Last Day of School--thanks for a great year!

Thank you all for a wonderful year in Strawberry Creek.

Photos of some of the main events of the day are below.

We started the day admiring the Strawberry Who poems, a poem for each person in the class, that included one line from each person in the class to appreciate and describe that person.  We chose our favorite lines from the poems to share at opening circle.  You can read these at the bottom of this post.

We also had an informal "Pet Day," with Nora's chick Yellow, Sophie's turtle Sailboat, and Anne's bunny Patch visiting us.  At the end of the day, we celebrated with ice cream sundaes.

Each student brought home a packet called Strawberry Writing, with fiction, poetry, and observation writings from all of the students, compiled by Jeff. Check it out!

Student portfolios can be picked up starting this Thursday, June 21.  Please contact us to arrange a convenient time. They will be stored safely at school and can also be retrieved when school begins in September.

Our sincere thanks for a wonderful year together, and for all the appreciations and generous, thoughtful gifts. We hope you have a great, relaxing, and meaningful summer break!

All school assembly

 Strawberry and Cerrito Students with their "Dresher" instruments (being filmed too)!

 Group dance

 Free form dance

 Uh, oh.  Hat stealing too!

 Presentation of the Walk-A-Thon donation to What-If - a whopping $2,000.00 and a bag of small toys for the kids in Haiti.

 Watching The (super cool) Gold Rush puppet show!

 Performances by Strawberry students for Talent Friday

 Da Diamond - a movie filmed by Strawberry students on their breaks over the past few weeks.

 The cast, crew, director, producer, technical support and personal trainers for Da Diamond!

 

Strawberry Who

Amelia who is the keys at a piano
Hannah who is a great hat protector
Sima who is expertly exciting young experimenters
Charlotte who is a cute tiny kitten
Tyrrell who is as fast as lightning
Jesse who is a best friend and knows how to put a smile on your face and make your day
Anika who is very good at soccer and is kind
Anne who can always be heard saying, "Me booonnneeeey!"
Luka who can draw like the devil
Aya who I wish were my sister
Sam who is Riley’s twin
Shunyata who has rings from India
Meg who is in my carpool
Mia who is a sweet, comforting, great person
Viv who has mix-match sneakers
Max who wears the llama crown (llamaca)
Riley who is best cameraman ever
Milo who is his very own element
Sophia who is an excellent hat stealer
Jeff who is Fort Ross and burritos
Selihome who is like a model
Nora who relishes a debate or game of hat chase

Music Rehearsal and Last Buddy Time

• Musical performance:  The class will be performing music this Friday, June 15 at 10:00 a.m. at our end-of-year school assembly, and you are invited.  
• No extended day this Friday, so please pick up your student between 2:15-2:30 p.m.
• Portfolio Binders available for pick up at TBS next Thursday.

Paper Bags Coming Home Today
The students cleaned out their files and storage cubby.  While student selected work and teacher selected work are coming home later in the portfolio binder, there are some gems in the the bags to sort out:  Writer's books, science activities . . .  

Schedule Tomorrow: Our day tomorrow includes sharing our appreciation poems, watching The (super cool) Gold Rush, the All School Assembly, a student movie and other short performances, and culminating with a party after lunch. 

Music Rehearsal

 

Buddies - Popcorn, movie and play time!

 Strawberry & Laurel Buddies!

Reminders:

• Musical performance:  The class will be performing music this Friday, June 15 at 10:00 a.m. at our end-of-year school assembly, and you are invited.  
• Paper bags:  Please remind your student to bring in a paper grocery bag to collect their work.  School work not in the academic portfolio will begin coming home tomorrow.  You may pick up their portfolios after Wednesday, June 20.
• No extended day this Friday, so please pick up your student between 2:15-2:30 p.m.

Homework:

Fourth grade math

Practice multiplication facts for 10 minutes per day

Final Dream House work is due tomorrow.  Part 2 of the Dream House Project was due today, however some students have more to do to complete their project.

(download here, download more graph paper here)

• Add up the area of all the rooms and halls to find the total area of your house.
• Add up the sides of the house to find the perimeter of your house.
• Use the “Budget Update” information to figure out the total cost of your house, and how much money you have leftover.
• Complete paragraphs 2 and 3, rest of packet, and draft of floor plan. 

Final 5^th Grade Math Homework - looks like a lot, but it's not so bad...

Assigned 6/13/12, due tomorrow

Write me a 1-2 page, typed or neatly handwritten letter about your year in math. Here’s a reminder of what we studied this year:

Place Value: staircase, Marcy Cook Smart Board activities, etc.

Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division: algorithm and other strategies

Geometry: shape names, volume, perimeter, area, angles, etc.

Charts, Graphs, “Growth Patterns”

Word problems (i.e. “problems of the week”)

Fractions, Decimals, and Percents (Show Me 1/2)

Probability (PIG)

Mental math, mental math, and more mental math

We did homework every night, took notes, participated in mini-lessons, did worksheets, worked with partners, worked alone, raised our hands, came to the Smart Board, took tests, and much more.

Tell me what you liked and didn’t like, what was hardest and easiest, and what goals you have for next year. I recommend that you cross things off this sheet after you write about them, so you can make sure you got to more than just one or two.

Science experiments

Reminders:

• Musical performance:  The class will be performing music this Friday, June 15 at 10:00 a.m. at our end-of-year school assembly, and you are invited.  
• Paper bags:  Please remind your student to bring in a paper grocery bag to collect their work.  You may pick up their portfolios after Wednesday, June 20.
• No extended day this Friday, so please pick up your student between 2:15-2:30 p.m.

Homework:

Science experiments, due tomorrow

Most students finished their writing up their lab reports in class, but a few students need to finish writing them.  You can download a sheet here, and a sample experiment here. Details below.

Fourth grade math

Practice multiplication facts for 10 minutes per day

Part 2 of the Dream House Project, due Wednesday,  June 13 

(download here, download more graph paper here)

• Add up the area of all the rooms and halls to find the total area of your house.
• Add up the sides of the house to find the perimeter of your house.
• Use the “Budget Update” information to figure out the total cost of your house, and how much money you have leftover.
• Complete paragraphs 2 and 3, rest of packet, and draft of floor plan. 

Science experiments

Students practiced scientific inquiry by observing worms last week and coming up with questions and hypotheses about them.  After carefully planning their experiments, today students conducted the experiments and wrote up their observations, data results, and conclusions.  Many students made quantitative observations and made graphs of their data.  Tomorrow we will complete the steps of the scientific method, when students give a 2 minute presentation with their partner to communicate to classmates their experiment, results, and conclusions.

See some photos below of the varied experiments students tried!