Week ending 09.12.25

Week ending 09.12.25

◼︎ Mo’ PBs!

Remarkably, the PBs — Personal Bests — for our 10 minutes of Extreme Writing (almost) every morning just keep rolling in!

And on a Monday too!

When most of us can’t write more than our PBs for the 10-minute writing period, we’ll up the time for writing to 15 minutes.

◼︎ Building Vocabulary

You may recall from our Parent Orientation that education researchers have noted a persistent “fourth grade slump” in reading achievement.

This slump arises due, in part, to the increased complexity of texts — less concrete, more abstract — and the press to increase students’ vocabularies.

In addition to reviewing vocabulary in our assigned reading books and texts — our science and social studies texts are full of challenging new words — we use Wordly Wise.

While not as popular as Holes, Wordly Wise is good brain food for 5G students.

◼︎ Art

Such fun to sit in Art and just watch!

◼︎ Personal Narrative #2

5G worked hard Monday afternoon, running through the whole narrative writing process.

Students (1) selected — either from their previous list of 6 narrative possibilities, or an idea that popped up after Personal Narrative #1 — their story seed, (2) planned by jotting down 4 narrative “scenes” (5 minutes), then (3) dived into an Extreme-Writing-inspired zero draft (20 minutes!).

◼︎ Brain Break!

Before (4) writing their final drafts, 5G needed a mental breather — and some fresh air, sunshine, and exercise!

Another remarkable writing event: 5G students wrote their hearts out!

Needless to say, they’re already asking when they can read their second personal narratives to the class!

We remain awed at the writing quality, stamina and enthusiasm shown by everyone!

◼︎ All Thrusters At Maximum!

Remarkably, we continue to score PBs (Personal Bests) during our 10 minutes of Extreme Writing.

And we do this first thing in the morning — many of us without a big cup of coffee!

◼︎ Mo’ Math Assessing

With our right brains warmed up, it was time to warm up our left brains!

5G students reviewed the first 5G-level Basic Math Numbers & Operations.

Then they dived into the second assessment in the Numbers & Operations series!

◼︎ Can’t get enough of Holes!

As the rest of the nation slides into reading less and less, 5G is grooving on Holes. They just can’t get enough of it, and often walk away from the Reading group still reading Holes!

◼︎ Feel the Rhythm!

Always fun to sit in a Music class with 5G and… feel the rhythm!

◼︎ Mindfulness

If you have yet to glimpse Ms. Sakiko’s new space, here’s your chance (see pix below). The 5G class is small enough that they can enjoy Mindfulness in that new space, rather than in our classroom.

◼︎ Innovation & Robotics

Ms. Keiburtz kicked off our joint Innovation & Robotics adventure with 6G, sharing with the teams what robotic “brains” we had, what materials were available for constructing robots, and where online instructions could be found for building a variety of simple robots.

After that, 6G took the teaching reigns in the Robots Room (5G) which Ms. Kieburtz facilitated more research in the Innovation Room (6G).

We’re making progress!

In time, problems in need of solutions — those problems selected by 5G and 6G — will roll over into the building of robots to “solve” those very problems.

◼︎ The Sky’s the Limit!

Another remarkable morning of Extreme Writing! Just take a look at our class averages per session:

**• y axis: number of words in 10 minutes / x-axis: session**

And who could resist calculating the cumulative number of words per session?

As of today, as a class, we’ve written over 44,000 words — just in the first 10 minutes of most days so far!

And if you’ve ever wondered what our Extreme Writing books look like:

◼︎ Math Operations & Algebra

Today we reviewed the first 5G Operations & Algebra assessment (which students had already completed) as a mental warm-up to taking the second 5G Operations and Algebra assessment.

**• A few sample question from the first assessment**

A huge part of doing well on assessments and text is… learning how to take assessments and tests.

“About” means the answer isn’t exact. Sometimes the answer isn’t the solution to the problem presented, but a question about the process you must go through to answer it. I know the answer is “3",” but 3 dogs, 3 friends or 3 walks?

Learning to look at the answers first, then reading the question carefully to understand what is being asked of you are critically important.

We want our 5G students to demonstrate what they really do understand and know how to do, and not shine because the wording of a question is throwing them off, or the choice of A?-B?-C? answers is confusing.

that said, 5G students did well! Measurement tomorrow!

◼︎ Will Stanley & Zero Survive?

it such a joy to watch students really get into a book, so much so they don’t want to put it down.

We just hope 5G will like the next 4 or 5 books in our assigned-reading line-up!

◼︎ It’s a Book Buddies Week!

Such a wonderful opportunity — every other week — for 5G students to be role models and leaders in the HNS community.

**• 1G students love their 5G student Book Buddies!**

◼︎ 5G Community Meetings

Dr. Cat has promised 5G that when he’s frustrated with goings ons, he’ll not sit on those frustrations lest they grow. Instead, he’ll call a meeting and we’ll discuss what’s up.

Today necessitated such a meeting.

We discussed:

The importance of letting Dr. Cat or Ms. Cunningham know if we are dashing out of sight somewhere (e.g., bathroom, water, Student Council meetings, etc.) — this is a safety issue, not a Mean Dr. Cat / Ms. Cunningham issue!
The importance of crossing Nenue Place safely, as many cars are hell bent on getting to Foodland before all the raspberries run out, or to the light onto the highway before it turns red. (5G learned, if they didn’t know it already, that Dr. Cat & Ms. Cunningham are Safety Nuts.)
Basic rules Dr. Cat & Ms. Cunningham thought we could take for granted: no throwing in the classroom, no running in the classroom, no art on whiteboards when we’re doing math, etc.
What happens when teachers ask students over and over again to stop/start something, but there’s no change in behavior. (Emotional Intelligence training!)
The importance of not following the less-than-desirable behavior of other students, especially if we think there are bennies for copying them, as in, “You’re so cool, dude. You’re one of us now.”
What trust is. What a good (and less good) reputation is. Why a good reputation is important in life. Why being trustworthy is a good thing.

5G students maturely considered all discussion points.

You’d have been proud of them!

◼︎ Religion

It’s a joy watching Rev. Jenn in action!

◼︎ End of Day

So great to have the green a few steps outside our sliding glass doors!

◼︎ Thursday Morning Chapel Singers

5G again swelled the ranks of the “Thursday Morning Chapel Singers”!

After 1.5 hours of chapels — everyone knows a lot about Jacob and his brothers — and singing, 5G got a much needed break!

◼︎ Extreme Writing update

As a class, we’ve now written in excess of 47,000 words! Again, this is just what we write for 10-minutes (almost) every morning.

And while we usually don’t do Extreme Writing on Thursday, 5G asked to do it this morning, with several classmates reaching new PBs!

Some students are having fun with our story cubes. Shake 3 up, line them up, let the images suggest a story, or random sentences which, of course, satisfy the write-as-many-words-as-you-possible-can Extreme Writing mandate.

◼︎ Personal Narratives (#2)

If every there was a writing class, 5G 2025-2026 is it!

Not only have students excelled writing their second personal narratives, but more now have writing journals for their own writing.

Enjoy a glimpse of students reading their narratives.

What didn’t get filmed is the “5 Likes” feedback each story received. (The Basket of Randomness selects 5 students, each of whom shares something they liked about the narrative they just heard.)

◼︎ Growing Bodies & Brains need…

Rest, reading and writing!

◼︎ A Library Request

“Can we go to the library today (Thursday) since we cannot go tomorrow (Friday)?”

If our 5G students are enthusiastic about reading, writing, math and more… who are we to stand in their way?

Before nipping off to the library we finished up the remaining two personal narrative readings, then students assessed themselves on the Executive Function scales to be shared with parents on Friday.

In the library, we have two pairs interested in magic trick…