Naaktgeboren's Class Blog

Greetings Families, I want to start by saying thank you to all of the important people who made last week such a success. First, thank you to Mrs. Chilson, Mrs. Arnold, Mrs. Conforti, Mrs. Baugh, Mrs. LaVell, and the wonderful counselors and guests who made the field trip a success in my absence. I hate that I had to miss it, but I'm thankful for the adults who stepped in to make sure everything went so well. Next, I want to once again say thank you to the families who jumped in so quickly to provide what we needed for the volcano activity. It was a huge blast. I don't think I've seen so much excitement in learning as I did during that activity. Thank you for making quick runs to the store and even raiding your own pantries. I haven't said it enough this year, but I want you to know how thankful I am for the families represented in 4B this year. It is a joy to be your child's teacher. It makes my heart glad to see their excitement in learning, their successes ...

Greetings Families, I want to give a big thank you to those who quickly signed up and bought the items for today's volcano project. The students will really appreciate your help! Thank you, Ms. Ray, Ms. Cuddy, Ms. McGurran, and Ms. Gaytan. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend. Here are the lessons for this week. Field Trip Students will go on their first field trip tomorrow. The goal is to leave the campus by 8:30 a.m. and we should return by 12:15 p.m. Please see on of the prior post about the field trip if you have any questions. Volcano Activity At the end of the week, students will end their study of volcanoes with a traditional volcano activity. Students will use the baking soda and vinegar reaction to discuss how volcanoes have a buildup of pressure that leads to an eruption. We do need some items provided. Please click here to donate those items. Lessons Grammar: This week, students will be working through some paragraph edit worksheets to help them learn to identify grammar and spelling mistakes. History: Students will continue to look at the events that led up to the American Revolution. There is an open-notes quiz on Friday. Literature: Students should finish up P...

Greetings Families, For those who offered to attend the trip as chaperones, thank you for your willingness to serve in this way. If you selected that you wanted to go to the Capitol Museum field trip as your first or second option, you were entered into a drawing today. If that is you, I have already emailed you with directions. At the same time, I want to invite the rest of you to come as guests. When I reserve the tour, I reserve it for the max number of individuals, which is 120. We will have 90 students if no one is absent, which never happens, which means at the minimum we will have 30 spots for adults. Six of those spots are teachers and 18 are chaperones. That means between the three classes, we have six open spots for guests. But honestly, they have never counted to make sure we only have 60 people for each of the two tours, so I bet we could sneak a couple more in if too many people came. Thus, that is a long-winded way of inviting you to come as a guest even if you aren...

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Greetings Families, I hope you have enjoyed your break. I'm looking forward to being back at school tomorrow. Here is what to look out for this week. Tutoring In the blog post last week, I said tutoring would resume Wednesday. It will actually resume on Tuesday of this week. I have a basketball game that night, but it is at home. Field Trip Chaperones I've created this document to help me identify who should chaperone each field trip. I will be providing a hard copy of this document on Monday. If you would like to attend either field trip as a chaperone, please complete this document--even if you have already emailed me. I want to do my best to have as many families represented as possible and be respectful of each person's preference and/or limitations. This document must be turned in by Wednesday. Lessons Grammar/Writing: In grammar this week, students will be looking at clauses, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and complex sentences. History: Thi...

Greetings Families, I hope you have enjoyed the break and the holiday season. My break has been great. I had a fun Christmas with my family. We woke up rather late for Christmas day, around 7:30, and it was a joy to celebrate the holy day with my family and to open gives. Later that day, my immediate family was joined by my brother and his girlfriend, an aunt and uncle, and another aunt for our traditional Christmas dinner: China City! My wife and father-in-law have a custom of making a big meal for Thanksgiving, so Christmas Day is a day off of cooking for my wife apart from the cinnamon roles she makes from a can. That night, I took my oldest three to the last Starwars movie. Well, I think it is the last. It is making a lot of money so they may need to keep it going. Despite the critics' hatred of it, we enjoyed it. It isn't as good as the old ones (4-6), but it is better than the middle ones (1-3).  I also spent a lot of time with the varsity girls' basketball team....