Borders Poetry Slam
Saturday, June 6th, 2009Photos and videos from our Poetry Slam at Borders on Thursday, June 4:
Fourth Grade with Mr. Howd
Photos and videos from our Poetry Slam at Borders on Thursday, June 4:
School ends over the summer, but the learning doesn’t have to stop! Here are a few ways to keep your student learning over the summer and ready for fifth grade (click the links below for more about each program):
If you are looking for a way to keep your student “sharp” this summer, or for a way to provide extra math and reading activities, then consider GRASP, the Grand Rapids Academic Summer Program. From the registration form:
The GRASP program is a nine-week correspondence summer program in math and reading. It is designed for children who have completed Kindergarten to 8th grade. Children receive a packet of material containing all 9 lessons for the summer. The lessons are scored, results recorded, and returned to the children.
Children successfully completing (70% accuracy) at least 7 lessons are awarded a certificate, and those successfully completing all 9 lessons receive a medal soon after Labor Day.
The fees for the summer of 2009 are $37 for one subject and $61 for both subjects for each child. Each child should be placed at the grade just completed in school. If there are extenuating circumstances, order the level that is appropriate for your child. Materials will be mailed in June.
This is an inexpensive and convenient way to keep your student learning over the summer. In addition, your student’s results will be sent to their fifth grade teacher next year so that they can get off to a great start in fifth grade.
I’ve updated the Contact page with new ways to contact me.
As always, you can email me from this website. And you can call (810) 341-2112 to speak to me in person or leave a voicemail. But here are some new options:
I can also send you a text message back. This is an option if you are near your cell phone more than your computer, or don’t have an email address at home.
Here are important details for our Novel Writing Project:
Our piece due March 27 will be our final fiction project of the year. Students will write a novel. You read that right. Each student will write their own novel, with a word goal minimum of 1,500-3,000 words, based on their reading level (each student’s minimum writing goal is equal to their reading level multiplied by 500). The novels will be written in Google Docs (docs.mrhowd.com) to make use of the word count feature. Final novels will be uploaded to lulu.com and published as paperback books, which can be purchased for reasonable prices. So yes, students will actually write and publish their own novels. This project is based on the National Novel Writing Month Young Writers program. Here are more details: