What a great week with so many activities and fun things to do it was really amazing. We started off on Tuesday with Celebrate and Share the Arts. This is a day when the students look back at their year in Performing and Visual Arts. The class demonstrated how they work in their performing arts class with a look at Indian music and dance. Here is a video of their act.
If you get a chance, come on by the school in the next few weeks to see all the art work that is displayed in the hallways of the school.
On Wednesday we completed our Fractions unit with our second trip to the cooking lab where we made a delicious banana bread. Each of the 5 groups used the same recipe and the success was amazing. There was almost nothing left over after the groups cut the bread and started eating. We shared it out and finished off cleaning up.
Thursday was the school's annual Sports Day and with perfect weather the day was a great success. Yellow house was the winner with an overall score over 2700.
Here are the current events students for next week;
Wednesday - Arianna
Thursday - Jungle
Friday - HaeWon
Thursday - Jungle
Friday - HaeWon
This is a reminder to all students that if you are not able to get Newsela at home, I have 3 others sites you can use. They are in an email I sent to our class group. Logon to portal and look for the email there.
Last week all the students selected their Impact Project groups and started the planning process. First off is to develop an impact statement for the project, start to plan the project and get ready for implementation. This will continue through this coming week when all the planning stage needs to be completed. Then students will have two weeks to actually implement the project. All though this process students are required to keep track of their work either in a journal or through photographic evidence.
While I do not have the time yet, please keep June 3 open as it will be the Impact Fair for this project. As soon as I have a time I will let you know. I am also in the process of completing the calendar for the end of the year. We have a Poetry Cafe and class party to all plan before we present all the dates.
In our poetry unit we are looking at about 20 different types of poetry as well as the reading of poetry. Each time we study a type of poetry, students write 2-3 poems of this type. They will then create a Poetry collage and also have some for reading at the Poetry Cafe.
Our math unit continues to look at problems involving the coordinate plane, parallel lines, perpendicular lines and intersecting lines. It is amazing to watch students when they put it all together and really come up with their own unique solutions. Commonly there is more than one answer with these problems which means they have a chance to really try out their own thinking. They are moving along quite well.
Our next session of book clubs starts this week and will last for about three weeks. One thing I remind all students is that they are to be part of the club so that they can both show off their ideas about the book and also to make it known that they have read the book. So far they are doing fairly well but I still want more
involvement in the discussions about the books. Asking questions while reading is a great way to make sure you try out all sorts of ideas and understand the book at a deeper level that just the basics.
All this makes for both a very interesting and fast paced week. Students will be working hard to complete all of these in the next five weeks and may need extra support at home. Remember that I will never add to their homework they have but rather replace it with things that need to be completed from school. I really want to continue with the learning patterns we have established throughout the year as there is so much to still learn.
We are writing in all sorts of areas. As mentioned above we are into poetry. Also we are writing an impact story. I have told students that they can make it either a fictional story or base it on a real event they know about or have been a part of. First drafts will be completed this week with edits done by two other students first before final drafts. We have also started to learn about persuasive writing. This will be in the form of letters and essays. As students find a topic they are passionate about they can then dig in a really make the proper arguments. Look for these in the coming weeks.
As always, if you have questions or concerns please let me know. I will arrange a time to meet with you.
Harold Daw
