Jamestown Houses Up and Running...Genius Hour...and more!

From the Ron Clark Academy comes the idea of placing students into houses similar to those at Hogwarts! Mr. Clark sorts his newest students into their house the first year and students remain in that house from fifth to eighth grades. Students learn teamwork and friendly competition. We have already had a nice Kahoot.it game with tons of points being awarded and students are practicing being a good winner and a good loser. It was so wonderful to hear..."Great job, Green House!" at the end of the game. Ms. Robinson and I are going to be attending a Teacher Training at the Ron Clark Academy in February!!! We are super excited for this once in a lifetime opportunity!!! We will be getting some more great ideas to share with our students AND we get to be Slide Certified!

Wednesdays are early release days every week. We lose a little over an hour with our students. It is also a day that several students are in another classroom for enrichment, so Wednesdays are going to be our "Ketchup" (get it...Catch Up!) Day. If students need a little more time to finish up a project from earlier in the week or from the end of the previous week, they will have time to do that. All sixth grade teachers are able to offer a little more assistance if needed. Perhaps Mr. Dorricott sees that Ethel and Fred need extra help with a math skill, he can bring them to his room. If Ms. Robinson sees that Lucy and Ricky didn't quite get that science concept, she can bring them to her room for a little tutoring. Same with reading and me. This seems like it is going to be a great way to handle our Wednesdays. Students will still have reading for 90 minutes each day, but the rest of the day is for whatever needs to be completed or studied. What about those kids who have nothing to catch up on? In Jamestown, students will have the opportunity to work on a Passion Project. We call it Genius Hour and the idea comes from Google. One student is planning to use pieces of watches that he takes apart to create a piece of art. After learning about Genius Hour, another student said, "I LOVE THIS SCHOOL!!!"

Donorschoose!!! We have three copies of most of the SSYRA books for sixth grade this year thanks to a Donorschoose project posted last year. We are waiting for some short stools for our reading table that will be here any day. Thank you for allowing your students to be photographed to share with our donors so that they can see the projects in action! Currently we have two projects posted, but we are waiting for Target to fund all but $98 and then it will be funded by anyone who wants to donate. Donorschoose is a great way to get things for the classroom that are out of the ordinary. People all over are willing to help classrooms. I am so grateful to have found Donorschoose! Here are a couple of the pictures from the Book BASH project Thank You package.

#Jamestown @Sabal is having the #BestYearEver!!!