September 11th is an important day for Americans, New York City residents, social studies students, and for people all over the world. Mr. Maxim and his students remembered September 11th today in a few ways. We watched a couple videos, such as this one from BrainPop, and this one from Nick News. Students were interested in learning more about September 11th, had a lot of questions, and cleared up many misconceptions.

Students in Mr. Maxim's ELA classes are reading Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli. In Stargirl, the two main characters, Leo and Stargirl, meditate. To help students understand what meditation is, Mr. Maxim did this lesson on meditation (which the kids loved!) Here's a picture of the little yogi's really meditating!

Head over to Pixton and play around, because I got our accounts back there. Remember some of these fun comics you made? Now you can use this website again!

In Social Studies, students are memorizing The United States. That means, Mr. Maxim wants each student to be able to label a blank map of The United States with the name of each state. We've been practicing this in class, but there's also ways you can practice it at home. Here's a cool website to practice labeling The United States: http://www.jetpunk.com/quizzes/map-quiz-us-states.php

Congratulations to Isaac! You're the winner of the Friday raffle! You just won $500 LiveSchool!

Mr. Maxim has a fun and educational new resource that all students can use. It's the scootpad.com website. Students can use this website to practice reading, math, and spelling. They can connect with friends, earn coins and rewards, and play fun games, too! There's even a leaderboard where students can see who's been doing the best with the ScootPad website. Students have been really excited about using the website in class, because it gives them a way to earn LiveSchool money and other class rewards. Follow the link above, sign into ScootPad, and check it out for yourself!

5th graders have been learning and having fun in Mr. Maxim's class by creating comics on the computer. They've learned about theme (the lesson or moral of a story). Students then created a comic which told a story and had a theme. Take a look at some of those comics. You can click on the images to see a bigger version of the comic.

Click through the links along the left of my webpage to discover more about life in Mr. Maxim's fifth grade classroom at Inwood Academy for Leadership Charter School. Useful Links is a good place to checkout fun webpages to explore at home or during free time at school. Class Photos is where you can see some cool pictures taken during the school day. Finally, look at Contact Me if you want to send Mr. Maxim a quick message.