Welcome to the new school year! I look forward to teaching all of my students and I hope they bring their enthusiasm and creativity every day of school. See you in class!

Are you ready to read some interesting books about real life events and fantastic fantasies? This class will include both fiction and non-fiction and explore how books can be sources of information or a way of going somewhere that the author wishes existed.

There are several Educational Games that are helpful practice of things that we have talked about during our class. Feel free to visit this site and explore!
I hope to expand the vocabularies of all of my students through the class readings. If a student comes to a word that s/he is not familiar with, feel free to look it up in the dictionary. I do not require every student to own one, so I am including an online version.
Language arts are also a large portion of my class. For extra practice (and lots of educational fun) I recommend these language arts games. Feel free to play along with your student to enhance their experience with these games. Make it fun, challenge them to complete each level successfully! These are fun ways to practice skills we will be learning during class!

We also will be doing several projects with technology this year, including an animal webquest. We also will be doing an American flag web quest, where students will be researching facts about the American flag and how it should be flown.

If you want to test how many weather synonyms you know, click this link to play a fun game that tests your knowledge of weather words!

This is a vital part of our school day that focuses on problem-focused math. Math problems will be analyzed using problems that are relevant to real-life situations that students may encounter. During class, we also will be doing some drills for basic understanding of addition, subtraction and multiplication. These will help students work on doing math problems quickly and will help them when they work on problems requiring these skills in real life.
To get more math practice, this link will help students work on the different topics that have been discussed during class. It will help reinforce ideas at home.
Students who would like more help checking their answers may use this calculator. Please use this only as a resource for answer-checking and not to completely do assignments. I encourage students to go to their parents, guardians, or other trusted adult to help with these ideas.

If you are interested in the pedagogy and teaching methods that are used in my classroom, search no farther! Here are several links to help you see the rationale for why my lessons are structured the way they are. As always, if you have any questions about anything presented in class, feel free to come in and schedule a conference.

We are currently celebrating National Hispanic Month in our classroom. To help us celebrate this special time, we are growing a garden that features vegetables that are recognized as foods that are liked by many people of Hispanic origin. This lesson, "For the Beans," incorporates some science and some cultural aspects that will show students how living plants grow over time and yield tasty vegetables, like the ones we see in stores.

Part of the class' study of language arts and fine arts is a study of the flags of different nations. Students will be drawing and researching during this lesson, and will learn a little bit more about the different cultures that exist in the world.

Vocabulary will be studied using a virtual trip to the moon. Students will do crossword puzzles and a variety of other fun activities to get them thinking about the moon and what it is like in space. Even though we cannot fly to outer space during class, perhaps these lessons will help the students reach for the stars!

To help start off the school year, here are some links that will help students form their own ideas about what reading actually is, and how one should be a good reader. During these reading lessons, students will be invited to examine many different types of books and hypothesize strategies needed to read each one. This will help students understand why reading is so important.

To see the latest standards and opinions about teaching in elementary school, visit this link to the National Council of Teachers of English's elementary school page. This allows parents to see innovative ideas being utilized in the school.

Click on Teacher Resources to gain access to our class flier, class newsletter, and an informational class brochure.

There are also some CAI resources that are available that may help your child in reading and writing. A helpful resource for students is the StickyBear Reading Room Deluxe. This software allows students to analyze literature. Another resource is 3D Froggy Phonics, which provides a very fun way for students to master basic phonics concepts.

Valparaiso University
Jamie Johnson