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? 🙂

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.

Ages of Peeler Teachers and Staff

In math class, we are learning how to create and analyze stem-and-leaf plots.  Stem-and-leaf plots are just one way to organize data. 

We thought it would be fun to analyze the ages of the teachers and staff at our school.  We sent out a survey on a wiki asking for staff members to add their ages.  We had eighteen responses.  We made the stem-and-leaf plot that you see here.  The students found out the following fun facts:

1. The median age of Peeler staff members is 43 years old.
2. Most staff members are in their 50’s.
3. There are 7 staff members under the age of 40, but 11 are 40 or above.
4. The difference in ages between the youngest and oldest staff member is 35 years.  This number is called the range. 

We had a great time playing with these numbers!  Thanks to all who participated!

I, Mrs. Buckmaster, am very nerdy, even on the weekends!  But that usually works out great for the students since my nerdy-ness sometimes leads me to some pretty cool online stuff.  I found an online animation studio called Domo Animate and made this crazy creation:

DomoNation.com: Silly and creepy by mrs buckmaster

Like it? Create your own at DomoNation.com. It’s free and fun!

What do you think? I know my 20-second cartoon is a little cheezy, but this would be kinda cool to use for projects at school, don’t you think? It was so easy to make, and there are lots of different themes and characters you can choose from. What ideas do you have after watching it?

Sierra, our contest winner!

After school today, I got a message from a representative of the American Heart Association.  She was glad to tell us that our very own Sierra is one of the local winners of the Healthy Living Essay Contest!  Students from schools all over Greensboro were given the chance to enter!  I am so proud of Sierra; great work!

You can read Sierra’s blog, The BIG Voice of a Little Girl, here.  Hopefully she will post her winning essay on her blog sometime next week.

Congratulations!