Shine on Mr. Bernard! ✨

     Yesterday morning we had the privileged of presenting the Shine Award to Mr. Williams! Bernard is our custodian during the day who goes far beyond his daily duties. He works hard, always helps out, check in constantly, talks with the students, and shows a genuine interest and care for everyone here at Lincoln. A handful of our classmates and a parent nominated Bernard through the district website in hopes of showing just how much we appreciate him. There are about 2,200 employees in the Iowa City School District and only 3 are chosen each month based on their nomination letters. This means only 30 employees receive the Shine Award each year. Way to be amazing Bernard!
   
     The superintendent, Mr. Murley, as well as a few other district employees came to the classroom to present a golden apple award, t-shirt, and copy of the nominations to Bernard. Mrs. Langenfeld and a couple teachers were also able to join in the celebration. The students created signs that read "CONGRATS MR.BERNARD!" and shouted surprise when Bernard walked into the room. Mr. Bernard was beyond surprised as he thought he was coming into our room to help clean up a mess. His face was priceless and he was left speechless. As he left our room, the other students and staff had the hallway lined and gave Bernard a much deserved round of applause. Lots of hugs were shared, and tears held back.

We truly appreciate and enjoy having Bernard on our Lincoln Lion team! 🦁

 

Fall Break 🍂

I hope you all enjoy the long weekend and have plenty of rest and relaxation!

I have sent home spelling lists if there are any eager beavers who would like to get an early start on their studying. They are also posted on here along with the vocabulary words. Weekly math will come home Monday, due next Friday along with a current event. Please encourage your children to keep reading and writing over break, but also enjoy the time with family and friends.

Lastly, thank you for your concerns, as some of your students have shared I have been a bit under the weather this past week. I am happy to say that I am back to my usual self this week, and plan on starting next week strong! 🦁

Kensuke's Kingdom

     This week marks the end of Kensuke's Kingdom! 🌴 Everyone seemed to enjoy the novel and had a lot to talk about in our discussion today. Kensuke's Kingdom is a fictional novel that is created from very realistic possibilities. By the end of the book many of our classmates were questioning if the novel was true or not! We had a discussion about why the author would choose to make it seem so realistic and how that can help increase reader's attention.
     Kensuke's Kingdom brought a lot of insightful work, so be sure to ask your child about it! I will have all of the response sheets graded by next Monday, and their summaries are completed online in Google Classroom if you would like them to share those with you.
     We also had some time to complete a few projects along the way. The first project we worked on was mapping Peggy Sue's journey. This required students to use Google Maps to locate and trace each stop that was discussed in the novel. The second project was to map Kensuke's Kingdom. This project consisted of an image of the island Michael and Kensuke were stranded on, leaving the details of where certain animals, shelters, and events took place up to each student to map. Following the map projects we completed a message in a bottle. This is something Michael tries to do, but it doesn't turn out so well. For this project, each student pretended they were stranded on the island and wrote their own message in a bottle.
Great work on this novel project! 👍

How the time flies...

Can you believe we are already working our way through November? Neither can I! There are a few major things coming up that I'd like to share and remind you about.
     1. Conferences are this Thursday evening and next Wednesday all day. Please be sure to sign up! If you are already signed up, don't forget these are 3-way conferences. This means the student, parent, and teacher are all participating in the conference if possible. I look forward to meeting with you all!
     2. You may have noticed your child does not have a spelling or vocab list this week. This is because we are not using our regular Language and Reading textbook this week through Fall Break.
     3. Now you may be thinking: What are you doing with your time then?? Well, be assured we are working hard! The entire 6th grade is reading the novel Kensuke's Kingdom and completing various comprehension tasks along the way. All of this work is completed in school, but I encourage you to ask your child what they read about or did today with Kensuke's Kingdom!
     4. We are still completing weekly math each week, as well as current events (with the exception of this Friday, as we are reading through Time For Kids).
     5. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to reach out at any time! I am always available for you!
     6. Scholastic went home last Friday. If you are wanting to order from any of the flyers that were sent home please submit the order by November 30th. If you are wanting to order through me, send the completed order form(s) to school along with a check/cash for the total amount. If you would like to order online, simply use our class code: RCYJT. The book fair is also going to take place starting the 13th (a note went home about this). Remember: you can never have too many books!

Go Lions! 🦁

Halloween Celebration

Sorry for the late update! I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween! It was great seeing all of the costumes here at school, and being a part of the traditional Lincoln Lion Parade! We enjoyed the brisk air, exercise, and fun that followed. Here is a picture of our class in costumes, as well as the staff dressed as Lion Cares Super Heroes!