Financial Literacy – Our Newest Donor’s Choose Adventure!!!!! Help us get our laptops!

Hello Everyone!

It has been a VERY busy week around here- we are completing our first round of the PARCC test. Everyone did really well !!!!

Financial Literacy

We want to share our newest Donor’s Choose Grant! We are working on securing 4 laptops with cases! This much needed technology will help us embark on our financial literacy project! Financial Literacy is a skill that is often lacking in adults- did you know that over half of all American’s are in serious credit card debt? We have pledged to become informed in all things money, credit, loans, and budgets! Help us reach our dream by checking out our project proposal here is the link;

http://www.donorschoose.org/pbaldocchi?rf=link-siteshare-2015-03-teacher_account-teacher_2246000

Until Next Week!

8th Grade Teaches 6th Annotation and Figurative Language Rapping!

Today Ms. B turned the tables on us and had 8th grade teach 6th grade annotation using a song! We used the song “Let it Go” from Frozen by Idina Menzel. We LOVE this song!!!!!! Each 6th grade  student buddied up with an 8th grade “teacher”. Here is a shot of all of us at the table.

We listened twice and then the 8th graders taught us how to go line by line – we extracted the meaning- it was FUN- like a game of Clue! Here are some shots of this

After we did this we had an awesome discussion about “letting go” and then we wrote!

Miss B also showed us a VERY COOL rap about the elements of figurative language! This way we can remember such things as plot, character, theme,etc!

In math the 8th grade is embarking on an art based unit to teach Phythagora Theory. More to come on this next week!

So much to say! Close read with 6th- narrative collage and linear equations! More too!

Hello! We just officially ended the busiest first quarter we have ever had since starting this blog! We made a promise today to get back to our weekly updates. We now have 6th grade joining us for a reading block and couldn’t be more thrilled! 🙂 In 6th we are working on hammering our basic reading skills and are just learning the close read method (annotation). Miss B devised a color coded system for this and- to date- we are just focusing on three main symbols. Here are on some shots of this using Miss B’s all time favorite book- The Day the Crayons Quit!

Close Reading with 6th Grade!

Megan Coyle Style Narrative Collage with 8th!

To wrap up our Forged by Fire novel we created a collage! Collage is a very intricate art for that uses a compilation of images to create an overall image and or portray a message. One artist who is known for her beautiful collage work is Megan Coyle. We studied Megan’s work and then selected a scene from the novel that spoke the most to us. Here are some shots of this and Danny going through the process of building he narrative collage.

Graphing Linear Equations and wrapping up slope !!

In 8th math we just completed a grueling and difficult unit on Linear Equations. Wow it was a tough one- we learned so much and are so excited to report that we can all graph an equation, find slope, and so much more!!!!!! We are a very hands on group that prefers visuals and doing vs sitting and listening to lecture. Here is a shot of the day we absolutely mastered and nailed graphing the equations! We mastered this skill through the use of a deceptively hard video game ” Rescue the Zogs”. This game was no joke- there were 10 levels that we had to progress through and each level was SO DIFFICULT! Here are some shots of this-

Evidence using Picture Books- 6th

Here are some shots of us using a great new book that that Miss Bought “Crankenstein”. This book is  hilarious – with Halloween approaching it was a PERFECT theme! Here we are learning about evidence. We used the amazing and rich illustrations in the book to point out evidence that supports the text.

See you next week! ❤

We are back! Close reading into this new year and do Newspapers lie?

Hello everyone! We hope you had a great summer- we did! We are back now for a new school year! We had some really sad changes at the start of the year. Our little school family was broke up- D.J. moved to Florida and Eva is now attending a different school, we miss them everyday and wish them the best ❤ ! On a happier note we have a new family member- welcome Isaiah! We are happy he is with us. Isaiah is a very talented athlete and writer. In fact I.J. (as we call him) is writing his own book! Here is a photo of the new book and our newest class author!

I.J. hard at work writing his book

Here is the rough draft- when he is done he is going to type it and try to get it published!

In fact we have all been focusing on writing. This year we all set personal goals and everyone has decided that this is the year of the author!!! Miss B found out this summer that she is having some of her poetry published in an anthology- we are SO EXCITED~~~~~ This has inspired us!

In order to become better writers we need to become better readers. We have been using the CLOSE READ strategy – Miss B plays  a song for us, we listen, then we get the lyrics, listen again and we annotate  and write all over the page. We dissect the song, discover the message and then off the song we write. Sometimes we are given a prompt and sometimes we free write based off our annotations and level of understanding of the text. We use common symbols so we can carry this with us throughout every subject matter. Our comprehension has skyrocketed and we really love this! Here are some photos of us hard at work and our board dedicated to CLOSE READ.

In a related subject we are learning about informational text. We all love fiction but understand that we need to learn how to gleam understanding  from non fiction texts as well. Miss B wrote a unit that uses newspapers to teach us about how to read, navigate, and understand informational text. We are also learning about awesome topics such as bias, if we can believe everything we read in the papers, and how connections are essential in learning and changing your life for the better. Here are some shots of this in action and a poster we made!

A new addition to our room is our featured writer of the month wall! Miss B has a new display that shows off our amazing writing! This month our featured author is Isaiah!

Isn’t his writing superb?!!!!

Yes- you are reading this correctly! We got another Donors Choose project funded!!!! This one was a gigantic one and affords Miss B the ability to teach art classes to all the 6-7- and 8th grade students! Yep- 150 of us will now get art class!!!!! We have been waiting for this day for as long as we have been at Graham! Come check out our art blog at http://www.grahamschoolgallery.wordpress.com

Until next week- PEACE!

Our Author Visit with Lesley Etherly!

Yes, thats a movie camera set up- yesterday was one of our best days EVER in room 108! We were the first kids ever at Graham to get a personal visit from a Chicago children’s book author, the one and only Lesley Etherly! You may recognize the name, we have been using her book, Baxter the Bully and Maxine the Meanie as part of our anti bullying reading buddies program. Mrs. B and Mrs. E also happen to be good friends and have known each other since Columbia College! We got to have donuts and pastries from our fantastic local bakery as we introduced each other and had a sit down Q and A session with Mrs. E!  Here are some shots of this ( we will tell you about the movie camera in a bit!) 

 

Mrs Etherly explaining how she got her ideas and inspiration for her books! ( Her own daughters and wanting to teach them social skills at a young age!) We loved getting to here about her family and life!

Renell asking her questions! D.J. and Danny listening-

We got to ask her all about the creative process as well- here are some shots of us discussing the writing process and how you can put your ideas to work for you!

 

After we talked to was time to get  down to business!!! Mrs. E brought her recording equipment in and filmed us reading her books. Each one of us read 2 lines from each book and she is going to cut and loop it together so it looks like a continuous movie! We are hoping to use this video footage to get these amazing books into CPS! We are also all getting copies of it and keeping it for our digital memory collection! Special thanks to DeJuan who was an awesome sound tech! 

Here is photos of the equipment! Mrs. Etherly’s hushand is a film maker so they have GORGEOUS equipment, We transformed our room into a set! It was so cool making a movie in our room! 

 

 

Sweet , right?!?

Here we are setting up the room

We also learned that the mic was super high tech and picked up the smallest of sounds so we learned the term “Quiet on set”

Here we are waiting to read and watching our peers get filmed! 

Here we are hard at work creating the collaborative reading film! 

This was such an amazing experience to get to film with the author who wrote the books we have been using!!!! After filming we were interviewed about bullies in our life. We also took a photo of each of us with Mrs. Etherly!

After lunch our third grade buddies came down to meet Mrs. E and she read us her books- this was fun!!!! Check out how much fun our buddies had- BTW they asked even BETTER questions than we did 🙂

 

 

 

We loved our visit with this very special person- it is days like this that makes us want to reach out and increase our plan to help others! Thank you for everything Lesley Etherly! 

Close Reading with John Lennon and Our Buddies Teach Us a Lesson!

We have so many amazing things going on that we are going to be doing 2 or 3 updates this week!

First off we have been faithfully implementing the “close read” strategy in our room. Close Read teaches you to think more critically about what you read. We love it!!! In order to spice things up Mrs. B uses a lot of songs for this strategy. To date we have been using current songs and rap but since we have been focused on pro-social behavior and anti-bullying we used one of Mrs. B’s favorite songs, Imagine by John Lennon- here are some shots of this!

After analyzing the song using annotation and discussion we decided that this short song packed a HUGE message. Here are some shots of us “picking apart” the lyrics ( above)

This week we worked hard planning our lesson plan for session 3 of our “Anti Bullying Reading buddies” – We are taking this very seriously and set up a lesson plan book like Mrs. B!

We based this week’s lesson off of Aesop’s Fable- “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. This week we decided to switch it up by making board games based off the game “Shoots and Ladders” Here are some shots of us working on our “Honesty Game of Snakes and Ladders”

So we got up to the room and guess what? Our buddies had a surprise for us!!!! They designed a lesson for us- we got to learn how to make friendship bracelets! We were more than happy to hold off on our plan and learn how to make the bracelets!!! Our buddies taught us the weaving technique – it was harder than it looked!!!! Our buddies were amazing teachers- here are some shots of us in action!

We had the BEST week and can’t wait to tell you about our special guest- until next time- peace!!!

Ethics, Marble Madness Fractions, and Baldocchi’s Book Club!!!!!

Hello Everyone and HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

We are thrilled – we had a GREAT week! This week 7th grade began fractions. We decided to take a different approach and Ms. B had us do activities with glass marbles to help us “see and do ” parts of a whole! We totally got it!!!! We also used two different colored marbles to signify fractions. Here are some shots of us doing the lab

 

We also had out book fair this week. Scholastic puts on our book fair. It is a great time!!! This year we had a really fantastic selection of book for teens! Miss B bought us each our own book! We got to choose any book we wanted and then we decided that we really liked the books everyone picked out so we had a GREAT idea!! We started our own book club! We are calling it Baldocchi’s book club. We are starting with our own book, when we finish we are going to write a rating on the inside of the front cover and then we are going to recommend it to someone in class. They will read the book and then repeat the process until we have read ALL 14 books! At the end of the year we get our original book back to take home as a remembrance of the school year! Here are some shots of us selecting our novels , our first book club meeting, and the first review!!!!

 

 

Tiffany choose and read “Jefferson’s Sons” by Kimberly Baker Bradley. It is a historical fiction novel about a founding fathers secret children!!!! A MUST read- plus it ties into 8th grade common core!!!

 

In 8th grade we are more than halfway through the novel “Freedom Writers” and we ALL passed the midterm!!!! This book has been amazing!!! EVERYONE loves this book! That has NEVER happened in our room!!!! This book serves as the perfect platform to discuss “real life” issues and situations. This past week we focused on ethical issues and explored our thoughts and ideas about raising children and how we interpreted quotes. Here are some shots of this!

 

Until next time we leave you with a challenge- START YOUR OWN BOOK CLUB!!!!!

 

Cherokee Booger Masks- An adventure in paint

The Cherokee Booger Mask Hi friends!!!! Its D.J. and Danny here! We are posting to tell you about our awesome social studies project we just finished!!!! The people we call the Cherokee Indians have lived in the southeastern mountains for hundreds of years.  They called themselves “Ani-yun-wiya” which is translated as “real people”.  The name Cherokee is a Euro-American corruption of the Creek Indian name for these people – “Teiloki” – which means “people of the different language”. The Cherokee people probably lived a pretty good life with plenty of game and fish and wild plants as well as the corn, beans and squash they grew.  That was until AD 1540 when the Spanish traversed their beloved mountains.  Then came the French and English with illnesses and prejudices for which the natives had no comprehension.  The Cherokees needed some help to ward off the perceived European wickedness and they got that aid with the development of the Booger Mask. These Booger Masks were made as grotesque representations of enemies or the Indians themselves and were worn during the Booger Dance to elicit humor about fearsome aspects of life.  It is quite likely that the natives made and used the masks before the arrival of the Old World invaders but there is no factual evidence of this.  The Booger Dance was normally preformed during the winter months so its association with ghosts and deities would not affect their crops. We needed to explore this further so we decided to make our own Booger masks!!!! Hey anything that wards off evil spirits can’t hurt right? Miss B brought in her watercolor paper and porfessional watercolors!  

 

We studied the masks and designed out own based off designs we saw 

Here is a shot of Danny working hard!

Here is a shot of the first phase- we taped the paper down so it would dry flat 

 

Since a true Booger Mask is topped with real human scalps we had to improvise- we cut twine and attached it with hot glue!

Here we are working 

Here is a close up- we really liked the effect that the jute twine gives!!!! Kind of like real hair!!!!

Here they are!!! 

Until next time! 

Sharpie Marker Tie Dye Project and Kid Blogging!

For this week’s art lesson Miss B wanted to try something she found on Pinterest! We worked really hard on behavioral and academic goals in order to earn the shirt making lab! We all finally made our goals and set off on an adventure we will never forget! 

First we needed to gather the needed supplies- we needed a white cotton t-shirt, rubbing alcohol, a set of Sharpie Brand permanent markers, cups, rubber bands, and an eye dropper. 

We began by sectioning off areas of our shirts by placing the cotton fabric over a cup and placing a rubber band around the rim of the cup.

After we had our areas sectioned off we drew abstract designs with the markers

Here is a close up shot showing this step

After we had our drawing complete we dropped 10-15 drops of rubbing alcohol on our circles and let it dry. As it drys the alcohol causes the ink in the marker to bleed and forms really awesome tie dye patterns!!!!! 

After the areas are dry we took off the rubber bands and let the shirts cure for a day with a sheet of cardboard in the shirts just in case!!!!

After a day Miss B heat set them in the dryer for 10 minutes and now they are ready to wear on our last day of school!!!!!

Check out our finished product! We LOVE them!!!!!

Kid Blogging

Today we created another blog! Kidblog.org is an amazing site that allows a teacher to create blogs for each student and link them all into one page. KidBlog is private and only the class is able to view and post comments. Our idea is that if we use these blogs instead of a traditional notebook journal we can learn the skills needed in order to better prepare us for high school and the technology dependent “real world”.  We posted our first entries today and are excited that we will be able to communicate with each other over the summer! Here are some photos of us creating our pages and writing our first post!

We are in the final stretch of the 2012-2013 school year – just two and half more weeks!!!!! Until our next post- see you!!!!

Our Trip to the Adler Planetarium

Yesterday was the final field trip for our sixth grade year 😦 We were happy and sad at the same time- our school year has gone so fast! It was a hot and steamy day here in Chicago! We were worried in the morning because of the rain but it went away and the sun finally peeked through! We are so fortunate to have such amazing venues only ten minutes away from school! Here is a shot of Kevin and D.J. on the bus!

Here is a few shots of all of us right when we arrived! We LOVED the view!!!!!

Here is a shot of just us-

Marshon was our art director today and picked our camera shots- check out the shots of the annex building!!!!

We checked out the” Man Enters the Cosmos”sculpture our front!

First we visited the Universe!

We attended a workshop on bending light rays and gravity.

We got to pretend we were visiting another universe! We also got to experience Infrared technology!

We also got to ponder to possibility of life on other planets!

We visited the Culture Center and got to experience a Pawnee Mud Hut. We learned that they had a system of reading the planets  and telling time by the sun!

We then traveled though time into the middle ages and saw and experienced  Galileo’s  instruments and telescopes as well as a medieval astronomy classroom!

After this we RAN upstairs and visited “Life on Mars”  and the Planets!!!! WE got to touch a real moon rock and see the Mars Rover!!!!

Our beautiful Earth!

After the Solar System we went to Space Exploration where we learned about Astronaut Lovell and got to see a replica of his bedroom and his footprint! We also got to see the world famous sphere and a space capsule! The Astronaut gear was awesome too!!!!

 

After we did a few other things we had a nice lunch on the lake where we bonded and discussed our amazing day!

 

Thanks for visiting and until our next adventure- ADIOS!