Super Bowl Sunday

As the AFC and NFC champs prepare to face off in this years big Super Bowl game, Norfolk Middle School students kicked off the fun with the Souper Bowl of Caring. Students were encouraged to bring spare change to raise money to support our local Salvation Army's Mercy Meals.

This is an effort to help raise awareness and make a difference for those experiencing poverty and hunger in our community. The money collected during the Middle School's Souper Bowl of Caring will help feed those in need!

We are entered in the "Souper Bowl" between the homerooms. Room 100 is cheering for the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday - - though we know the real winner is our local Mercy Meals.

MLK Day

Thank you MLK.  Today we celebrate human diversity and the work of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

We started our day with cookies and a quote. . . .

. . . then we pushed up our sleeves and decorated the classroom door.

Our Freedom Hands are all about Dr. King's message of love and the ripple effect of doing good.

Thanks, Gourmet Mom, for the cookie recipe.

National Hat Day

National Hat Day is set aside to wear and enjoy a hat of your choice.

When : Always January 15th

Room 10o learned there's a hat to fit every size head and personality. 

Hat Day also introduced students to 20 hat idioms. Helping students understand idioms will increase their vocabularies and enrich their writing. Figurative language is a whole lot of fun.

Test your "hat idiom" knowledge on quizlet.

One Word for 2014

 Over the winter break I read about a project titled One Word. 

One Word is a movement. "It's all about forgetting resolutions and scrapping a list of goals that are easily forgotten. Instead One Word asks participants to choose just one word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live. One word that is the focus every day, all year long."

I really thought it would be interesting to involve students in the One Word project. After much discussion on the new year and this project, students were challenged to choose a word.

The words ranged from silly and fun to quite thought-provoking.

Flip books were created to record each student's word. The hope is students will discover the big impact one word can make.  

Could this one word become the compass that directs decisions and guides steps?   

You may read more about the One Word project by clicking here. 

Happy 2014! 

Plotting Our New Year

One of the fun concepts that students master in math is graphing on a coordinate plane. A graphing activity that my students enjoy year after year is graphing ordered pairs that end up making cute pictures.  Graphing these party hats was an engaging way to celebrate the new year in math.

A new year brings fresh hope for the remaining of the year.  As students enter the second semester of their fifth grade year, they are "plotting" to finish the year strong!

Happy New Year from this Full Classroom!