Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Go to You Tube and see this very cute animal Christmas song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt-K5w1PFMo

Stay safe and warm. I'll see you next year.
Best wishes to you all.

love,

Mrs. Johnston and family

There was an updated Homework Calendar sent home

Wednesday, Dec. 3 there was an updated December Homework Calendar that was sent home. Second one was copied for you to have as parents. Students received one for their notebook too. There was also an outline that describes the LA for the month. Please ask you child to see the papers.

Secret Santa Gift Exchange

We will be having a Secret Santa Gift Exchange on Thursday, Dec. 18th in the afternoon. Please have gifts at school by Wed., Dec. 17th. The gift should be of value of no more than $10. Thank you for helping us celebrate the season.

Mountain School Photos

The Cascade Mountains are such a beautiful place to be at Mountain School. We enjoyed one beautiful day of sun.

And then it rained and rained.

Walking in the rain on the last day.

Mountain School Thank you to all the Chaperones!!!

Thank you to all the parent chaperones that took the time to attend Mountain School this year with Miss Warren's sixth grade class and our own. I appreciate all the dedication and effort that hiking in the rain with a bunch of fifth and sixth graders. Thank you once again.

Student Lead Conferences went well!

We made it through 28 Student Lead conferences. Congratulation to all students who successfully lead their parents through their accomplishments. I appreciate all the hard work that it took to finish the portfolios and all the work the students did to get their goal sheets finished and materials organized.

Thank you once again for coming and supporting this process and your child. I am looking forward to a great Winter quarter.

Sincerely,

Gracie Johnston

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm
Here is the link for the fun State Games that I was mentioning.

Socials Studies Goal of Learning U.S. States and Capitols

Here is a great fun way to meet your Social Studies Goal of learning our 50 States and their capitols. Play the fun games on Sheppard Software and learn them. These come with tutorials and easy to challenging games to learn almost any facts. Have fun learning and exploring.

Student Lead Conferences

There will be Student Lead Conferences in all 5th and 6th grade classes in our building once again this year.

Your son or daughter will be running the conference. He or she will be showing you their growth through a series of reports and graded assignments. Your child will also be sharing goals for the coming quarter and year. Many goals are reached when spoken or written and then read by those who love us. Thank you for supporting this growing experience and helping hold these great students accountable for their accomplishments.

See you and your child at the conference.

Confirmation of your conference time will be going home again today, Monday, Nov. 17 with the missing work report for this new term.

More Photos with 6th Grader Stream Tables

Having responsible groups helps make the experimental process enjoyable and effective.

Adding a little humor to the mix helps make science fun.

Eroding Stream Table Experiemnts- Science with the 6th graders

We have had a lot of fun learning to observe landforms as they are eroded throughout our stream table experiments.

Mountains, valleys, canyons, deltas, and many more are found in our experiments. We can see the strength a drop of water has on a dry surface of clay and sand. Imagine what it could do in a rain storm, a monsoon, or huricane.

We also have studied the sequence of events as the landforms are created and destroyed by the force of water.

October 31 No Missing Work Celebration

Celebrating the Completion of All Assignments and for a Job Well Done:

We will be watching a movie and celebrating the end of the quarter before we take off to the Great Cascade Mountain Wilderness Mountain School.

Friday, Oct. 31 we will be in need of snacks for a celebration for those who have no missing work. This is the last ditch attempt to get students caught up before the "No Missing Work or No Mountain School" kicks in.

Please help your child keep up on his or her homework so that they can enjoy the reword of a movie and treats. The movie will be linked to our Social Studies and Science curriculum but the treats are for fun. We have a parent volunteer that will be calling you to see if you would like to send a treat to school to share with our students and Miss Warren's students.

I will be keeping the students that do not have their work finished in our room while the movie will be viewed in Miss Warren's room.

At 2:55 we will end the week and the grades will be officially cut off. This is a day in which I will be leaving with the students to celebrate life with my own children.


This has been a long year so far trying to keep all 28 children in line and doing their jobs. I have put in many 12 and 14 hour days to try and keep up. Thank you to all of you parents who have supported your child with help and guidance in their educational gains. It is worth it. They are worth it. We do have many students in our class that do not have the support. If your child is friends with any of these students, please feel free to help them with their math facts, writing, reading signatures, etc. Thank you once again.

Gracie Johnston

Mountain School Groups

Raven, Black Tail Deer, and Cougar are the three groups within our class.

The groups were not easy to create. I took your child's requests into account when I created the groups. Each child was given the list (purple paper) on Monday.

Yesterday, Oct 15th we started researching our animal groups and assigning group roles in this Group Poster Project. This will be due Friday, Oct 24th. We will share the results of the team poster on Monday, Oct 27th. Group Photos will be posted to the blog as soon as they are available.

Poster Boards are at school already. We will be reusing the recycled ones from last year's science experiments and the following years Country Reports. If you have any three fold poster boards that you would like to donate to our class, we will need them in Science in the Spring. We reuse them until they fall apart to the point that creative duct taping will not revive.

Thank you once again for your support.
Mrs. Johnston and the class

Family Emergency has kept me off the Blog

If you have been checking nightly for homework or class updates. I appologize that I have not been able to keep up with this Monday through Wednesday night. I will continue to try. Thank you for your patience.
Gracie Johnston

Progress Reports Monday, Oct. 13th

A progress report will be coming home from homeroom on Monday, 10/13/08. Please sign one and return it on Tuesday.

Extra credit and make up work will be taken until Oct 31. I will be cutting off grades at that time.

Extra Credit in the following areas:

Spelling:

• Study and retake a test. This is the best way to improve you score in Spelling. It has the highest points.
• Finish work that you did not do (Spelling Story, Alphabetization, 5X each)

Math:

• Go on line and find a worksheet to do that has multiplication in the two digit X two digit math problems. http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/math/multiply/times2.shtml
• Learn your Multiplication facts and take the timed Tests http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/Mathmagician/cathymath.html
• Redo any math assignments that you did not do well.

Science:

• Fix you Science Journal so that you have all the notes
• Retake the Unit 1 test that you did not do well. (It was open note and you were told to reread the unit four days before the test. If you did this it was an easy multiple choice test.)
• Redo the Science homework that you did not do well
• Find a landform to do a mini report (Mountain in our state, River in our state, the Grand Canyon, etc.

Soc. St.:

• Anything to do with the Oregon Trail or the states of Missouri, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon.
• Check in with Miss Warren and the assignments that you are missing for Soc. St. in her class. The progress reports went home Wednesday, Oct. 8th.

LA /Writing:

• Write a story, essay, business letter, or friendly letter to help your grade.
• These were the style of writings that we wrote this quarter:
• Business Letter
• Resume'
• Application
• Essay of how I felt Before During and After the Auditions and Interviews for the Play (8 Paragraphs)
• Spelling Stories (Fictional writings)
• Animal Report will be in group form in the next week
• Lost in the Dark at Lincoln Story will be due in final draft Form on Oct, 24th
• Minimum of an 8 line Poem will be due to recite in front of class on Oct. 29-31

Hard work pays off!!!

A good study habit is learned and monitored by the adults in our lives.

Cookie Dough Sales and Book Orders Due

We have the Lincoln School PTA Cookie Dough Sale that is due by Friday, 10/10/08.

Also we have the November Book Order due on Friday, 10/10/08.


Thank you for supporting our school and our class reading.

See The Homework Blog to see what is due for homework.


Thank you for your support!

RAH Due Monday 9 AM

Please read at least once over the weekend and have the Title, Minutes and signature written on the bottom of Monday's Column in the planner.

We had our first Book order returned last Friday. We all should be reading. There are books in the school's Library, classroom Library and the Mount Vernon Public Library. Find a Book and READ.

You now can order online from your home and still help get our class bonus points. We received about 20 free books at various reading levels for our class library thanks to all who ordered books last time. We have sent home two more Scholastic Book Orders. You now can order from the comfort of your own home on line. The link is attached.

http://pcool.scholastic.com/parentordering/login.jsp

You can go now and see how. Lets help our children become better readers by reading to them with them and allowing them books to read. If your child does not have a book, as stated above there are many free books available to all children at our school and in our community. Scholastic Book orders are optional.

Two High School Helpers in our Class

We are so lucky we have two Seniors from M.V.H.S. that are coming to our classroom to help. Samantha will be coming during S.F.A. and Jake will be coming during Science. It is great to have the help. Jake was a prior students of mine and has chosen to come back and help in the classroom.

These are well organized students and are driven to do well in life. It is a pleasure working with them.

Copying Cursive From The Far Point

It is so much fun to show you our class hard at work. Here we are starting our 8 pragraph paper on "How We Feel Before, During, and After our Auditions and Interviews". This paper's Final Draft will be due Friday, Oct. 10.

Here we are copying the first "Introduction" paragraph from the far point. This is a very difficult skill for those who are not used to reading or writing in cursive. We sometimes need accommodations or helpful hints to become more successful at this skill.

Some accommodations are:

• Moving closer with a clip board
• Getting a photo copy when you are unable to copy fast enough.
• Learning to hold two or more words or a phrase in your head while you write and then looking up again once those words are copied
• Always stopping at the same point like at the end of the visual line
• Saying the word(s) in your head until you get them to paper
• Rereading what you write to eliminate the double starts or the missed words when your brain is working faster than your hand

All of these things are common for all students not only students with Dyslexic Tendencies.

We work through our strengths and our weaknesses. We all can improve and can learn to copy from the far point.

We are all getting better at cursive!

Thursday Night's Curriculum Night

Thank you to the six families that came to the Curriculum Night. I appreciate your support.

For the 22 families who were unable to attend, I have placed a copy of the Curriculum Night Power Point Presentation in your child's mailbox. It should clear up any questions you have about the expectations of 5th graders in our state, district, and our classroom.

Other items to watch for:

• October's Homework Calendar
• Math for the Month
• Handouts should be in each subject area of your child's notebook. Have them work on them as needed and as they pertain to the Homework Calendar and their planner.

PLEASE, if your child has nothing written in his or her planner, have a chat. Ask the student what he or she was doing when my planner was under the document camera and their planner was supposed to be filled in ?

If there is a category in the notebook that is missing handouts under it, ask why?
Thank you.

This is a "SHOW ME" class. PLEASE, tell you child to show you the homework check it over, and help edit their words if they do not make sense. This is very helpful to them, so that they see the importance of rereading what they write. If it does not make sense to them-it won't make sense to others.

Thank you for all your help. They are 28 and I am one. Come in anytime you desire to help-any day of the week.

Thank you once again!
Sincerely,
Gracie Johnston

Happy Birthday!

Fernando is another year older. Happy Birthday!

PTA Cookie Dough Sale Started Friday

The money goes to PTA and helps all students at Lincoln Elementary School

• It helps subsidize the cost of field trips
• Classroom Art Projects for the Art Auction
• Assemblies like the author we just had visit our school on Thursday

and many more great things at our school.

Thank you for participating.

Playground Landforms Science 5th Grade Groups

Creating Models of our School Playground is fun.

Monday only students who were done with their LA were able to participate in Science. Today more students were involved. Some were still working on their LA from two weeks ago. Incentive to get your homework done.

More Science Team Photos

Models of our Playground from memory.

We have time in science to enjoy creating the landforms of our playground. For some of us recess on the playground at Lincoln has been the best part of our days at school for the last six to seven years. Immortalizing it in a model is great science and great fun.

Great Teamwork!

Here is Abi's drawing of the playground from memory.

Science with Ms. Warren's 6th Graders

What a creative class.

Science is fun.

Models of the School Playground are being formed in Science Landforms Class with Mrs. Johnston. We are journaling the playground from memory, then trying to recreate a model of what we remember. Once that is finished we are laying a grid over the aerial view and creating a map of the model. Look at what we were able to do in an hour on Friday.

What a detailed drawing Abi.

Homework Page Error

Homework page is not letting me up load the information today.

Thursday
Spelling story Wk 3
HWC, Wk 3, Sci
RAH
Fluency

5.1 reading Fluency will start next Monday, Sept. 22

Volunteers Needed

There was a letter sent home today about the many opportunities that you have to volunteer this year as a chaperone. Here is what the letter said if you did not get it at home tonight:

Dear Parents and Guardians:
Sept. 18 Band Concert at La Venture Middle School –We need you to walk with us to La Venture Middle School and ride a school bus back. If you are wanting a walk on Thursday, Sept 18, please join us at Lincoln. We will leave shortly after 12:25 from the classroom. We should be back to Lincoln around 2:10pm.

Every Friday The 5th and 6th grade classes are having Fitness together each Friday from 12:25-1:10. Mrs. Rupp and I are walking with a group of 5th and 6th graders to the Park. We take attendance on the playground at 12:25-12:30 and then walk down the street toward Hillcrest Park. The kids play an organized game at the park and then we walk back. It is a lot of fun and you can get a walk too. Please join us if you are available any Friday. Once again, only parents with current volunteer applications can come.

Nov. 5-7 Mountain School sponsored by NCI and our school district is a three day two night outdoor school that 5th and 6th graders from Lincoln will be attending this year. At Lincoln we do this trip on a two year rotation so your child will go in either 5th or 6th grade. This decision was made because we have so many split classes over the years we decided to rotate Social Studies and Science Curriculum on a 5th grade year and a 6th grade year cycle. This works for most students that stay at Lincoln. Overall Mountain School is a great learning experience for all. If you can come with us on these dates please check below. Only parents with current volunteer applications can come. If you do not have one currently please pick one up in the office.

Oct. 2 &3 Auditions and Interviews are happening in the 5th and 6th grades. We would love to have some parents involved in the interview rooms. The Student Managers run the interviews. We are looking for adults that can help facilitate a smooth transition between the auditorium and interview rooms. If you are looking for an opportunity to see great kids be very responsible and interview other awesome students please check the box at the bottom of the page.
Thank you,
Gracie Johnston
__________________________________________________________________
Yes, I am able to be a chaperone in the following activities:
Sept. 18 Band Concert at La Venture Middle School
Every Friday 2008-9 Walk to the Park
Nov. 5-7 Mountain School
Oct. 2 &3 Auditions and Interviews
Your Name___________________________________
Student Name:___________________________________
Your Daytime phone #________________________________
I have a current Volunteer Application on file: YES/NO
Comments or Questions about the above:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September Birthdays! Who's Turning 11 Years Old This Month?

We would like to wish the following students A BIG Happy Birthday!

Joseph, Gillian, Keegan, Breeana, and Izabell

Science "Land Forms" by Foss

Land forms are all around us. Luckily in Washington State we can enjoy the Majestic Mountains and in the same day enjoy the beautiful Puget Sound or Pacific Ocean. I am excited about learning about land forms with this class. We will be studying how cartographers create maps that represent many land forms and how erosion effects the land forms today.

This blog page is a link to the Foss Science "Landforms" Page. It gives a lot information about what we will be learning in Science over the next couple months.

Photos of my children at Bowman's Bay (top three photos) and Port Townsand, WA (bottom photo)

5th and 6th Grade Band and Orchestra

5th and 6th Grade Band and Orchestra are starting for the year.

Last year's students that were in Orchestra received a letter from the Orchestra teacher today letting them know that Orchestra started at Little Mountain Elementary on Tuesday, 9/9/08.


Band:
All 5th and 6th graders from Lincoln and Washington are going to LaVenture on Thursday, 9/18/08. Lincoln students and teachers will be walking over there starting at 12:25PM. The concert will last about 1/2 hour. We will ride back on the school bus and return to Lincoln about 2:15PM. We would love to have any parents who would like to walk over with us to come as additional chaperones. Once again, you must have a current volunteer application on file in order to go with us. Yes, you can ride back on the busses.

Oregon Trail

Here are some really cool websites that will help you with your research and learning on the Oregon Trail and your study of Westward movement.


I Googled Oregon Trail Maps.

History Globe.com
This had simple touch points with photos or drawings and 1-2 paragraphs to read. http://www.historyglobe.com/ot/otmap1.htm

Oregon Trail History Library
http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/histhome.html

A topographical map of the Oregon Trail that gets you to the site above:
http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/maplibrary/oregontrail.html

Old copies of Oregon Trail Maps and posts: Hand sketched. I think they are cool.
http://www.oregon.com/history/oregon_trail_maps.cfm

Please share any cool websites that you see that could go along with the Oregon Trail.
Thanks.

Fitness Required by the State

The State has issued a mandate and has not allocated any additional funding to support it.

Here is what it is. All elementary teachers are accountable to supply 100 minutes a week of organized exercise. At this time we are funded within our building 35 minutes a week of PE with the PE teacher Mrs. Scott in the gym. So with this new requirement, we need to supply 65 more minutes. This is not added to our day in minutes spent at school but is to be carved out of already stretched academic time.

In the 5th and 6th grade classes we the teachers have set aside an agreed upon time of Fridays from 12:25 to 1:10pm to give the students with in the 5th and 6th grade classes a choice between the following activities.

Outdoor Sports with Mr. G
Yoga and Stretching with Ms. Vaughn
Aerobics in the Gym with Miss Warren
Walking to the Park with Mrs. Rupp and Myself

We have about 30-32 students in each group. We would love your help in all areas if you are available and have a current volunteer form on file with the Mount Vernon School District.

Health Screening

Health Screening went well to day. We had three students absent and the nurse will need to catch up with them later.

Health Screening

The Health Screening Tuesday, Sept. 9th, will include a scoliosis test. The children will be required to bend their spine in private so that a nurse can observe their backbone. The girls may wear swim suits to stay modest. Other tests will be vision, height, and weight.

Welcome Back to School

What a great first four days we have had. We reviewed school and classroom rules, started our new math groups, started fitness by walking to the park, and kicked off the new school year with a exciting kick off assembly in the auditorium.

Thank you parents for doing all the hard work of organizing materials and the students so they were ready to head back to school. Thank you for helping them stay organized by helping them use their binder and dividers, signing the emergency forms and other important forms for the office, and for your patience as we learn the new routines and organization skills.

We need parents willing to walk to the Park with 30 5th and 6th graders, myself and Mrs. Rupp each Friday. We walk right after Lunch recess 12:25-1:10. A volunteer application must be currently on file if you are wanting to go with us. They can be found in the school office if you need one. If you are interested, please contact myself at school 428-6135 ext. 2836. Thank you.

Gracie Johnston