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Students (determined by their peers) created their final pictograph paintings, Tuesday. These will be displayed in Hoggatt Cave as a part of our "public" tours (coming soon).
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After creating Indian pictographs and "translating" them into English, students chose one from each group to be painted onto brown paper "animal hides". These will also serve as our cave paintings for Hoggatt Cave. Students were able to "vote" by placing one chip on a pictograph on each table.
I found Dorko the Magnificent to be a quirky book. It is easy to read, and it succeeds at humor, even though it tries a little harder than it needs to. All in all, it was fairly entertaining and easily predictable.
Robbie Darko is one of those boy characters who has obviously written from a woman's point of view. In an attempt to sweep an emotional ending under the rug, Author Andrea Beaty quickly parsed over the drama that should have been an important part of the story. I understood the reasoning behind that, but it keeps the reader from understanding the emotions that would have naturally emerged. Friday was a day out for students, but teachers still met. All Joplin fourth grade teachers in met at South Middle School for the dissemination of information from the district. While the day was not entirely enjoyable, we were able to briefly look at the recent NWEA assessments and the Next Generation Science Standards.
We were also provided with - again, brief - times to collaborate with our peers about best practices, where we were able to share ideas and strategies with each other. Some might be interested in the Teacher Collaboration page on our website. Here is a collection of strategies, ideas, and lessons that can be adapted and used by teachers as they wish. I've placed the ideas all on one page. These are absolutely free.
When we boarded the bus for a quick bus-evacuation conversation, Hoggatteers consistently addressed him as sir. He was also quick to notice and comment about the class' respectful responses to his presentation.
Take a pack of standard flash cards.
Pass one to each student. Play music. Students casually stroll around the room. When the music stops, each student pairs up with another. Each student in the pair holds up a flash card for the other. Once both have solved their problems, students trade flash cards and sit on the floor. Play music again, and repeat. By the time this activity is finished, each student had solved a number of basic multiplication facts. They have also given clues and taught others when they had difficulty with a particular card. The two most consistently-difficult problems were 8 x 6 = 48 and 7 x 6 = 42. If you get a chance, please work on these specific problems at home.  Let the record show, on Tuesday, September 22, our class exceeded 1000 points on ClassDojo with positive points combined with Needs Work points . If you peruse the archives of our website, you can quickly discover that this is a record-shattering moment in Hoggatteer history. Truly incredible! Parents, thank you for sharing your children with me.
Needless to say, if for no other reason than watching for severe weather, we will continue to delve into geography as the year progresses.
The map activity we actually did concerned Native American Indian tribes who lived in our state. Students had a little coloring time in which they matched the names on the map key with the regions of our state which hosted those particular tribes. Just familiarizing ourselves with the names of those tribes is an accomplishment. In addition to the map activity (and a quick word search), students read a page with a highly-condensed history of Indians in Missouri. In combination with the history lesson, they identified what they thought were the themes to the article and we tried to find evidence in the text to support their thoughts.
My friends, there is more to this thing called reading that word recognition (How boring would it be if that was all there was to it?). There is also more to reading than answering comprehension questions, identifying the theme, finding the main idea, and exploring the structure of a text. First and foremost, I want my students to enjoy reading. That's the ART of reading, with the rest being the SCIENCE. We address the science way more than we address the art, and perhaps that's an issue. Won't you help me in helping your children commit to books for extended times and for more than a few pages?
 You're looking at an actual classroom report from Class Dojo, the program we use in Room 404 to track student conduct. I am able to categorize the behavior choices of students in the classroom (both positively and for students who need to work on their behaviors). With this, students can easily see where their own choices have placed them. We can then ask questions to help us individually and collectively improve. The "donut" report shown here indicates that our total score is 90% positive, that is a combination of 1020 positive points and 108 negative points awarded since the first day of school. More importantly, we can look at a glance to discover that we score more positive points in the areas of Accepting Responsibility and Showing Respect. In addition to the class donut report, I also look at individual reports (examples below) to counsel with individual students about their choices. Class Dojo is a very useful program that supports our school's Positive Behavior program, which includes the SOAR acronym.
Hoggatteers have a goal to keep their positive percentage above 80 percent. Right now, only three students have slipped below that, triggering some consequences. Over all, this years class has more points than any other class I've for which I've used the program (a result of ClassDojo's new groups feature, sharing our "dojo" with extracurricular teachers and, most importantly, my excellent students).
Theme is an author's view of life and how people behave or should behave.
While theme is the goal, there are these steps to finding it and supporting your finding by using details from the text itself:
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AnthemThe Hoggatteer Revolution
is an extensive, award-winning, inimitable, digital platform for Encouraging and Developing the Arts, Sciences, and honest Christianity in the beautiful, friendly LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE This site is described as
"a fantastic site... chockablock full of interesting ideas, hilarious anecdotes, and useful resources." 
...to like, bookmark, pin,
tweet, and share about the site... and check in regularly for new material, posted often before DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT! 
History in ResidenceElementary Schools: Bring Mr. Hoggatt into your classroom for a week of engaging and rigorous history programming with your students. LEARN MORE BUILDING BETTER
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