daw.com - March 29

 First off I want to thank everyone for their participation in the Student Led Conferences. It is my hope that you saw a glimpse into what has been part of your student’s learning this year.  With only 2.5 months left, we still have a long way to go to complete everything in grade 5.

This week we started our wellness unit by engaging in activities run by a myriad of our teaching and administrative staff throughout the entire school.  These will continue for the week after Spring break and the unit will complete with a week of Human Growth and Development.  This unit will look at the physical, emotional and social changes that take place during adolescence and the move to becoming an adult.  There is a talk for parents by Dr. Wang from BJU that will happen after spring break.  Look for the announcement.

I want to wish everyone a happy, healthy and restful spring break.  I will spend the first 4 days of it in Bangkok attending the Near East School’s Association conference where I am signed up to be a part of a math course for three days.  The presenter is someone I have heard before and want to learn more from him.  His name is Dan Meyer in case any of you want to look him up.  I know he has a website.

After that I fly on to Bali to spend the rest of the time on the beach - my favorite kind of holiday/vacation.

Looking forward to seeing everyone again on April 8th.

daw.com - March 22

First off a reminder that it is Student-Led Conferences on Monday and Tuesday.  This means that, other than the times you have signed up for, there are no classes these two days.  The class is prepared and I am looking forward to seeing all of you  at these important conferences.

Our next inquiry unit is a short three week unit on wellness.  The last part of this is a study in Human Growth and Development looking a the move to adolescence.  The time of puberty is an important one in all children’s lives and it encompasses not only physical changes but social and emotional ones as well.  Our week of studies will review all these aspects.  The entire study is done with the class except for the question and answer period on the last day were we will split up the boys and girls.  Students will be able to form questions all week long and anonymously put them in to the question box for answering on the last day.

We have now completed our fractions unit and moved on to Volume.  So far we have looked at how the shape of two objects can be different but have the same volume.  This unit will look at not only the depiction and measurement of volume but also mass and capacity.  We will also look at the math involved in calculating the volume of objects.

Most students have completed their first story during a historical period and are researching or writing first drafts about a second historical time frame.  This has been interesting since students are so young they do not have a real feel for history yet.  It has been fascinating to read their stories.  These will be available during conference time since the are all on the students Office 365 account.

We got to see a presentation by a gentleman who makes his living writing Children’s books.  His name was Morris  Gleitzman and he was enjoyed by all.  There was a great Q & A at the end where students got a look at how he goes about writing his stories.  In many ways, it was similar to the way we do it in class.

I a looking forward to seeing all of you over the two days of Student-Led Conferences.

daw.com - March 1

This week has continued along with all the other activities we have been working on for the last 3-4 weeks.  We have now completed our research on a historical event and just about everyone has selected one that they will use as a shell for their story.  We will brainstorm and start drafts of the story on Monday.

Our math has taken us to word problems involving multiplication of fractions.  This has definitely slowed us down since this is an area I consistently see weakness in my students.  We are going slow and steady through this to really help out students with math problems.  I do expect them not only to solve the problem, but prove their answer.

We went to the cooking lab today for the last time this year.  We cooked cinnamon muffins and they all turned out really well.  I guess all the lessons and practice with measuring fractional amounts has really helped out.  I was also happy for the kids that everything went so smoothly.

Parent Teacher conferences are only about 4 weeks away and we spent some time this week having students begin the process.  I think you can expect to get and sign-up email in about a week’s time.  I would like everyone to be at the PT Conferences please.  It is an important time as students begin the transition to middle school.

There is a middle school letter attached to this email.  Please read it carefully as it has all the dates for the meetings with parents as well as the student dates.  Thanks in advance for this.

That is all this week.  Have a great weekend.  Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.