A Sneak Peek

							A Sneak Peek

What Journey Students
Did in October 2010

Journey Student Body:
Opening exercises:
     Learned about former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and memorized a few of his famous quotes
         o “There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human
             capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder.”
         o    “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to
             our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for
             them to do the same.
     Sang “Home Means Nevada”
     Discussed how important it to be kind and considerate to others. An example students used for
     being considerate was to say “Excuse me”, “Thank you” and “Pardon me”.
Field Trips:
     Lower and Middle Grammar classes took a field trip to Gilcrease Orchards. We played in the hay-
     bale maze and picked our very own pumpkins. Check the Journey Education Facebook page to see
     photos of this festive fall event!




Lower Grammar Students
Reach for the sky!




     Grammar:
        o       Focused on the double letter Phonograms.
        o       Played a new game called “Around the World” with our phonograms to see just how quick
                we can say each one.
     Writing:
            o     Practiced how to write our own names and focused on making them look really nice at
                  the tops of our papers; capitalizing only the first letter.
            o     Memorized the poem Work and the copied it into the writing notebooks.
            o     Read excerpts from stories and then wrote sentences describing the stories.
                  Sometimes students illustrated their descriptions.
     Reading:
            o    Kindergarten students are reading early reader books in class and at home. We tke
                 turns reading them to each other as well.
         o    First graders are working at their individual level with Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Jensen.
         o    Practiced site words and have had fun playing a site word matching game.
  Math:
        o     First grade has worked on telling time and identifying dimes and pennies. They have
              also learned to round to the nearest 10 on a thermometer.
        o     Kindergarten students focused on addition facts. They learned how to add double
              numbers to ten. They also learned the attributes of pattern shapes such as hexagons,
              trapezoids, and parallelograms.
  Science:
    o        Studied the human skeletal system. We drew an outline of our bodies and then drew an
             x-ray of our bones. The students really enjoyed this project! We also made skeletons to
             hang in our classroom.
  History:
    o         Learned about Christopher Columbus and made a small book about him. We wrote
             important words that describe Columbus and his journeys.




Middle Grammar Students
Love to explore their world


  Grammar:
    o        Continued studying parts of Speech, including nouns, pronouns, helping verbs, state of
             being verbs, commas in a series, action verbs, and pronouns
  Writing:
    o        Used graphic organizers to write stories
    o        Wrote dictations and narrations across the curriculum: in writing, science, history, and
             literature
    o         Practiced summarization of a reading selection
  Reading:
    o        Learned to summarize information read
    o        Identified Main ideas, details and “skeleton” of the plot
    o        Small groups focused on phonics and oral reading skills.
  Math:
    o        Worked on fractions, adding three addends, check writing, reading line graphs, finding
             perimeters, and measuring to the millimeters and the quarter inch.
    o        Counted money, wrote word story sentences, used fractional parts, and rounded to the
             nearest 10.
    o        Students were tested every 5 to 10 lessons (depending on level) to assure
             understanding. Individual review was given for problem areas.
  Science:
     o       Studied the Human Skeleton and conducted lab experiments on chicken bones
         o    Analyzed the chicken bone experiment and compared it to the human bone by
              identifying muscles, cartilage, ligaments, and bone marrow. We also removed calcium
              from the bones.
  History:
     o       Learned about the Celts of Britain
     o       Studied about the Barbarians coming to Britain
     o       Learned about Beowulf the Hero.
     o       Created the bronze brooch the Celts would use to pin their cloak closed
     o       Identified the area on the map that the Angles and Saxons originally lived, their route
             to Britain and where the Celts lived




              Upper Grammar Students
             Are curious about everything



Grammar Group 1:
     o       Studied, read, and outlined different types of paragraphs
     o       Practiced writing samples of the different types of paragraphs
     o       Studied irregular verbs and identified their different forms
Grammar Group 2:
     o       Learned about Direct Objects
     o       Reviewed infinitives, helping verbs, transitive and intransitive verbs
     o       Diagrammed predicate nominatives
     o       Focused on the differences between “sit” and “set,” “lie” and “lay,” and “rise” and “raise”
Writing Group 1:
     o       Practiced the writing process by editing a rewriting our work
     o       Expanded a paragraph into an essay
Writing Group 2:
     o       Created a “me” collage
     o       Practiced editing skills through writing about items represented on the “me” collage
     o       Discussed interviewing and created a fictional animal to interview for “Pet
             Entertainment Television.”
     o       Discussed open ended questions, yes/no questions and probing questions
Literature:
     o       Finished reading Beowulf, the oldest writing in the English language
     o       Read and created a literature study using the five different versions of The Three
             Little Pigs
Math:
     o       Students work at individual levels in Saxon math from level 5/4 to Algebra. Tests are
             taken every fifth lesson to assure understanding.
     o       Individual review with students in problem areas. 1 to 4 teacher-student ratio.
History:
     o       Studied the history of Nevada
         o   Wrote essays on Nevada symbols and shared them with the class.
         o   Discussed hero qualities and wrote Haiku poems
         o   Learned about Muhammad and the Muslims and Japanese Dynasties
         o   Learned about the first people of Australia and the discovery of New Zealand
o   Science:
         o   Began our study of matter
         o   Learned about physical and chemical properties of matter
         o   Conducted experiments to determine the density of objects
         o   Conducted labs to show that sand and water get hot at different rates and graphed the
             data to look for trends
         o   Created a comic strip that showed one physical property and one chemical property