Mrs. Buckmaster's Class

Here are some pictures from our scavenger hunt!  I’ll announce the winners soon! 

Sara and Naomi taking pictures of the playground

Can you see the triangle? What kind is it?

Acute equilateral triangles and a square

A rhombus on Mrs. B’s sweater

Triangle-shaped magnetic clip

Jonathan Green, Super Snake

We had such an awesome time at recess today!  The kids found lots of different little critters to play with.  The excitement all started when a group of students found a small green snake in the woods!  The little guy was so cute.  His name became Jonathan Green for some reason….  After getting a good look at him, we decided that he should go to the woods behind the soccer fields so he wouldn’t be trampled.  Ansen was brave and carried JG on a stick all the way to safety.

Maria and the Mantis

Then there was shouting from another part of the playground!  Some other kids found a rather large mantis near the Project Fit equipment.  They were so excited because we had some baby mantises in our classroom last year!.  Maria was brave enough to hold him on her elbow while I took a picture.  We looked at our nameless friend (no one named him?  That’s weird!) and Ethan took him to a safe place so he could have a peaceful day.

What IS this thing????

When we were about to go inside, we saw yet another interesting critter!  The thing is, we’re not sure what this thing is!  Does anyone out there know?  We’d love to hear from you!

There’s always something going on in Mrs. Buckmaster’s class!  Check back with us soon for more news!

Ansen shaking hands with his robot Dexter

It seems that our classroom is a popular place to visit these days.  Whether you’re a former student, bearded dragon, or (in this case) a robot, you are welcome to come to C House and hang out with us during Morning Meeting!

Dexter the robot came to school with Ansen today.  Ansen showed that Dexter is not your everyday boring robot.  Dexter likes to play baseball, listen to the Buzz (a local radio station), and does NOT like being called Buster.  Dexter is good at helping Ansen clean his room.  He’s also friendly too; Dexter shook hands with quite a few students this morning.  He’s the perfect gentlemen.

The most impressive thing about Dexter was his ability to answer questions for himself!  Ansen might have helped him out a little, but Dexter answered questions in the first-person point of view and was very articulate…even for a robot.

Who knows what/who will visit Mrs. B’s class next?

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Tags: science

Last week, we began our discussion of using sensory images in our writing by exploring our sense of smell. We continued our sensory theme this week, but we are focusing on describing what we hear. After a somewhat animated brainstorming session, our class came up with this.  All I did was type it.

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This was not my day.  I thought I could get away with skipping homework, but my teacher had another idea.  After the fifth day of not doing my homework, she declared that she was going to call my dad.  Maybe he could fix my problem.

After a dreadful bus ride, I went into my house, up to my room, and closed the door.  Dad didn’t get home until 4:05 on Fridays, so I knew that I had 30 agonizing minutes until I was dead meat.  As every second expired, my heart pounded harder and harder.

Then I heard the car.  Dad skidded his black Escalade to a halt in the driveway.  My dog Bear started scratching and whimpering pitifully at the door.  Dad turned off the ignition and violently slammed the door as he got out of the car.  He seemed bloodthirsty.  I could hear his monstrous footsteps stomping toward the door.  The faster the footsteps went, the faster my heart beat.  Dad tried the door but it was locked.  This only made him more furious.  I could hear him struggling to get out his keys as he jingled them with rage.  He turned the knob extremely hard and burst through the solid oak door into the house.  I heard the briefcase slam on the hard wood floor.  My stomach churned in fear as I heard him ferociously stomp up the stairs.  He cracked his knuckles on his way down the hall.  I could hear him breathing quickly as he approached my bedroom.  When he finally got to the door, I heard him grab the knob slowly and angrily.  Then the door creeked open.

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Well, what did you think?  Feel free to leave a comment on this post with suggestions or encouragement.  Look for stories that use this technique on the student blogs at the end of the week (will be titled A5)!

Our first podcast of the year is up!  We have been learning about climate zones in science, and in social studies we’ve been discussing how climate affects people’s way of life.  This group has completed their project on the polar zone:

If you would like to subscribe to our podcast feed in iTunes, please follow this link.  Thanks for watching!

This week, we had the pleasure of having two of our former classmates visit us at school.  Callie W. and Gareth H. were both in my class for three years in a row (you’d think they’d had enough of me!), and they gave up some of their free time to come talk to my class and tell them what it’s REALLY like in sixth grade.

Gareth in fifth grade

Gareth now attends The Academy at Lincoln, a magnet school that is very close to Peeler.  Many Peeler students end up going to Lincoln because there is a strong performing arts emphasis there.  Peeler is also a performing arts magnet school, so our students generally do well at Lincoln.  Gareth stopped by on his way to school on Tuesday with his mom, and they stayed through Morning Meeting.  He got to sit in the “Hot Seat” and tell the class about his experience since leaving Peeler.  He told about what it’s like to change classes, get grades (we are on a non-graded system at Peeler), and have more freedom.  He also told about the music scene: there are a lot more instruments offered at Lincoln.  Gareth played violin at Peeler, but has switched to viola at Lincoln.  He was very positive about his experience so far, and the class really enjoyed listening to him talk about middle school.

Callie talking to our class

Callie came to spend Wednesday morning with our class.  She is attending the Triad Math and Science Academy which is a charter school in Greensboro.  Charter schools have their own schedules, and Wednesday was a teacher work day for their school.  Instead of loafing around on the couch at home, Callie got up early, put on her school uniform so we could see it, and showed up bright and cheery at Peeler at 7:45!  She brought along some of her school stuff so she could show the class.  During Morning Meeting, Callie described her middle school experience so far.  There were lots of differences between her school and Gareth’s.  For one thing, Lincoln doesn’t require uniforms, but TMSA does.  Callie explained that she really didn’t mind the uniforms so much (in her words, “You can always accessorize!”).  She doesn’t have performing arts classes, but she takes Turkish class and will be going to Turkey twice this year for the Turkish Olympiad.  One of my favorite things that she said was, “Listen to this lady [pointing at me] because the stuff she teaches you will be sooooo helpful in middle school.”  Honestly, I didn’t put her up to that.

Gareth and Callie were excellent students, and now they are treasured friends.  I am so thankful that they took their time to come see us.  I hope they come back soon.

Sniff sniff, Jalenne! I think she likes the Altoids I put in the cup!

Today during language arts, our young writers were given a hands-on lesson in using sensory words.  Too often, students miss the opportunity to describe small moments in big detail.  To help with this, we identified some words that could help us describe the way something smells.  We used “positive” words like scent and aroma to describe smells that were pleasant.  We also identified “negative” smell words like stench and odor.  For some reason, there were more words on our “negative” list…interesting.

After we came up with exciting words, the students were put in groups of four.  Each group was given two mystery cups that were covered with wax paper.  They were not allowed to look inside the cups; they could only lift the paper slightly and smell what was inside.  They then had to write a short paragraph describing the smell, using the new words we brainstormed.  The mystery items represented a variety of scents, including coffee, curry powder, garlic, ginger, mints (Altoids), basil, and (Ansen’s favorite) sardines! Let’s just say that we needed to open the doors for a little while.

The final products at the end of the day were extremely creative.  The kids were proud that they could make their writing come to life by using words that appeal to the senses.  They will practice this skill in their blog assignments this week, so keep a look out for their A4 posts!