daw.com - October 20

 

You should have received your students report card on Student as a Learner last week.  If you did not please contact the office to have this corrected.  The student as a learner looks primarily at how your student recognizes their own learning. This is a broad scope of concepts and ideas that should make them think deeper about themselves and reflect on what needs strengthening.  We do a reflection piece on student as a learner every 2-3 weeks throughout the year that is also goal setting.  This way students can both reflect on themselves as they grow and set a goal to be reached in a short period of time.

I forgot to show you something that the class was involved in about two weeks ago.  The high school Human Health and Fitness IB class needed to collect age date about health and fitness so I volunteered the class.  Mr. Smyth, the high teacher of the class, had stations set up that were manned by the students in the class.  I think the class enjoyed the time with the HS students as they had quite a list of questions for the students.  I like to be involved in these activities as it shows the students that there is more going on at ISB than just our class.

Remember that next Monday and Tuesday are parent teacher conferences so there is no school on these days.  I hope all of you have set up your conference and look forward to seeing you to discuss your student.  They are a continued manner the school uses to keep the home - school connection open.  I also like them as it allows me to take the temperature of the class and where we are headed.

We are well along with our writing unit on feature articles.  We have spent some time this week researching biomimicry, nature, innovation and innovation in biomimicry.  We have also looked at 4 videos and gathered more information and evidence of innovation through nature.  Next week we will move on to the outline phase of the writing as we get ready to actually take all this information and write about it.  The final outcome is a feature article about innovation through nature.  We will be posting these on an online website I have set up for this assignment.  Students will also Seesaw this and reflect on the process and the product.

Next week we will take our math class into the kitchen.  Cooking is an excellent use of fractions in the real world.  We will be making muffins and smoothies.  I know everyone is looking forward to this as it is a really neat activity.  I have one other time we will go to the kitchen to also look at fractions but in an extended manner.  Of course, it goes without saying, that the students get to eat their projects.

Although I have no Jedi Jugglers in my room this year, I do want to let you all know that next Friday, October 27th is the annual Jedi Jugglers show.  I am sure it promises to be quite a spectacle.  The students always enjoy this show every year.

I want to remind everyone that your student should be reading at home all seven nights a week.  All research shows that this is a very positive way to improve reading skills.  We do not have a lot of time to free read in class but there are lessons almost every day and discussions and assignments based on the readings we do in all out subjects in class.  Help your child continue to improve by reading every night.  They should be recording this in their planner so they can put it in their reading log at school.

Our math has taken us to multiplication of 2x3, 2x4, 3x3 and 3x4 digits.  These are large numbers and for some students it is taxing their basic facts.  By this time I hope students understand the necessity of basic facts up to 9 x 9 = 81 and the division reverse.  It will help them as we continue to explore multiplication of whole numbers and move into decimals up to thousandths. If they are a bit rusty, saying the times table out loud is a fantastic way to quickly bring it to mind. we spent time this week proving our standard algorithm with tape and ribbon diagrams as well as area models.  As your students about these as they should be able to tell you and also decompose the numbers for them.

That is it for this week.  As always, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me and I will gladly set up a time to meet.
Harold Daw