Friday

March 14, by Christian R.


Test! Test! Test! We have two tests we have to do! Here is what we have to do: language arts, and spelling. Today we had an Assembly for people that achieved well in school during the second trimester. It was mostly for Citizenship, Honor Roll, Principal's List, and Most Improved. I got Citizenship. There were over 30 Parents at the assembly. It looked like some moms almost cried. Oh, did I mention that we are getting our report cards? We are so anxious to get our report cards.

At 8:30 in the morning, Mr.Kootman came to get us. When we first got in the class we started to do our math at 8:45. But if you're a homework checker you have to check other's homeowork. First, we do our morning work; just easy work on very easy problems. Next, we did our lesson on "Estimate Sums and Differences." It was easy at first, then Mr.Kootman went hard on us. Then, we did our math packet on chapter 20.1. Mr.Kootman gives us probably 10 minutes. When we are doing our math packet Mr.Kootman sends people to the computer.

For Language arts, we took out our language arts book. Then we got on top of our desks and we did Handing-Off. Handing-Off is where we get on top of our desk and ask anybody in the classroom a question about our weekly story. We have to ask something that is in the story that we read. In class we are reading Anne Frank:Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank was captured and took to a concentration camp. She died in one. It is not because they did bad things to her. Did you know that she died from a disease? Afterward, We went to lunch recess. Me and my friend like to play Hand-Ball. Our recess is only fifteen minutes. Afterwards, Mr.Kootman read a book that is called The Report Card. It is a great story and very funny. A character in the book, Nora, got bad grades on purpose.

Before PE we passed out homework to the owners. Then came the report cards. Most people got good grades, and some got okay grades. I was one of those who got good grades. The good grades were A's and B's,C's. And the bad grades were D's and F's.

We earned PAT this week by paying attention and following directions in class. For our PAT time we got to play whatever we want. It is almost like we are having recess all over again. Only at 2:00 we have PE. We usually play war ball. It is very exciting once you get used to it. The rules are: No hitting above the waist, if you get out you can stand in line or run three laps, And the most important rule is to very honest and have fun.

Monday

March 13, by Kianna

LEPRECHAUNS ATTACKING! LEPRECHAUNS ATTACKING! St. Patrick's day is coming on March 17th. I can't wait until St. Patrick's so I can pinch people and they can pinch me. Hey, come closer, closer,closer o.k. stop... if you hide your green-shirt, and somebody pinches you, you can GET double pinches.

At ~ 8:45 every morning,we do math. The lesson we did was: 20.1 the first lesson of the chapter. The lesson was on ADD & SUBTRACT DECIMALS. For some people in my class, the lesson was review. Mr. Kootman was angry while he was teaching the lesson. Some kids just don't understand how math is really important in life! But I do. Afterwards, we did our math packets. Some of the problems from the math packet were: $23.67-$15.16=; $45,83+$56.20=m Or something like those problems. After the math packet, we took a quick test on what we learned from our math book and our packet.

Once that was done, we reviewed a lesson from our CLAS book. CLAS stands for Comprehension Language Arts Skills. The lesson we did was "Double Negatives & Contractions." Instead of doing the lesson we reviewed it as a whole class. We reviewed the lesson on our smart board. A smart board is really smart.... it's almost like the Internet, and a paint section on one whole board. Double negatives are like He doesn't have no homework. Which means he really has homework.

Once we finished our CLAS book, we did reading. The story we did in our Open Court Reading book was, Anne Frank: A Diary Of A Young Girl. The story, Anne Frank: A Diary Of A Young Girl is about Anne Frank and her family who had to moved to Holland just to escape the Nazis. So, they went to a man named Mr. Van Daan's building office. They stayed there for 2 years. Afterwards, they stayed in a building called the Secret Annexe. Their room was messy.... well, they thought it was messy, so Anne Frank and her daddy decided to clean the attic. Nobody ate because they thought that their room was messy and they wanted it to feel just like home.

Next, we went out for recess. Every time the 4th-6th graders go out for recess, most of the time the boys play football or basketball. But lots of boys from Mrs.Polyascko's class play handball. And they did the same thing at lunch recess too. But that's fine with them of course. If Mrs.Gilstrap (our Principal) see someone playing with a football on the black top, they will be in trouble, or they will be kicked out of school.

After lunch recess, we always read our class book. This time our class book is called The Report Card by Andrew Clements. To my class and I, his books are really interesting. Sometimes his books is a text to self connection because some kids in the world get very bad grades. This book is about a girl named Nora that is really smart. When Nora was 3 years-old, she knew how to do an 500 piece puzzle. No 3 year-old can do a 500 piece puzzle. But at school she was the only smart kid in her class, but the only thing Nora wanted was attention. The thing that Nora did was she got bad grades on purpose so she wouldn't be different.

When we were doing Minerals, (in our science book). We learned that diamonds are the hardest mineral ever. Also, nothing can scratch a diamond, only a diamond can scratch a diamond. Kids in my class have lots of rocks, like: hard, shiny, soft, and lots of others. If you want to see some rocks go outside and look for some.

In Social Studies, we shared our mission projects. Only three people shared their mission. A mission is like a church. But it doesn't look like a church you always go to every Sunday. I did mine on the 18th mission. The 18th mission was San Luis Rey de Francia. This mission was one the last missions to be founded. The person that founded this mission was Fermin Lasuen. Three kids in my class did an amazing job. The kids were, Diego, Aiko, and Jackson. Aiko did San Luis de Francia the 18th mission. Jackson did Santa Cruz the 12th mission. Mr.Kootman was shocked when he heard some amazing presentations from his students. He said, " Hey guys... I'm... so thrilled that you remember all that information. And also, you guys made some good missions. I was actually, about to cry." Everybody in the whole classroom was so amazed, when Mr.Kootman said he was about to cry.

After Social Studies, my class and I went out for P.E. The game we played was war-ball. If you don't know what war-ball is it's like dodge-ball. So if you want to play a game then, go outside,with your family or friends, and play some war-ball (dodge-ball). HAVE A GOOD ST.PATRICK'S DAY!!

Thursday

March 10, by Reina

SUB! SUB! Today the class had a substitute named Ms. Erickson. I personally don't know if Mr.Kootman was supposed to be here, because he was at a meeting on Thursday and Friday about technology. (The meetings took up the whole day).

For morning work the class did our Fraction Packet, pg.17,19 and 21 (I didn't finish it all). Afterwards we had a fire drill, a Brain Pop movie, and then we did 19.5 and 19.6. "Use Logical Reasoning" was 19.5 and "Relate Mixed Numbers and Decimals" was 19.6. We also did 19.5 and 19.6 in our math packet (at least I did 19.6. I don't know if we were supposed to though!) An example of Relate Mixed Numbers and Decimals is 2 and one fourth is equal to 2.25. Pink computer group, my computer group, went on the computer while the class was doing math work.

Next we had recess. I walked around the track with my friends, Sami and Arabelle. To close math we had a math quiz on Converting Improper Fractions. I have to say it was pretty easy for me! When the class finished we did our Vocabulary for the week which were concentration camp, stifled, confide, quarters and ration. We also did a power point on the vocab words. For spelling we had a spelling pre-test. I guess the words were words that end with "y". I got 20 out of 20.

To mark the end of the morning we had lunch. On the menu today was chicken nugget things. In the cafeteria there's this new thing where if your class is the quietest you get to go to the tables outside the next school day. And if you are the quietest all month you get a pizza party! This lunch we didn't win though. After lunch we had lunch recess. I walked the track (again) with Sami and Arabelle, half a mile this time!

Finally, we got back to the class and read the class chapter book, The Report Card. In this chapter,fifth grader Nora took an IQ test and tried to get every 3 out of 10 wrong. Lastly, we played dodge ball for P.E. After a couple minutes of playing we picked up our bags and went home.


Wednesday

March 12, by Austin

OH NO! The report cards are coming! Today we got report cards. When we got in the classroom we did our morning work and then we corrected it. We are going to have a math test on mixed numbers and we were reviewing problems from the math test. We are reading about The Dairy of Anne Frank and we watched a Brainpop video about Anne Frank. It was kind of like the story.

We had to do a mission project. Half of the class built a model and every body did a good job on their mission project. During recess I played football and i made a touchdown. We have started science finally! We took a science quiz and it was an open book quiz. Mr.Kootman gave us seven Brainpop videos. We watched one about decimals. Then we had to go to yoga and Mr.Kootman was passing out money. Then we had to roll up our mats and we left.

Then we read a story in our Open court book The Dairy of Anne Frank. It was during World War ll and Anne was hiding in a little room with her mom and dad. They had to wear a lots of clothes because they were trying to escape from the Nazis. We are going to be selling cookies to raise money for our school. Jackson got to do his mission project and he gave a lots of information on his project. I liked his mission. We won a contest for lunch and we get to eat out outside.

Then we did our class book about pronouns. Then we read our book. It is called The Report Card and is about a little girl who wanted to get bad grades. We watch a brainpop about camouflage that was really funny. When we were watching a Brainpop video a fire drill happened. We had to go outside and it felt like fifteen minuets. When the fire drill was over we finished our Brainpop video.Then we went out for PE and we played warball. Most of the people got out and to get back in the game you had to run three times around the courts. When the game was over we went back to the classroom to get our report cards to take home and to get signed.

Then after that, we got backpacks and waited in line to leave. Mr.Kootman said we can leave and thats what we did the whole day.

Friday

March 3, 2008- by Max


Buy some magazines, come on, I know you want to. We are selling magazines for a fundraiser, we can get a lot of prizes. In math we did test review, we are doing fractions in this chapter. After the test we did 2 Brainpop videos!! Then we did a spelling pretest on double consonant words. A lot of people did well and got 100%s. Next we learned about prepositions, prepositions are a relation of place and location words. Then we did another Brainpop video, I can't believe it. At recess I played football with Hunter, Nic, Connor, James, and Demar.

Next we read our anthology book, our story is The Big Wave. It is about a boy named Jiya, and his parents die in a tidal wave. Then we did our vocabulary and clues chart, that is when we find the definition for all of our vocab words and figure out the genre and the author. Mr. Kootman says the clues chart is a good idea because it helps us learn about the story before reading it. Then we explained response to literature, we explained it because we are having a star writing test tomorrow. Afterwards Mr. Kootman handed out a worksheet called May the Force be with You, we didn't get to it because it was time for lunch. For lunch recess I played football with the same people.

When we got back into the room we read The Report Card. In The Report Card Nora's mom and dad get mad at her because of her bad grades. Then they call the school to discuss her grades. So the parents and teachers have a meeting about it. Next, we finally got the science page. When we finished it we did another science page, this science page was about water vapor.

Afterwards we had another Brainpop video, WOW! This is a really good day for Brainpop videos. The reason why was because we got over the line in our marble jar. If we get over the line we get some Brainpop videos, and extra play time. Finally we cleaned up the room, packed up and walked, rode, and got on the bus to go home and that was my day.

February 29, 2008- by Charlotte


PRIZES! PRIZES! PRIZES! The first thing my class did was go to an assembly. The assembly was about a magazine sale. Last year we had to sell 100 magazines to get all the prizes! That's a lot isn't it?! But, this year we just had to sell 15 magazines to get all the prizes! That is pretty cool huh!

Next we came in and the homework checkers checked our homework. Then we did our daily math. Today we did MAKE A MODEL! When making a model the[down denominator up numerator]denominator is always is how many parts there are.The numerator is how many shaded/unshaded parts there are. For example...5/8 this is five eights. So there are 8 parts,and 5 shaded/unshaded parts.

Then we moved onto language arts. In language arts we read ''McBroom And The Big Wind.'' It has lots and lots of humor!!!!!!!!! Guess what the kids names are! Its FUNNY!!!! It is... willjillhesterchesterperterpollytimtommarylarryandlittleclarinda! That is lots of kids names too!That's a long name isn't it? After that we took a test. It was a tiny bit hard... okay a little bit harder... okay a lot. but I got through it!

After that we lined up to go to... music! We learned Dynamics. Dynamics is the volume of the sound. For example .........!!!!!!!!!!!!! see the . are soft, ! are loud, so that is Dynamics.

YUM! Then we went to lunch. We had a choice between nachos, uncrustable P B and J,yogurt and graham crackers,or my personal favorite, Bean and Cheese Burritos! Then we had a half an hour to play outside, I played in the spider, and hung on the push up bars. I was playing with my friend Joey.

Then we read The Report Card. It's about a girl with a lot of knowledge and she got D's and C's [she just wants to be average] so she does not want to read them! She tried to get D's and C's on purpose so she's not the center of attention!

We did not have PE, Social Studies,or Art, so that is what we did today, see you next time!

Wednesday

February 27, 2008- by Deisha



Tomorrow is the District Spelling Bee; I'm so excited! The worst part is hundreds of people will be watching; it's going to be scary! Eek! For today, first we did QR and MR. QR means quick review and MR means mix review. Quick review means that there is a few quick problems like 123 times 8. Mix review means that there are some problems that you did in a lesson from your unit and it's also some quick problems mostly word problems, but there are more problems on MR than QR.

Today we are learning Compare and order fractions. For example: 2 out of 3 2/3 first you have to order that. Then you have to compare the fractions and find the equivalent denominator.

I bet most of us can't wait for yoga tomorrow. Some people don't like yoga, so if Mr.Kootman forgets and someone says "it's yoga!" the others will say oh man. But, I'm always ready for anything anywhere. When math was over it was recess. I know everybody loves recess especially when you get to see your friends. Afterwards, we had to take out our Open Court reading book and we read "McBroom and the Big Wind" that was such a funny book, that type of book is called a tall tale.

Then we opened our CLAS book. CLAS means comprehension language arts skills. We opened to a page called Exaggeration. On that page we had to read the sentences to see if it was exaggeration. I had to go to the office to see if I have everything ready for the spelling bee tomorrow.

We are all writing a summary about a book called "Arctic Explorer." It is about a man named Matthew who is an African American that learns Eskimo language and has to learn survival techniques. Mr.Kootman said we can type it so that's what most of us did. Then Mr.Kootman told me to do a blog so I was confused because I had to do a blog at the same time. That's hard because I think the summary is important but a blog is important too.

Next it was lunch time. It was okay but not as good it will be tomorrow. Some people think orange chicken is nasty, but that is their opinion; I think it's delicious. When we went for lunch recess it was better than snack recess because it is longer than snack recess. It was so hot I thought spring is coming real soon and I was right spring is coming March 21.

After that we were reading The Report Card by Andrew Clements; his books are always interesting. We read until it was library which is at 1:30. Mostly boys get more of the interesting books, but girls get interesting books too. Then we had to open to our social studies book to page 61. Yesterday we learned about Celebrating Mexican Independence because California territory was Mexico's before we got part of it. So they celebrated Mexico's independence from Spain.

When that was done we had to go home. As usual it's pretty boring when we go home. I like school better than going home because you learn stuff and I like education subjects. Some people ride the bus to go home and if you live in Deluz than you can walk home. Some people go to MC CS, which is a daycare, if your parents don't let you stay home until they come back.

So we went home like always and that's not really fun for me. Mr.Kootman wants us to work on our Mission project when we get home so I better work on it. I bet we all had a great time at school get home safely!

February 26, by Diego



Our class was lucky to get three of our students in the school spelling bee! Deisha even went on to the district bee!

Our mission projects are do in two full weeks. I'm doing my project on the mission called Santa Clara De Assis and I am going to do my project out of foam.Today, we started out with some of our new fraction packet. I cant believe I finished three pages from the packet from our new fraction packet. I Also got them all right. By the time that we finished the packet and by the time we finished correcting it,it was time for yoga. When the time came around we went to yoga but we just happened to be ten minutes late. Lucky,we were the first ones inside the cafeteria. The younger kids had an assembly while we had to do work. After we came back from yoga we went to recess.

When we came back in from snack we had our writing trimester test for the year. We had to summarize an article about beavers. I had learned a lot about beavers I had learned that a lot of things about their body and their life. I still cant get over that because we did that from recess all the way to lunch. After the trimester test, I read with the class which was called McBroom and the Big Wind.

The story was about a man who owns a one acre farm and with the best soil in the country. McBroom also has eleven kids; their names were Will, Jill, Peter, Polly, Tim, Tom, Mary, Larry and little Clarinda. He claims his wife is one of the best cooks in the world, but he says that her biscuits are awful heavy and their older son Peter put the heavy biscuits against the door and the biscuits kept the door closed. The only bad part was the roof that they had just got and then built of every little nail that set on the boards filled in every beaver hole in the county. But one day a big wind came and at the end and McBroom slipped in the hole and thats how he broke his leg.

On our way to to lunch, I was talking to my friends and I also had the pleasure of sitting outside. As we were eating our lunch a crow dropped a strawberry lollipop on to the floor. It almost sounded like a Cannon going off inside your ear. Almost everybody got so scared they almost flew to space. After lunch me and my friends discovered a big hole in the ground. We spent the whole recess digging for different things but so far we will keep on digging.

After lunch we got fifteen more minutes for the writing test on the beavers I had talked about earlier. After that we read a book called The Report Card. So far we learned about a girl named Nora. She is a very smart girl but she does not like much attention so she likes to copy other people because she just wants to be like the other boys and girls. When she brought her report card home she had to show her parents those C's and D's that she got on her report card just like the other kids. She had refused to show her parents the bad grades that she had got on her report card. Her sister Anna got all A+s but she had got an A minus in drivers Ed. Her brother, who is in middle school, had grades that were good but his grades were not as good as his sisters. He had gotten all A's and one B and his parents got mad at him! Now they said it was Nora's time.

After reading The Report Card we did our CLAS book which is short for Comprehension and Language Art Skills. We started to learn about conjunctions and interjections. We learned a few words for a interjection like loud phrases like oh no! Happy Birthday! After that we did some social studies on the missions. At the end of the day we went out side and played catch with tennis balls for about for five minutes, but those were short five minutes. Mr.Kootman said maybe we could finish tomorrow. Now I could go to day care and I will see you tomorrow and I can't wait for HOT time tomorrow!