Welcome to Mrs. Uppman's Undercover Agents' cyberspace home!
October 7, 2008
I am so excited to announce that we have had TWO laptop computers donated to our room! A wonderful woman named Tina posted a laptop on freecycle, and agreed to pass it on to our classroom. In the meantime, she found a second one to give us along with the first. I will be picking both up this evening. These computers come at a very critical time for us. We have begun publishing our final drafts when we write, and our students are all anxious to type up their final drafts. With only two computers, the line is long and slow. These two laptops will put us at four computers. I will also bring in my two laptops for the students to use as well. If any of you know of anyone who might have an older model laptop to donate to our classroom, we would GREATLY appreciate it. Think what we could do with even two or three more! Students could pair up and work on activities, educational games or powerpoint presentations-amazing! We will take any model, any make. Between my husband and our resourcefulness, we can find software to re-load onto empty computers. Thank you so much for thinking of us, and helping us track down these precious resources!!
September 7, 2008
We are off and running this year! This site is updated on a daily basis, with information added to
many pages each night just for you! Lesson plans are uploaded each Sunday night, as well as any
activities that are available electronically. Each afternoon, I put our daily activities/homework in our weekly grid so you can see what we accomplished during the day (and what each student should be bringing home to work on). This is posted by 5pm. We also try to take at least one set of pictures and a video of our activities each day. Keep checking in every day for new updates and information, and as always, feel free to e-mail me with any questions!
activities that are available electronically. Each afternoon, I put our daily activities/homework in our weekly grid so you can see what we accomplished during the day (and what each student should be bringing home to work on). This is posted by 5pm. We also try to take at least one set of pictures and a video of our activities each day. Keep checking in every day for new updates and information, and as always, feel free to e-mail me with any questions!
August 11, 2008
It's a big day-our pacing guide has been posted. If you are wondering what we might be studying this year, take a peek. This guide is always subject to the whims and desires of the class, but it should give you a general idea of our course of study this year. All of our state benchmarks will be met with these units, and it should give us a relaxed enough pace to really take our time and investigate our subject matter thoroughly. If students are having a harder time grasping a concept, such as in science or math, we will certainly spend more time on the subject before moving on. Please let me know if you have any questions!
August 7, 2008
Hello and welcome to all! I am excited to post the first journal entry on our class website. This will be a place to find news, thoughts and updates about our classroom. I have been working extremely hard to get everything ready for our first day of school, which is less than three weeks away-eek!. Copies are being made, lesson plans are being written, baskets and tubs are being labels, bulletin boards are being put up... it's a busy time for us teachers! But it's also so very exciting, dreaming about what can be this year, and what WILL be that we haven't even thought of yet. One of the best parts of teaching is seeing the classroom becoming it's own family, taking on a life that you couldn't have imagined. I have no doubt these students will take us places we never dreamed they could, and I can't wait for the ride.
Speaking of rides, my mom posted pictures yesterday from our trip to Disneyland, and one really struck me as a visual metaphor for our classroom. In it, you can see me trying to pull the sword out of the stone. Of course, Disney has gone to great lengths to make sure this sword never comes out of the stone, but that doesn't stop just about every visitor that walks past from trying. We may look like fools, trying to pull that fake sword out, but at least we can say tried, learn how to go about it better in the future-and get a great picture in the process! There will be many instances this year when we will be faced with a daunting, challenging tasks, but that does not mean we won't try. At least we can say we were there, get some pictures and grow a whole lot in the process.
