Working even harder
April 10
We haven't finished two of our TAKS tests this year. Our Science test will be on Thursday May, 1. However, we still have around 2 months of school, and we will approach each day like we have from August. The test is something we do, not our focus.
Today we talked about class structure and amended some of our consequences. Students will be assigned an essay if they are not following directions. They may need you to sign that essay if they need another reminder.
Thank you for all of your support at home.
Mar. 18th
We are in a pre-math era of the year, our students will be taking the Math TAKS test on Tuesday, April 8th. You should see an increase in the time spent at home on math homework, but they should still be reading at home as well.
In school we are still focused on thinking. We will be working on ongoing projects and challenging each other to think harder and deeper about their subjects. Students should work on applying themselves in all areas.
Mar. 3rd,
The week of the reading TAKS test is here. Our students, your children, are academically ready. Please help your child keep a regular schedule the next few days. Exercise (play) as much as possible, eat well and get enough sleep. Our test is on Wed.
Feb. 26th
A quick thought about classes. We have been working hard this week and last on paying attention to our thinking. In class we discussed higher level thinking, and as we work on various assignments in school we readdress the thinking aspect and see where we should be working: lower level thinking, medium level thinking or high level thinking. We have found that we never really rest for long in the low level areas, which explains why fifth grade can be challenging at times. Mr. Stevenson doesn't want an answer, he wants an explanation as to why that is the answer.
Next week will be an exciting week. Tuesday is election day. With highly covered (by the news) primaries taking place it should be interesting to see what the people of our state decide. Additionally, we will be taking our TAKS test on Wed., March 5th. Please make sure students are as ready as they can be. From home this includes: getting good sleep, and not disrupting the sleeping patterns too much this weekend; having good food for dinner the night before and breakfast the day of, plus snack or lunch if you send that to school; and having comfortable clothing. I always recommend that students wear at least three layers. A t-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, and then some sort of sweatshirt or sweater. That way they can control their own temperature as best as they can.
I hope everyone is looking forward to spring break coming up the following week. (Starting after school Friday, March 7th.) I know the students are ready for a break. Remember to be safe, have fun, and practive math in everyday situations.
Jan. 17th
For anyone who has been checking the website regularly, thank you. A note for today, the Science Fair boards will be up in the cafeteria until 6:00 for families to come and view them. The projects I have seen look good and hopefully we will have a few from our class represent Copperfield at the Austin Regional Fair.
Jan. 9th
I gave a book order form out yesterday. Orders are due in school by Thursday, the 17th. You can also order through me, online. There are several very good book deals, and special pricing. Look for sets of books or on sale ones. Just follow the link below and use the information to log on. Parents, you can use a credit card to pay online, or send a check or cash to school.
Scholastic Ordering
http://parents.scholastic.com/parentordering/login.jsp
Class User Name: MrStevenson
Password: scholasticorders
January 8th
Happy New Year. We are back in school and back in full swing.
Reminders - Science Fair is coming up NEXT WEEK. Projects are due on Wed., and judging and the fiar will be on Thursday. Students can do some of the project during science time (paper work parts) but should be mostly finished.
We are quickly approaching our TAKS season. The tests are pretty well spaced this year, our first one will be reading, and will be the week before Spring Break, Tuesday, March 4th. Students should be reading everyday at home.
Tuesday Folders went home today. A book order is available for anyone interested. Also, Ms. Santos sent home a flyer about the fifth grade maturation lesson that will happen on Thursday the 17th.
Dec. 21st
Thank you to all of the students and the parents who brought in wonderful food to share with our class. We had a great party on Thursday with a lot of home made goodies. For the parents that were able to take time and be with us, thank you, your help was greatly appreciated.
I hope everyone enjoys their break and has a lot of fun. Come back rested and ready to work on Monday, January 7th, 2008.
Dec. 17th
Last week before the holiday. I am looking forward to sharing food with everyone on Thursday. Please remember that parents are invited to spend some time with us, we will be hoping to eat around 11:45, which will be a nice break from our normal 1:05 lunch time.
Parents, please be aware of your student's science fair projects. They should be ready to start (or have already started) the experiment part (if applicable). Those will be due the second week we are back. It is a lot of work and will need some time, which is why they have had it for so long.
Dec. 9th
Getting ready for another week of school. There are two more weeks before everyone gets a break. We will have a full two weeks. This Tuesday, the 11th we will be taking our only TAKS practice test in Reading. It will be a testing procedure day.
We are also finishing up the three week grading term, so progress reports will be ready before the holidays. Lots of excitement going on as we anticipate the fun of no school and the inevitable holiday party. (Parent's, we are scheduled to celebrate at school on Thursday, Dec. 20th. More info to come.
Nov. 27
Science Fair Packets are going home today. There is a small slip of paper that needs to be signed as well, this paper shows all of the dates and when things are due. The project was set up to be tiered, so that they don't have to have it all finished on the due date in January, and end up working on it the last night.
Nov. 14
It has been a few weeks since things have been updated here. We've been busy at school. The students just finished a report for science about the Laws of Motion. I was impressed with the level of work. Some of the books that they created were donated to go to other classes at our school for other students to use. We recently started talking about electricity, which can be very exciting.
Science Fair info should be coming soon. It is not too early to start brainstorming ideas for projects.
Important new dates:
Nov. 19th - 20th - Copperfield Book Swap
Dec. 4th - GT Coffee Talk
Dec. 11th - TAKS Practice day - Reading. Our only reading day prior to the real test in the spring
Dec. 15th - PTO Event - Breakfast with Santa, followed by Winter Wonderland, games and food.
October 26
New info under RoboLab, science and Social Studies.
Remember, no school for you on Monday. I will be here working but you are off.
Tell me the secret word on Tuesday, the secret word is "Revolution." Don't tell anyone, it is a secret.
Have a great weekend.
October 23
New links added under science. We will be talking about Energy in school. We will not play with the fun roller coaster websites at school. You can at home.
October 22 PM
New photos under the photo link. Now that I have the files done I need to upload pictures that have been taken since these were.
October 22 AM
Two quick notes.
1 - We have CBAs this week. These are Curriculum based assessments. They are not TAKS work. These were developed by the district to check on how well the curriculum is being covered in all four major subjects. They are based on what we have been covering in class based on the 6 week plans that were also district developed. They are much shorter than TAKS tests, and we will be doing a lot of other work as well this week.
2 - New Website. The district purchased a user license for Pflugerville. We have a great new website called Nettrekker. It is accessible from home and at school. go to http://school.nettrekker.com/frontdoor/ the user ID and password are the same, both need to have CAPITAL LETTERS.
Login in as CESSTUDENTS, password is the same as the login.
Nettrekker is a safe search engine. Students can use it for fun or for school work. There are activities unser some of the websites when they just select a subject. Or they can keyword search. You can be specific by keyword searching in a subject. We will be intoducing this at school but we may not spend a lot of time on it yet.
October 16
Tuesday folders went home yesterday. I wanted to highlight the pink and green papers. Both were advertising educational oppurtunities for families to participate in.
The Green one was for a strengthening families workshop series, which will be on Nov. 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th and Dec. 3rd. All are from 5:30 - 8:00 and held at Pflugerville Elementary School.
The pink one was for Pfamily Research Night, held at your local high school, so we will be at Connally. It is next monday, Nov. 22nd. This will be a great place to learn about district resources to conduct research. Many new online sources are available now and this may be a good way to learn about them for you and your student.
October 12
I am adding a new section to the links called "Math Facts". It is important that fifth graders know their facts. If they need to be practiced there are a lot of different ways you can help. Enlist older siblings to help, quiz your student while driving in the car or anytime you have a chance or have them use traditional flash cards. If you would like to have them work online with facts there are a lot of sights that have games that are very much like using flash cards. I am linking a few of them for you.
October 10
Robolab - Our engineer from National Instruments, Angela, shared a voluntary homework assignment with you to think about and look up lego car directions. Remember what we talked about in class, we need a sturdy chassis, or frame, to support the car (the brick and the wheels). We are not focused on making a cool looking car, but a functional one.
Check out the Lego Mindstorms website for ideas, or do some safe internet searches (with parents permission) to find something else.
http://mindstorms.lego.com/
Extra sites to try
http://web.mit.edu/kbethke/www/Mindstorms_Quickstart.pdf
http://www.philohome.com/mindstorms.htm
October 8
Using Netstorage to access files from school at home.
http://netstorage.pflugervilleisd.net/netstorage/
Log on with your name and number like you would log onto a computer at school. You can upload or download files from school. Make sure you upload when you are done so that you can access your saved work when you come back to school.
Sept. 24
No one told me about trying to be an embalmer in ancient Egypt. If you try the game out, write a paragraph about it and turn it in for extra credit.
I did figure out the photos. So, now I have one new picture online. When I get some time I will work on resizing some more and try to add them a few at a time. Not sure how many I can have up at one time.
Sept. 21
Thank you to all the guest readers we had today.
One of our informative readers read about the process of mummification from ancient Egypt. For more fun, and maybe gross information, check out the following links.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/launch_gms_mummy_maker.shtml
The bbc one includes a game where you are the embalmer.
http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/kids/egyptmummy.htm
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/mummy/
http://www.mummytombs.com/main.egyptian.htm