Typing Help

Mr. Hintz has a SMART Board in his classroom. If you don’t know what that is, imagine a white board that you can write on digitally and import images that can be manipulated on the screen with your finger. That’s a very entry level description of what a SMART Board can do.

That SMART Board is a wonderful tool to have in the classroom that makes lessons visual and engages students. One subject that Mr. Hintz uses the SMART Board in regularly is English. He types up sentences from the book into a program. Then he or the students can cross off words, underlines and circle words, depending on what lesson is being taught that day.

Typing 10-20 sentences for two English classes, four days a week does take a little time. If you would be willing to help type sentences, please speak with Mr. Hintz. He can loan you a book to take home. Sentences can be typed at home in your free time and emailed to Mr. Hintz when you are finished. Thanks!

Spelling City

Spelling City is a great website to study spelling words. I have the units all typed up on my teacher account. You can go to my list by typing or clicking www.spellingcity.com/mrhintz. The website will teach the words to the students and play several different games to help memorize them. It’s a lot of fun and students will learn their words too. If you would like to help type word lists that aren’t already published on the site, please speak with Mr. Hintz.

Extra Credit Binders

Each 4th and 5th grader has an extra credit binder. Twenty-six extra credit worksheets will be added to these binders each quarter. The worksheets will be awarded 2-5 extra credit points based on the difficulty of the worksheet and how well the student did on it. The extra credit points can be applied to any subject that has a grade that is lower than an A.

Spelling

Each week we cover a new unit in our Spelling book. On Monday, August 22, we will be studying Unit 1. Students will be given a pretest on Monday. The words they get wrong on this pretest will be given to them again on Friday. Students were reminded today to take their spelling books home this weekend, so they could study their words in preparation for the pretest on Monday. In addition to the spelling test, students will be work on pages in the book to learn the definitions of the words and increase their vocabulary. These pages are assigned on Monday and due on Friday.

2011-2012 School Year

Welcome to the new school year; I’m looking forward to it. Thanks for checking out our classroom webpage. Please check back often to read new and important posts.

Progress Report Update

Progress reports were updated today. Sorry it’s been awhile since I’ve updated them. I was waiting for all the missing work from sick students to be turned in so the reports would be accurate.

God bless your day!

Historical Fiction Book Report Project

The 2nd book report project was assigned today for the historical fiction book the students read. Their project is to create a timeline of the fictional and nonfictional events of their historical fiction book. As the students read their book I encouraged them to write down any dates and what happened on that date; hopefully they headed my advice.

The top of the timeline will show the fictional dates from their story. Students should list between 5-10 dates and what happened on that date. Some book might not have that many dates in it, so in that case, students should list as many as they can.

The bottom of the timeline will show the nonfictional dates of the event their book was written about. Again, students should list 5-10 dates and what happened on that date. Depending on the book, real dates and events in history may also be listed. If not, students can find this information in their history book, encyclopedia, library books or the Internet.

Once timeline is complete, students need to draw and color or print off the computer pictures that pertain to their book and the historical event their book was written about. The title of the book and author should be written in large letters above the timeline.

Students will be given some time on Thursday and Friday to work on this project. It will be due on Monday, November 1.

Please ask if you have any questions.

Spelling City

Unit 10 and 11 were posted to my Spelling City account this morning. I apologize for posting Unit 10 late.

English How-To Article

Students are meticulously working through writing their How-to Article for English class. The final written draft is due tomorrow (Wednesday, October 27). Today we picked presentation days; they are as follows.

Tuesday, November 9 – Olivia, Jack, and Noah
Wednesday, November 10 – Michelle, Peter, Quinn, and Leah

These are not the same dates as previously published. They were changed to allow more preparation time and days to review and test on Unit 2.

Here is a link to information about the presentations. If a student chooses to show a video or have a PowerPoint as a part of their presentation this part of their presentation is due to Mr. Hintz by Wednesday, November 3 so he has time to prepare it for presentations the following week.

If you have any questions, please don’t be afraid to ask.

English How-to Article

We are working on writing a How-to Article right now in English class. Students have picked a topic, will write a how-to article, and demonstrate how to make or do their article in front of class. More detailed information about what students will be doing was handed out in class and is attached to this post. Please watch the daily assignments for due dates of each section of the how-to article. Please ask if you have any questions.

How-to Article