Sept 8-11, 2026

  Important Dates:

9/14 - One more color day added! PINK day on Monday

9/15-16  - STAR testing in 6th Grade (Math on Tuesday and Reading on Wednesday)

9/17 - Open House

9/21 - Fun Run fundraising begins this week!

10/9 - no school (teacher workshop)

10/12 - VI/PR Friendship Day

This week at a glance...

Health/Wellness/Teambuilding:

Teambuilding exercise: Students were formed into small groups and were given the task of identifying things they had in common (not obvious things), writing each commonality on an index card. After discussing that portion, they were then told to use the index cards and a pair of scissors to build the tallest tower they could. Both parts of the exercise brought about different strategies and teamwork. The first part helped the class to realize in what ways they might be similar to others, but also how we are all individuals. The engineering strategies used for the second part were really fun to witness!

English:

• This week's Latin Root word: -port-
• Sentence Stalking 
• Letter to the author - students completed their letters to an author and even a few of them want their letter mailed! I will work on this with them and we will hope to hear back.
• Hatchet: read chapters 2-6, discussions of author craft, tone, personal connection, vocabulary

Math:

- MashUp math: comparing images and finding mathematical and visual similarities

- Work with positive and negative integers, Lowest Common Multiple, Greatest Common Factor, square and cubed roots

Social Studies:

• Mapping skills continued then Map Quiz
• practice with timelines, primary vs secondary sources
• investigated artifacts and began to learn about early humans

Science:

- Unit 1 : 

• review plant and animal cells
• specialized plant and animal cells, tissues, organs, began studying for quiz

PHOTOS:

Aug 31 - Sept 4

 
 Important Dates:

Color Days! See info below. 

9/7 - no school (Labor Day)

9/17 - Open House

9/23 - Fun Run fundraising begins this week

10/9 - no school (teacher workshop)

10/12 - VI/PR Friendship Day

This week at a glance...

Health/Wellness/Teambuilding:

Classroom Jobs! We have 4 job crews assigned and students will rotate through them. They will keep the same job for 1 week, then rotate to the next. There are gardeners, outdoor cleanup crew, indoor helping hands, tech cart wranglers, and "off duty" folks. They have really taken to the job positions and are working collaboratively with each other to complete the tasks more efficiently while making it fun.

Digital Citizenship lesson - As we are reintroducing computer use, and many of the students have access to their own devices of some kind, we like to do this lesson as a reminder of how to be safe, responsible, and kind. 

6th Grade gardens - many 6th graders showed interest in helping install some new plants in our garden boxes. They did a great job and learned about what each plant needs going forward (some more water than others).

English:

- This week's Latin Root word: -form-

- Sentence Stalking - we look very closely at a mentor sentence (pulled from popular books) to learn more about grammar, punctuation, and general sentence structure.

- Letter to the author - students drafted a letter to an author of one of their summer reading books, explaining what character they would like to be, what scene they would change and how, and anything else they might want to tell or ask the author. This was also a great way to reinforce letter format!

- All class Reading book: we are now reading Hatchet, by Gary Paulson. Each student has a copy and will have some assigned reading and writing to complete. We read the first chapter together and they seemed very interested to keep reading.

Math:

- MashUp math 

- Work with positive and negative integers, Lowest Common Multiple, Greatest Common Factor

Social Studies:

Mapping skills continued! - latitude and longitude (identify and plot coordinates), grids, using a scale, investigated St. Croix maps and labelled their own

Science:

- Scientific Method

- Microscopes: investigated plant and animal cells under the microscope!

- Unit 1 intro: Plant and animal cells, specialized cells, discuss how models can be helpful, then worked in groups to design their own plant models. When all groups were ready, they rotated to visit other stations where a representative explained the group's model. By the end some students were able to name the plant parts without referencing the book!

COLOR DAYS:

Tuesday, September 8 – Purple Day

Wednesday, September 9 – Brown Day

Thursday, September 10 – Black and White Day

Friday, September 11 – Rainbow Day

PHOTOS:

August 24-28

 Important Dates:

Color Days! See info below. 

9/7 - no school (Labor Day)

9/17 - open house

10/9 - no school (teacher workshop)

10/12 - VI/PR Friendship Day

First week done! And what a fun week it was, getting into routines and learning about each other. Here are some of the highlights:

Health/Wellness/Teambuilding:

Class Charter - Each student shared how they wanted to feel while at school and some ideas on how we can help everyone feel that way. From that, we created our Classroom Charter, and posted it in the room as a daily reminder.

Communication lesson - the students had fun pairing up and testing their communication skills. While one student described a picture their partner did their best to draw it based on the explanation. The drawings got better with each session as communication improved, but some of the first ones were pretty funny!

Core Values - our first core value lesson was about Respect. Students discussed and identified ways to respect others, themselves, belongings, and the learning environment

We had community building each afternoon with 4-6th grade, games and collaboration

English:

- "Who am I as a reader/writer" questionnaire

- Parts of speech review

- Layers of language - learned about and identified old English base words, Latin words, and Greek combining forms

Math:

- MashUp math - I really enjoy using this supplemental math resource. The Multiplication Table and Think, Notice, Wonder games are quick but bring about wonderful conversation, questions, and problem-solving. We will use these on occasion.

- Review: basic work with positive and negative integers

Social Studies:

Mapping! We discussed and identified types of maps and map elements. They had fun perusing atlas's and seeing what cool information they could uncover!

COLOR DAYS:

Monday, August 31 – Red Day

Tuesday, September 1 – Blue Day

Wednesday, September 2 – Yellow Day

Thursday, September 3 – Orange Day

Friday, September 4 – Green Day

Tuesday, September 8 – Purple Day

Wednesday, September 9 – Brown Day

Thursday, September 10 – Black and White Day

Friday, September 11 – Rainbow Day

PHOTOS:

Welcome to Our Class Blog!

 

I look forward to sharing glimpses into our classroom throughout the year on this blog!

As always, if you have questions and/or concerns, please email me at lbohlke@ghcds.org.

I can't wait to learn and grow together as a class this school year!