daw.com - Nov 8

I have just completed assessing the math test that I gave the students earlier this week and things are not so good.  More than 50% of the class showed me that they have not mastered fractions. It is evident from this that we need to continue working on fractions some more.  Since fractions are going to be a big part of their math for the rest of their education, I feel that they need to strengthen this area before we move on to multiplication and division of fractions next week. You will be getting the unit 3 assessments on Monday.

This week we start our own independent research project for writing a report.  I have emphasized that the subject is not the concern.  Most important is the students showing they have learned the research process for reading, taking notes, drafting, revising and then for this report, publication. There are lessons on understanding vocabulary, primary sources, citing photos and pictures, writing for deeper meaning and revising for completion as part of the rest of this unit.

This is our last week of the Migration unit and we will summarize it all up by looking at our own migration stories.  There is a comparison of refugees children to us to complete, a website on migrant children and then a final pallet with all sorts of things all about us.  It should be a great way to both finalize the subject and also reflect on it.

Thank-you for helping your student with the Hanbok on Friday - with all the changes in the schedule for that day, I am proud to say that we had it well in hand and everything went off without a hitch.  I have added the pictures I took to this letter.  Please feel free to download any you want.

With things getting a little more regular here in Korea, I am hopeful that we are going to be back to school full time soon.  It is something I pray for every day.  Even so, we must always be prepared for the unexpected, especially since we cannot tell the future.  This is always on my mind as a plan my lessons and days ahead.  I want to thank-you for all you do to help your student when they are on virtual learning.  I think it really makes a difference.

On a personal note, I want to let everyone know that I will be retiring from teaching at the end of this school year and returning to Canada.  I have had a great 33 years of teaching of which 29 of it has been overseas and the memories and experiences shall live with me for many years to come.  Even so, I will continue to provide the best learning for your student until the last day of school.

Please stay healthy and safe.

daw.com - Oct 10

Here is this week’s learning schedule;

Monday - in school (day 4)

Tuesday - virtual learning (day 5)

Wednesday - virtual Learning (day 6)

Thursday - in school (day 1)

Friday - in school (day 2)

I find that we are moving long very nicely even with the interruption of virtual learning.  The only area I am concerned about is writing.  It is impossible for me to see how to help students when I cannot see what they are writing.  This has made teaching writing very hard to do.  I catch up with most of my students when they are in class but some are just not meeting the expectations.  We finished our first unit on Narrative Writing last week and move on to Research Reports this coming week.  This is a unit that many of the students like as we look at how to research a topic in full.

Our next reading unit is in line with the research unit.  The title is Tackling Complexity but mostly it is about making the most out of non-fiction books.  When I watch students “read” non-fiction books mostly all I see is a scanning of the pages looking at the pictures first and maybe some reading.  This unit will look at how to use the various text structures and writing styles to get the most from the reading.

This coming week we will finish out math unit on Multiplication and Division of whole numbers.  I am finding that many of the students still are unsure of their abilities in division so I will be adding in review lessons to continue strengthening this area.  We are still completing our Resort Report project and hope to be finished it in the next 10-12 days.  The next project is fractions based and involves a bakery.  It ties in nicely with our next unit on Fractions and Mixed Numbers.  We will write the final assessment for this unit sometime this coming week.

Our migration simulation on Thursday was a huge success and it really gave the scholars something to think about as if they were refugees or misplaced people from another land.  We all had a great time and learned a lot about migration.

On Monday we will do our first service project with the PK4 classes as the building things with cardboard.  My class will spend 45 minutes with the class helping where needed.  As the oldest students in the school, they can provide excellent roles models for these children who look up to them.

Thursday is the first Band day where students bring their instruments to school (hooray).  I will put it in their planners on Wednesday to remind them.

Students need to bring all their books and assignments back to school on Monday.  It is very hard to get work completed if they keep leaving things at home.  Please help them - anything that looks like school work/book (except library books) should come back to school on Monday.

Thank-you for helping your student with their family tree assignments this past week.  This week we are going to make a family tree poster with the information they have collected.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Harold Daw

daw.com - Oct 4

I do hope everyone had a happy Chuseok holiday and is rested and ready to go again.

First off let us all welcome Emma to our classroom.  She is new to Korea but not new to international schools.  I am sure the students will do their best to make her feel at home and welcome to 5D.

Our schedule this week is as follows;

Monday Oct 5 - in school (day 1 - Band & Library)

Tuesday Oct 6 - virtual at home (Day 2  - Art)

Wednesday Oct 7 - virtual at home (Day 3 - Band)

Thursday Oct 8 - in school (day 1 - Band and Library) *** This is the makeup day from Aug 18th.

Friday Oct 9 - PD day for teachers, no school

This week we will complete our first published writings.  I have now read over about 70% of the final drafts and what I see is quite varied.  Some students have learned what I have been teaching and either put it in to their writing or attempted to.  Others are still in the learning stage of this kind of in-depth writing,  This is not unusual as it is most likely the first time that they have had to write a narrative that not only tells the story but also give the reader a theme, in-depth look at the characters and highly descriptive scenes.  I have commented on all students who have shared their work with me.

I must ask all of you to please not be hovering during the home learning time,  You are not helping your student since they will not get this when in school and I am expecting to be full time in school within the next month. One of the goals of grade 5 is to make the students understand their own learning and when help is needed to ask for it - in teacher talk, having their own agency.  This should also be the entire time they are online learning.  While this can be a hard idea, we are built to learn from our mistakes and no mistakes does not make us better - just more reliant on others. Please find other things to do while your scholar is on line.  I am sure they will ask for help if they need it.

Students have band on Monday & Thursday but should NOT bring their instruments.  We still do not have clearance for students to play instruments or sing,.  We are expecting a change in this soon so please stay alert to this.  While students are at home, they can play their instrument but need to be 1-2 feet away from the computer which needs to be pointing to them.  This is quite a unique opportunity for students so I want to do the most we can when we are virtual.

This week is our first time we have library period so students should return all books in order to sign out more books for the rest of the next two weeks.  Our next unit is on non-fiction reading and writing and I will be requiring them to find books for this unit of study.  These books will go home as we continue with our 2-day on, 2-day off schedule.  As we have no idea how long this will continue, being on top of this is VERY important.

I have sent an email to each student of the things I am still missing from them.  Please help them locate these materials, finish the work or let me know when something is missing, The longer this takes the more impact it has on their learning. While there will be time to work on it on Monday, the only assignment that will be due on Monday is their THINGS I WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT ME poster and writing (the latter should have been completed about 5 weeks ago now).  If something is lost let me know so I can try to replace it.

Parent - teacher conferences are in about two weeks so be on the lookout for emails about how to sign up for these.  These emails will come from the ES office not from me.

Our new PYP unit is on Migration.  This week students will need some help from you regarding your family tree and movement over time.  Please assist when necessary.  It is a neat unit and really gets students looking into their own backgrounds as wells the plight of many people over the world who are either forced or choose to migrate.  This unit will go for about the next 6 weeks.

We continue our math unit on Multiplication and Division of whole numbers.  Not surprisingly, some students have really picked this up while others are struggling even after three weeks of learning.  As this is a unit that has a lot of impact for the rest of the year, we will work more and more on this over the next two weeks.  The test for this will be next week sometime.  We will do the pretest for the next unit, one of the two days we are in school this week.

For the first time since the start of the year, I have some pics to attach to this home letter.  Have a look at the engineering challenge we did.  There were some amazing outcomes with this.  Over all everyone had fun and it worked really well with our design unit.