Second Grade Work with Matilda

So, we've got an informal second grade reading group. These students have been reading Roald Dahl's Matilda. Here's a quick video of these students demonstrating understanding of the novel by sharing in a game called "What's My Character?"
Check it out!

What's My Character? Matilda Edition from John Pruett on Vimeo.

Hour of Code for AIG Thursday

Our fifth grade ladies from AIG had a great opportunity today to teleconference with programmers from Boston as we continue to work with the national program, Hour of Code.

Mrs. Eggett has set up outstanding activities for many Claxton students in honor of the Hour of Code. Our programmers today are friends of hers! They led our students through interesting, challenging activities - and were fun and funny to boot!

Link for Thursday, 12/12

 Link for Thursday

Writing Code

Three members of local web design company Paleosun visited with fifth grade boys today to discuss computer coding. Our wonderful Mrs. Eggett set this up for our students as part of a national Hour of Code. Claxton students have worked throughout the week to enjoy lots of cool activities. 

Check out activities at www.code.org

Our fifth grade girls have a different opportunity tomorrow!

More to come!

Fourth and Fifth Grade

What no videos to check out lately? Well, here's a couple. Our fifth grade has been working with the Beaufort Wind Scale - specifically designing their own scales, BUT, we introduced things by having dramatic reading of the Beaufort Scale. Check out each fifth grade class on the enclosed Vimeo videos.

 As an added bonus, I'm also posting some videos of fourth graders (our advanced subject group in reading students) performing poem in two voices by Paul Fleischman. Enjoy them all!



Thursday Beaufort from John Pruett on Vimeo.

Writers in our Midst

Young ladies in our fifth grade study group enjoyed a presentation about writing by a Claxton parent who has written extensively for television.  Audience and purpose were two big ideas from the presentation; both looming large in writing instruction here at Claxton! 

Many thanks to our speaker for showing us not only an Emmy award but the importance of writing!

Student Government Service Project

A second service project for Claxton Student Government wrapped up this week! Students were able to get together to decorate holiday trees for Hospice. Mr. Ackerman and our government officers and representatives decorated trees to suit a variety of holidays!

December Highlights

In December: For third grade parents, the ACS testing coordinator assures me that the aptitude screen for third grade will occur the week of December 16th. Thanks for your continued patience! In fourth grade, our groups continue work with electronic personal profiles, math work (Hands-On Equations), and a shift to some short stories for our readers. I have choices for a new novel study in January. Fifth graders have a visit from a television writer, and cool activities for “The Day of Code”, a nationwide push to introduce students to writing computer code. Our project focus is continued work on student-written scales.

Student Government Service Project

Our student government sponsored a food drive for Harvest of Love, a local initiative to combat hunger. Here are some snaps of our officers displaying the 249 items donated. Look our for more great things from this awesome group of students.