Naaktgeboren's Class Blog

 Greetings Families, The final week of the year has finally arrived. This week is three half days. Students do not need to bring lunch unless they are in Athenaeum. Please be sure to arrive for pickup by 12:35 p.m. Lessons Math : We will be finishing up our final math lessons of the year. We are looking at solid figures made out of cubes. Students are learning how to draw these shapes and determine the volume of these shapes.  English : Ms. Rasic will be reading to the students. Students will also have some partner reading time.  History : Ms. Rasic will be teaching a couple fun history lessons on Monday and Tuesday.  Schedule Monday and Tuesday: Abridged Academic Days w/ 12:05 Dismissal Wednesday: End of Year Party Day w/ 12:05 Dismissal.  I hope you have a great week! Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

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Greetings Families, It is hard to believe it is already week 9. This is an unusual year, so we actually have two and a half weeks left, but the end is drawing near. I'm so proud of the achievements that the students have made this year and look forward to our final days together. I did want to let you know about a new homework policy for the rest of the year, or at least over the next two weeks. A lot of students have fallen behind in completing homework, so students who have missing homework will not be expected to work on those assignments during recess to get caught up. I don't want students to receive lower grades than they deserve because they are struggling with responsibility as the year comes to an end. I also want to end on a good note so they come into fourth grade ready for the expectations there.  Here are the lessons for this week. I hope your week is great! Lessons Language Arts We will have 30 new Spalding spelling words this week. There will be a test Friday. Th...

Greetings Families, I hope you enjoyed your weekend. There are only five weeks of school left. This is a four-day week. There is no school this Friday or next Monday. I hope you enjoy having your children home for a short break. Here are the lessons for this week. LESSONS Language Arts This week we are introducing 30 new Spalding spelling words for scholars to practice each night for homework. In addition, they will also be introduced to a project that will be going home for them to do research on and create an informational poster highlighting one of a number of important historical people from the original 13 colonies. More information will be available after Monday.  They will also continue reading chapters 9-13 in Little House on the Prairie which they have been so enjoying. Grammar and sentence diagramming will also continue this week now that AzM2 testing has been completed. Our next assessments to look forward to in the coming weeks will be the Q4 Galileo and end-of-year D...

Greetings Families, This is the week that the students have been working so hard for over the past month. On Tuesday and Thursday students will be taking the first and second parts of the AzMERIT English and math tests. Please make sure they get a good night's rest the night before along with a good breakfast the day of. Also, this is a little late notice, so I apologize for that, but students need to bring in Little House on the Prairie this week. They will begin reading it this week.  Here are the lessons for this week. Language Arts Part 1 of ELA and Math AzMerit tests will be on Tuesday, April 20th, and Part II will be on Thursday, April 22nd. Please have your child bring a book that they would like to read. Please also encourage an early bedtime and have a big breakfast in preparation for their tests! We will not have any new Spalding words this week. Continue practicing the 5 stanzas of Pocahontas for April 28th recitation. We will begin Little House on the Prairie this wee...

Greetings Families, I hope you had a great weekend. This is our last week before AzMERIT begins. We will continue to make progress through our review curriculum. I'm seeing a lot of growth in the class during this time. Many more students are finding correct answers in math and during their reading activities. I was also impressed by the work ethic of many of my students and how they approached the writing part of AzMERIT last week. I think things are really starting to come together for most of them. This week will be more of the same. I feel like we are in the backstretch before they turn the corner to the home stretch next week when they actually take the AzMERIT tests. Just a little bit more to go! Here are the lessons for this week.  LESSONS Language Arts No new Spalding words. Continue practicing the 5 stanzas of poem in your child’s homework folder for April 28th reciting. Students will continue practicing grammar skills and reading comprehension strategies to prepare them ...

Greetings Families, I hope you enjoyed our little break. I was fortunate enough to spend some time resting, doing house projects, and then a good deal of time in Sedona this week. Here are the plans for the week.  Lessons AZ Merit Writing will be on Friday! Please prepare your child with a good night's sleep and a filling breakfast!  Language Arts Students will complete their Narrative essay on Tuesday. It will be due on Wednesday if it is not completed in class. We will be taking the AZ Merit writing test Friday. In preparation, we will continue practicing writing skills; there will be no spelling. The poem, "Pocahontas," will be due April 28th. Math Students will spend time reviewing concepts for AzMERIT. Science This week, students will take a closer look at photosynthesis and understand it as a chemical reaction. History Students will be learning about Maryland, which was the fourth British colony established in America. Students will explore the concept of religious ...

Greetings Families, I hope you had a great weekend. I'm excited to start week three. It will be a short week as we get Friday (and Monday of next week) off. Here is an announcement about our book fair before I get to lessons.  SPRING BOOK FAIR WITH USBORNE BOOKS We are so excited to announce that we will be having a book fair from Wednesday, April 7th to Friday, April 9th. It will be hosted by Usborne online. From the comfort of your own homes, you will be able to browse the complete Usborne catalog on their website and purchase as many books as you would like. Once you purchase your books, they will be sent to Archway Arete and then hand-delivered to your children in their classrooms. Please look for a flyer and instructions sent home by your child's teacher on Monday, March 29th. If you have any additional questions, you may reach out to Miss Modisett at any time at bmodisett@archwayarete.org . Happy reading! LESSONS Language Arts : We will continue to focus on writing this...

Click here to go to the practice test.  --------------------------------------------------------- Greetings Families, Today, students completed the 3rd-grade AzMERIT practice test in class to get some practice with writing an opinion essay and to get used to how to read and type an essay in the AzMERIT portal. If you would like them to get some additional practice, feel free to have them access the 4th-grade practice test at home, which can be found at the same site.  Best, Michael Naaktgeboren 

Greetings Families, I hope you have enjoyed the weekend. Tomorrow starts week two of the fourth quarter. The focus will be on helping students prepare for AzMERIT again this week. There aren't a whole lot of announcements, so let me just into this week's lessons.  LESSONS Language Arts : We will focus on writing again this week! We will be doing real AzMERIT writing practice on the computer. There will be no spelling to accommodate AzMERIT preparation. Students should be ready to recite "For Want of a Nail," which will be recited on the 24th. Math : In math, students will learn about the metric measurement for capacity: liters and milliliters. After that, students will spend time reviewing concepts from this to prepare for AzMERIT. Science : Students will spend their time reading about carnivores during week two and will write a three-paragraph informational essay on them. History : We will continue learning about the 13 colonies! We will learn about the Virginia Col...

Greetings Families, I hope everyone is well and that you had an enjoyable break. I also want to say thank you for all of your gracious gifts that I received before we left for break. I hope you were able to see some of the photos from me opening everything up. We actually got in trouble because the students were cheering as I was opening ballows with the gift cards inside, and we may have gotten a little too loud--loud being they were stomping their feet and screaming. So again, thank you for your charity. You are a very gracious and kind people.    Turning our attention to academics, we are in the AzMERIT prep mode. In math, we have a little bit of content still remaining that is on the test (the metric system), but after that, we will be focused on going over the content we've covered this year that will be on AzMERIT. I know that sometimes people have a poor opinion about preparing students for a test, but I do think it good. Yes, as a teacher and school, the results matte...

Greetings Families, I hope you have had a great weekend. This is the last week of the quarter. Next week is spring break! Here is a note before I get to the lessons for this week.  Missing Work Due Wednesday On Friday, I handed out a missing work report. I would like students to complete their missing work. Homework amounts to 40% of a child's grade, so missing work plays a huge role in a child's grade. As a teacher, I just want students to do the work so they are learning. As this is the last week of the quarter and I need to finalize grades, all late work is due by Wednesday.  LESSONS English : We will have another AZ MERIT practice writing day this Tuesday! We will do fifteen spelling words with a review and a test Thursday. Students should be practicing their new poem, “Dream Variations” which will be recited on Friday. Finally, we will continue reading The Little Prince . Math : This week in math, students will look at angles, shapes, and figures. Science : In science, st...

Greetings Families, I hope you have enjoyed your weekend. Mine was enjoyable as we stayed in the Valley this week. I'm looking forward to this week. It is hard to believe we only have two weeks left of this quarter. If you missed my email last week, I sent home some papers for you to review and consider reviewing with your child. It is graded work and some reports (missing work, test/quiz/major paper scores, and current grades). As I said in the email, some students went down to a D last week because of failing to turn in some work. (That is the only reason I sent home the grade report. That isn't a custom because we don't want to reduce students to a grade.) Other students went from a D to C or better because of turning in missing work or having good scores on some tests. Either way, with time about to run out on this quarter, I want to make sure you are aware. If you have any questions or printing needs, just let me know.  Here are the lessons for the week. LESSONS The Ga...

Greetings Families, I hope you enjoyed your long weekend. I was privileged enough to go up to Sedona on Sunday to preach at a small church up there and then got to go hiking in the beautiful red rock mountains along Oak Creek. We have a science test this week made up of three parts. The first part was assigned on Thursday night and is a diagram that shows the interactions between the four main Earth spheres. On Thursday, students will take the vocabulary part of their science test. On Friday, students will take the concepts part of the test. I encourage you to check in on them and see how they are doing and possibly help them study. Here are the lessons for the week! LESSONS English : We will have no spelling this week and instead will be focusing on writing. We have completed three explanatory essays and this week we will encounter opinion writing. We will continue reading The Little Prince. Recitations for our new poem“By Myself,” will be next Wednesday, February 24th. Math : During ...

Greetings Families, I hope you have enjoyed your weekend. I don't think I have any updates to make so I will jump straight into lessons.  Lessons English: We will have a condensed week of spelling to account for a new writing project. The spelling test will be Friday. We will be writing and typing an essay on a new topic to begin to prepare for AZ Merit. The topic corresponds to our history curriculum. "Father William" recitations will be on Wednesday, February 10th; be sure to encourage your child to practice at home! Finally, we completed our novel, The Trumpet of the Swan . Please send in The Little Prince by Wednesday. Math: During week six, students will finish their study of time and then move into their study of area. Science: In science this week, students will continue to look at how the spheres interact. The focus this week will be on the biosphere. They will also start planning their sphere interaction diagram that will count as part of their final grade. Stud...

Greetings Families, I hope you are doing well. This week we have concluded our study of fractions, but many students are still struggling to understand them. We will continue to review them during class time, during morning work, and during math tutoring. Over the next weeks, they should start to gain a better mastery of the concepts they are still struggling to understand.  Ms. Rasic and I have been really focused on classroom behaviors over the past couple of weeks, and we are seeing improvements. We've struggled with students talking, shouting out, and getting out of their seats. I'm proud of the growth they've had this week.  Typing Some students misunderstood the assignment. They are only required to type the copy work once and have the whole week to do it. Some students were doing it every night. I'm sorry for the miscommunication.  Math Facts The math facts worksheet that I am sending home for students to complete in part nightly is not a timed assignment. They ...

Greetings Families, I hope you have enjoyed your weekend. I'm looking forward to starting school today. I have a couple of quick notes, and then I'll jump into the lessons for this week.  First, today is spirit wear day. Students should wear uniform pants, socks, and shoes, but instead of the uniform shirt, they may wear an Arete spirit wear shirt to celebrate our 100th day of school. Second, we've added two short homework assignments last week and this week. Last week we introduced typing homework. This is just copy work so they can get some practice typing. The other one will go out today. With most students completing XtraMath in the classroom, I'm providing a little math facts practice worksheet for home. There is one for each day of the week and it is due Friday. Okay, let's look at the lessons for this week.  Lessons English: Spalding will be the same with nightly homework. We will be creating a final draft of a three paragraph essay on the Titanic and will le...

Greetings Families, I hope you are doing well and have enjoyed the long break thus far. Please remember that there is no school tomorrow, January 18th, in honor of Martin Luther King Day. On Tuesday, we will be reading this article  about Martin Luther King Jr. together, but feel free to read it yourself or with your child (students participating in the 95% reading intervention will not be reading this article with the class). I suspect that many students are aware of the events from this summer, and this is likely a good conversation for families to have with their children. We will not discuss the current events in the classroom.  Fractions Before I get into lessons, I wanted to make sure you knew that I sent home graded work on Friday which included an assignment grade report. Some of you may be discouraged by your child's performance on Friday's math test over fractions. I would like to offer a few thoughts about this. (1) Don't let this cause you too much stress. We s...

Greetings Families, I hope you are having a good weekend. I'm looking forward to week two. Last week, the students were a little talkative, so I'm hoping they will get back into the swing of how we operate in the classroom.  I don't have many things to discuss this week, so I'll jump into what the lessons look like this week.  Lessons English: We will continue The Trumpet of the Swan this week. Spelling will be normal, with a test on Friday. Writing and grammar will focus on informational writing as we create a class essay on Monarch butterflies. Students will review their stanza to memorize from "The Adventures of Isabel." The recitations will be on January 20th. Math: During week two, students will continue to look at fractions. The focus this week will be equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions. Science: In science, students will learn about water’s distribution from a demonstration and will then look at the geosphere. During learning about the geos...

Greetings Families, I hope you have had a great break. After two weeks off, I'm missing my students and look forward to seeing them again tomorrow. Before I go on to anything else, I do want to extend my thankfulness for your generosity. Leading up to the days before the break, I was blessed and blessed by your children with their kind gifts, which I ultimately know come from you. Many of you were gracious in giving money to the class fund at the beginning of the year to help pay for class celebrations and also used it for gifts for Ms. Rasic and me. Many of you probably had no idea that Ms. Pabin, the class mom, used those funds to purchase me a gift. She, unknowingly to me of course, went to my wife to ask what I would want. I've wanted a kayak for years, but haven't been willing, or should I say my wife hadn't been willing, to make the expenditure. It turns out that Ms. Pabin's father owned a kayak he was willing to separate from and your generosity at the beginn...