NEW BLOGS AND A NEW YEAR

Hello Readers, 
I have finally done it. I HAVE MY OWN CLASSROOM NEXT YEAR!!! WOOHOO!!! I will a 3rd grade teacher at Barnes Elementary School. Also, I am currently teaching incoming 4th/5th graders at Elmonica's summer school. Feel free to take a look at my blog. I am starting it up this week for 4 weeks!!!

Summer School Blog

Also, Feel free to take a look at or follow my 3rd grade blog for the NEXT SCHOOL YEAR to see what is happening in our classroom community. 

Thank you so much for all of your support and guidance. 

Best Wishes,

Daniel Morantte  

Mr. Morantte and Ms. Fraser Graduates

Dear Parents, Faculty, Room 12 and all that read my blog,
Today marks a day that is significant in a students life. Today, I was able to experience that day. Ms. Fraser and I graduated from our undergraduate program with a degree in education. 

Thank you to all of room 12 that made our graduation possible. 

Thank you faculty for giving us the knowledge to succeed.

Thank you parents for giving us the courage to succeed.

YOU MADE THIS DAY POSSIBLE 

Final Day in Room 12

It has been a fun and enjoyable experience to work with these lovely children since december. They have taught me so much and hopefully they feel I taught them so much too. I will be posting pictures on here throughout the day, but I want to say thank you to all the people that look at this blog. You got to see all the fantastic things we are doing in room 12 at James John. I will definitely start blogging again in the fall when the school year starts up again. I just hope I have my own class to blog about. Thank you for the support and strength through my final semester at University of Portland.
~Daniel Morantte, the creator of this blog

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: Who Will Be Portland's Next Mayor? What's a Mayor...

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: Who Will Be Portland's Next Mayor? What's a Mayor...: As you may have noticed over the past few months, we have been inviting some really important people from the Portland Community into our c...

Mind Mangling Math

This week room 12 has been doing math testing and so all the students have been getting an extra dose of their math in the morning. So, as a de-stresser I decided that we do math games on rotation...This is what was going on in room 12 during math:

Julian and Kai are asking each other addition problems. They came up with really inventive problems.

Cesar and Eisel are practicing

their multiplication problems.  

Lucy and Parfait were on Mr. Morantte's
computer and were practicing equivalent
fractions.

Ignacio and Renne are 

practicing addition.

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: What Reading in 3rd Grade Looks Like

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: What Reading in 3rd Grade Looks Like: This was our afternoon yesterday.  (Well, at least 45 minutes of it)  Your 3rd Grader is learning to sustain their independent readin...

Founders Day

Mr. Leach will be in room 12 without Mr. Morantte's help. Mr. Morantte is doing a presentation on multiplication masks that we did earlier in the spring. On Founders Day, people from the University of Portland will get a chance to see what we do in room 12. 

Nursery Rhymes: Room 12 style

We have been using old-fashioned nursery rhymes and changing them as we go along. We break the pattern. Here are 3 examples Room 12 has created so far...

I'm a little teapot

Short and stout.

Here is my handle;

Here is my spout.

When I get all steamed up,

I hear you shout because 

I burned your hand.

Don't you dare mess with me!

~Mr. Morantte

Humpty Dumpty sat on a brick wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

The guards tried to put him together.

Instead they ate him like eggs and ham.

~Mallory

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon.

What I don't get is that

did the cow jump for the cat?

Did the cow jump over the moon because

the moon wanted to see the cow?

Okay, back to the story...

The little dog laughed to see such fun

and the dish ran away with the spoon.

Then they ran away and

A VERY BIG GIANT

named Jack

found the dish and the spoon.

So, Jack used the dish and spoon for lunch.

~Unknown

To be continued on Mr. Leach's Blog ...

"I Am From" Gallery Walk

On Monday we put our finished I am from poems on our tables and walked around as if we were in a museum and wrote compliments about the poems. Everyone was really respectful and had a great time.

Who is visiting Literacy Block?

Roald Dahl is one of the key authors that most children grow up with and room 12 decided that this author would be fun to read. 

George Henry Kranky is an 8 year-old boy who lives on a farm with his mother, father and grandmother. He is fed up with his Grandma's selfishness, grumpiness and her attitude towards him, especially after he becomes frightened by her dark secrets. George seeks to cure it by brewing a very special medicine to cure her. 

Mr. and Mrs. Twit are two ugly, smelly, nasty, stupid people who spend their lives playing nasty tricks on each other. They also enjoy being cruel to animals, which they do by luring birds to glue-smothered trees so they can be baked into bird pie, and tormenting their pet monkeys, Muggle-Wump and his family, by getting them to stand upside down, one on top of the other. They hate children, and Mrs. Twit often carries a walking stick in her right hand that she uses to hit children and animals.

The story is about a little girl named Sophie, after the author's granddaughter Sophie Dahl. One night, when Sophie cannot fall asleep during the "witching hour", she sees a giant blowing something into the bedroom windows down the street. The giant notices her, reaches through the window, and carries her to his home in Giant Country.

In this story a boy from England now lives with his grandmother in her native Norway after his parents are killed in a car accident. Some nights later, the grandmother tells the boy how to recognize a real witch. While they look and act like ordinary women, they are really demons who only look human--which makes them all the more dangerous. 

The book begins where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ends: Willy Wonka has just given Charlie the ownership of his factory, and they crash through the roof of Charlie's house with a flying elevator to inform his family of the good news.

Happy Spring Break Everyone!

Enjoy your week of rest and relaxation

A New Room 12 Experience: A Video of Experiment Day!

This is day 8 of my work sample. Student will be going into the computer lab for a few days to make a PowerPoint presentation about what they learned about volcanoes through the Scientific Method. Today was a success!!!

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: Volcano Construction Day One

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: Volcano Construction Day One: We started constructing our volcanos today.  The kids started with two different sized paper cups, clay and water.   ...

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: Working on Volcano Presentations

Mr. Leach Is Still In 3rd Grade!: Working on Volcano Presentations: This morning we started putting our volcano research into powerpoint. We will be giving our presentations soon.

Cinder Cone Volcanoes

Room 12 watched this awesome animation in science today on cinder cone volcanoes

A New Desk in Room 12

Mr. Morantte got a desk in the classroom. 

It includes a blue lamp for color, a light changing clock for fun, and the floating flute.

Batteries sold separately 

Classroom 12 started imaginative writing and we are all imagining many stories and writing about them. Mr. Leach and I will be reading imaginative stories to start their writers workshop off every day. Yesterday we read "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs."

Stay tuned into what stories we will read next

Quarterific

We are learning how to skip count by 25. We are using quarters to express counting by 25. They are watching this video to help learn how to count to a dollar by using quarters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq6rTT8RmzY

Mr. Leach will be back

Mr. Leach will be returning to Room 12 tomorrow. He has touched down in Portland, but will be out today.

Congratulations Damian!

Damian is our Learn for Life Student of the Week!

Natural Disaster Reading

So, I went to the Multnomah County Library a while ago and asked for books on natural disasters. I got an email saying that there were many books waiting for me. So, I crossed the street to pick up the books and there were SO MANY. I landed out checking out 80 books. I got another email saying there are more books waiting for me. I think everyone in room 12 are going to be learning so much about their natural disaster this week. Look at them reading last week in literacy block...

Finished Multiplication Masks

On friday we finished the masks and they turned out awesome. Room 12 is getting the multiplication facts down. I am so proud of them. They have been working really hard since the start and I thought it would be fun to have art as a means of teaching content.

Sauvie Island and Dirt Exploration

Yesterday Ms. Jennifer came into Room 12 to talk about soil and what we can find in it. The kids really enjoyed peering through the plate of soil put infront of them. Here are a few pics that were emailed from Anna Goldrich, who came in to take pictures. She was nice enough to share them with me.

Eisel and Ema were using their magnifying glass to look at the plate of dirt. They found many interesting things.  

Alexus and Alexia were using their magnifying glass to see a centipede so small that it fit on Alexus' finger. 

Madeline and Eva are intently looking at the dirt. What focused scholars we have in Room 12.

Read Aloud with Ms. Johnson

Ms. Johnson is the substitute teacher in Mr. Leach's Classroom and all of our friends are really enjoying having her. She is reading Wildwood to room 12 scholars. They really enjoy the animated characters Ms. Johnson has done. 

Multiplication Masks

Today kids were coloring their masks and going around the room to ask the multiplication questions they put on their masks. They are really enjoying the multiplication problems.

 Ema is drawing her mask and it looks awesome.

 Francisco has a mustache.

 Mallory's Mask reminds me of batman. I do not know why though. 

 Savannah and Melony working really hard on their mask coloring.

 Cheyenne is sporting a very good look. 

 Tani's Mask has a flower on it

 Damian has very interesting eyes.

Maia is still in the valentines day mood.  

Alexus and Alexia working hard to make their awesome masks. 

 Madeline's mask has a cool nose. 

KJ's is very symmetrical.