I want to thank all the parents I met with over the last 10 days or so. I hope the conference was meaningful and will help as we continue to move forward. I am very proud of all you students and feel lucky to have them in my class.
We have now completed the first steps in our writing a persuasive essay. Students have learned how to collect evidence to prove their positions as well as have quotes, short anecdotes and use opposite opinions to help. This last one is very difficult and I expect it will take much longer to really become proficient at it.
We are now about 2/3 complete our first book-club book called Pedro’s Journal. While the subject matter is not the easiest, I have been stoked by how the students have attacked it and really learned more about the reading and the subject at the same time. We have about 7 more days of this and along the way I am having them pretend they are Pedro writing home to his mom on a post card. I find it interesting to see what they deem important enough to write home about.
Out math unit is moving along at a very steady pace. We are amidst the multiplication of 3 digit by 4 digit whole numbers and next week will move on to multi-digit whole number division next week. We have learned how to prove our work with both tape diagrams and also area models. With this has also come the learning about what area is and how it works. I find that the two are very easy to link together and an important part of what is needed to fully understand.
One suggestion I would like to make is that students memorize the times tables from 0x0 to 10x10. While not a part of our math curriculum, the amount of multiplication done in all our units this means that if this basic work is in the memory, it takes away from the grunt of getting small calculations done. This is best accomplished by verbally saying it out loud while reading it from a paper.
This week we are pleased to have a visiting storyteller at ISB who specializes in stories from West Africa. We will be listening to him at an assembly on Tuesday and again in our next couple of library periods in the coming weeks. This is a great way for students to learn about putting their own voice into their writing. This makes it more interesting for the reader.
