how they respond, exploring big ideas linked to small details, connecting story elements and analyzing author craft. We will be sending their journals home next week so you can look at their progress before we start our Science Fiction unit.

Language Arts

Today we had rehearsal for Shakespeare. We have also done much writing in our reading class. Including; journaling about the reading we are doing on our own.

Science

We have begun using our stream tables to model streams. Students are getting dirty watching as the rain creates erosion and making great observations of what happens as it rains down on our land masses. 

More pictures

More pictures

Islandwood update.

Greetings from Islandwood.

We are having a fantastic time. So many great experiences and activities I can't even count.  From the floating classroom to the suspension bridge to the harbor to the living machine. These kids are having an amazing time.

They are also doing a great deal of bonding and getting to know each other. I have seen some interactions that a week ago I would not have thought possible. Supporting each other in ways that make me proud.

I know that your kids are going to have many stories when they get home and it will be hard for them to contain their excitement. They may also be exhausted because there has been very little time during the day that they are not engaged and involved in some pretty awesome stuff.

Hope all is good back on the main land
Josh

Red Panda Report!

      SS (Social Studies): This week in social studies we finished our maps that we were making of imaginary worlds. We hung them up outside of the classroom for parents to look at during Curriculum Night!
      Reading: This week in reading we read February Tale and then discussed it. We made
 character maps and timelines about it. We also learned skills for writing about reading!
      Science: This week in science we learned about the layers of earth and took Cornell notes. We also recorded the growth of our plants which were going through the "Water Cycles" that we made out of cups, soil, and most importantly, water!
      Theater: This week in theater we memorized the second half of Puck's speech and we did AUDITIONS! The auditions were for parts in A Midsummer Nights Dream!                       
      Other: This week we came up with a team name: the Red Pandas! We also went to an Islandwood presentation where we learned a lot and people from Islandwood came and answered questions from us!
      

Greeting Room S306 Families!

I am Thea Galante, mother of Reed Galante, and will be one of your Room Parents supporting Mr. Hill for this school year.  If anyone else would like to be a Room Parent along with me, please step up!  There is a Room Parent orientation Monday, 10/05, at 9:45am in the overflow lunchroom (cafeteria).  If you are not sure, come along and hear all about it!

S306 will always be grateful for parent volunteers and donations (food, craft supplies, etc) around classroom events, parties, Colonial Days, etc.  Be on the look out for a Sign Up Genius a few times during the year. 

"Thank you" to all the parents who were able to attend curriculum night and filled out the info sheet I passed around.  I will use the information to create a Shutterfly S306 homeroom class site.  Only members can access it, so shared class pictures and other personal info to help communication, like email addresses and phone numbers, are protected.  It is a great place to store pictures throughout the year from various activities (field trips, parties, classroom events, etc) for possible use in the yearbook and 5th grade graduation events.  You will find a calendar which will generate email reminders (occasionally!) for important dates (picture day, test dates, field trips, class parties, performances, etc).

If you were unable to attend or the sheet did not reach you, please email me:

Parent name(s)
Email address(es)
Phone numbers - indicate if OK to text - Yes or No
Can you help with classroom activities - Yes or No
Can we add you to the Shutterfly site - Yes or No
OK to share photos of your student on the Shutterfly site - Yes or No

I hope to have the site live by the end of this weekend.  You will receive an email from Shutterfly inviting you to join the site.  You can always opt out later if you find the reminders are not useful or just one parent wants to receive emails.  Let me know!   Hopefully this will help keep everyone "in the loop" of Cascadia and S306 activities!  Thanks, Thea

Email contact: ptgwhiz@aol.com
Cell: 206-295-3486 

Red Panda Reading Reviews

Tour the Natural World in a Single Tower
Author: Corrinne Iozzio
By: Yoshi Takeno
      The article is set in a tower, that is 2,067-ft. You start on the bottom layer(the Ocean) and wind your way up through the tower. People who live in cities are 40% more likely to develop mood disorders, a walk in nature can change that.
       It should have more paragraphs and a better desription of the setting and the people who designed it.

The Hunt

The Hunt

By Andrew Fukuda

Review by Yuena Kim
       The Hunt takes place in an apocalyptic future where a  war supposedly destroyed everywhere on earth except America.
       After the war, vampires rule the country. The vampire citizens believe that hepers (humans) are all extinct because as soon as the war ended, hepers were pounced on and eaten. This gives the hepers in hiding a quite a disadvantage
because any scent of sweat or inability to run very fast ends up in either suspicion or the heper getting eaten.
      The main character is Gene, and he is a heper. He is seventeen years old, and so far, no one has figured out that he is a heper. the other main character is Ashley June and (spoiler alert) she is also a heper. Ashley June figured out that Gene is a heper., though Gene doesn't know that, and doesn't know that Ashley June is also a heper.
      Because the citizens do not particularly like the Director(leader), the Director hosts a Hunt, where he revealed that he has kept hepers in capitivity. A few lucky citizens will be chosen to hunt them down. The hepers will be released in the wild with a twelve hour head start. Every vampire wants to be chosen because no one has tased a heper before.
      Unluckily, both Gene and Ashley June get chosen, with a couple of others. At the capitol, Gene makes friends with the hepers in captivity, and he tells them about the Hunt.
      At the end, everyone in the capitol finds out that Gene and Ashley June are hepers and Gene and Ashley June Escape and stop the Hunt.

I only gave The Hunt three stars because, all the events were predictable, there wasn't a big climax, and I personally don't like paranormal fiction.

Islandwood updates

Hopefully you have submitted all your IslandWood paperwork.  If not, please get it to us immediately!  The price for the trip is $310 per students.  If you feel comfortable, consider adding extra for our scholarship program.  We are committed to making sure every student can go on this trip regardless of need.  If you feel that you will need a scholarship, please contact your homeroom teacher immediately and we will make arrangements for a partial or full scholarship.

If you need a paper copy of the IslandWood paperwork, please feel free to let me know and I can print it for you.

Week 1 Update

Weekly update 1

Homeroom

SS: This week in social studies we are learning about maps. Each group of three is creating their own cool map, complete with a key, cardinal directions, 3 land forms, and some even have longitude and latitude!
Science: This week in science we are learning about the water cycle and how it helps the environment. We did an activity where we were water molecules and we created a timeline of our life, and then we wrote a story about it.
Reading: We wrote book reports this week.
Theater: This week in theater we met Heather Hawkins and we learned Puck's speech in A Midsummer Night's Dream!

A special thank you to Emilia F and Emma for updating today's blog.

Schoolology Login

We are using a new system this year to connect with parents and students about course work and class information. It is called Schoology and every student will have their own login. I will be using this in conjunction with the blog so you may need to check both.

I hope to be able to use Schoology to enrich classroom activities. It will include assignment information, grades, interactivity for the students and more. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about Schoology but remember this is the first time we are using this system, so please be patient.

Parents and guardians will need to create an account to login to Schoology using an access code. You can find your access code by logging into the Source and selecting Schoology Access Codes from the left menu. When it is available you will need to Login by going to http://ps.seattleschools.org.

Here is a link to a how to login that may help you get access.

Islandwood Information

My homeroom is going October 12th through the 15th along with Ms. Savage and Ms. Underdahls classes.

I am very excited to be going to Islandwood as a fifth grade group this year. Here is a link to their website. It has lots of information and pictures if you are wondering what to expect.

If you did not receive the packet of forms to fill out, click here to download that information.

Classroom Supply List and Money for Supplies

As a team the fifth grade teachers have opted for a two part system for supplies this year. Below is a short list of supplies that we would like to ask every 5th grader to bring in. We are also asking for a check for $30 so that individual teachers can get specific things for their classrooms (please make out to Cascadia Elementary). For me, I have purchased spiral notebooks for science and other science type things. If you are having trouble with the list or money please feel free to contact me because we do have scholarship money available.

SUPPLIES REQUESTED TO BE BROUGHT IN BY EACH STUDENT:

 1 pkg. lined paper

4-black hard-cover composition notebooks

Large pack of Ticonderoga #2 pencils

1 flash drive

at least one package of thin Expo dry-erase markers

2 highlighters

1 box of tissues

1 box of cleaning wipes

Thank you so much for your support.

This is an email to each family in Mr. Hill's class.

Dear Families,

My name is Mr. Hill and I am your child’s teacher this year. My goal is to create an open conversation about your student’s education so please feel free to contact me with any questions related to school. My contact information is listed below and I prefer email but and will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

I am one of three teachers that are working in a team. Mrs. Underdahl, Mrs. Savage and I will be working together to fulfill all the 5^th grade academic requirements this year. We will also be complemented by a fantastic group of art, P.E. and music teachers

I am excited to be working with your child and I look forward to teaching science, social studies and reading this year. Below is a link to the state website that shows Washington State Standards. It has a lot of information and is searchable. In Science we are currently transitioning into the Next Generation Science Standards.

Homework:

Although I won’t be assigning regular homework for science or social studies, students will be expected to be reading nightly. I suggest a minimum of 15 minutes and I expect that is pretty light for most students. They will also be asked to fill out a short review for books they read and I will require they turn one of these in per week.

                                 

My background is in business and design so I hope to bring real world situations to every class period. I feel this helps students to make connections to their future. I have my masters in teaching from Willamette University in Oregon and am licensed to teach, elementary education and both math and science at the middle school level.

Please check out this blog regularly for classroom updates, student work and current events. The address is http://rooms306.blogspot.com. Thank you for this opportunity to work with your child and I look forward to hearing from you.

Joshua Hill

jdhill@seattleschools.org

206.252.5914, ext. 2-5802

http://www.k12.wa.us/Science/Standards.aspx

The room

Here is room S306. No tables yet and I am hoping to get them before school starts:)