daw.com - August 31

We have had another great week of learning in all the units of study as well as in some areas we just started to explore.  I have to admit that I am very proud of what is happening in class and how far we have come already.

First off, let’s remember it is MAP testing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week.  All I ask of you is that students get a good night’s sleep and have a hearty, but not too filling, breakfast.  All tests are done first thing in the morning right after our morning meeting activities.  I think we are doing the Reading Test on Monday, the Language Usage on Wednesday and the Math test on Friday but this still might change.  I expect that you will have the results about 3-4 weeks after the tests are over.

I want to thank everyone who came to Back to School Night.  As always, it was great to see you there and I hope you found the evening informative and worthwhile.  For some of you, it is the last one in the Elementary School.  I did have several parents ask me to share my blog of past teaching so here is the link.  It is a Google blog so you might need a VPN or link outside of China to view it.

https://dawcom-newsletters.blogspot.com/

You will find that it goes all the way back to 2009 when I was teaching grade 5 at HKIS.

I also want to thank Anica’s mom for volunteering to be the classroom mom.  She will be in touch with you in the next month for the activities and events of the year.  There were also two moms who volunteered to assist and I will pass these names on to Anica’s mom as needed.  Once again, thanks to everyone who can help out.  It does make the class just that much better.

 I have had to answer a few questions this week about my home-learning program.  I thought I would take the time to do it in writing for everyone.  Each Monday (or first day of the week) a home-learning booklet goes home with the week’s activities.  There will be one problem and one reading learning sheet per night.  Please do not let anyone work on these for more than 40 minutes as that is what I think they should take.  Every morning we mark the home-learning as a class so that even if someone did not get it done, they can still learn from the answer shared with the class.  There is a challenge question that is optional but recommended.  Added to this will be the nightly Chinese homework and some reading to be done.  I do not assign a time to reading but I do ask all students to keep track of their reading in their reading journal.  I ask a parent to sign this once a week, so you can also keep track of your students reading at home.  I have talked with my students about this and feel that they should be able to do this all seven nights of the week.  That being said, I do realize it may not always be possible and that is OK.

Next Thursday at 2:45pm in gym 1 all the grade 5 students will be doing their first performance – the sword dance.  They have worked hard on this and I know they would love an audience if you can make it.  Please note that due to the large number of students, it is standing only around the edge of the gym.  There are no seats.  You are welcome to bring you camera to photo or video the event, but we do ask that you do not move among the students as this would distract them from their performance.

That is all I have for this week.  Enjoy the pics I have added to this announcement.  If anyone needs to meet with me, just send me an email I and I will arrange a time for us to meet.  Have a great weekend.

daw.com - August 24

What a great week we have had.  We are really starting to get into the groove of learning in 5HD and really moving forward in what we are doing in all our units.

Our math unit has covered how multiples of 10, 100 and 1000 work and also how division of the same work – all within the place value chart.  One thing you might want to aware of is that I have taught students that a decimal point does not move.  In fact, it is the digits that move their place value when multiplied by decimal fractions.  I do not encourage the use of the term, “Move the decimal” as it is misleading.  So far the class has seen how this work and I am confident that as we continue we will get more familiar with what is really happening. The last thing we did this week was a start at exponents within the framework of decimal fractions.

Our first writing unit on Narrative Craft is all about writing moments in our history.  Learning about sentence structure and elaboration is part of this unit as we try to really make these small moment stories come alive.  We have started a list of possible writing ideas and continue to add to this every day that we write.  I have encouraged students to ask parents and other family members to help them remember some of the details where they may be “fuzzy or forgotten”.  Our first published piece of this will be our Book of Moments which is taken from the poem Book of Hours by Joyce Sutphen.  This will be the goal for next week.  After that we will pick one piece and really polish it off with details, dialogue and writing from the eyes of the character.

Our reading is on track as we think while we read.  This is something that I will be promoting all year long as it is important as students now progress from physically learning to read to interpreting and deeply understanding all the reading students do.  I have been happy with the reading journals they are doing every night and want to keep this up throughout the year.  Reading should be something that people do every day and not connected with either home-learning or required pages/time.  We are just learning about “just right” books now so look for this in the conversation in the future.

Our unit on Global Citizen ship show some interesting starts with learning about our beliefs, values and abilities and how these affect our ability to be global citizens.  I had the students to a close activity this week where they had a group of words and had to put them in a sentence that shows what we might learn in this unit.  The actual sentence is, “People’s beliefs and values influence their ability to be an affective global citizen.  One of the pictures in this week’s post shows the results of their activity.  The discussion after was very deep and revealing.

We had our first work on Seesaw this week with our introductory post and also a post on digital citizenship.  You should be able to see these on your students account.  You can leave notes for them and encouragements on their account but please be aware the system requires me to approve these prior to be available to your student.  I usually try to get to this once a day, but sometimes other things get in the way and it a couple of days before it is there.

Tuesday is our class picture day and all I ask is that students come looking clean and tidy.  These pictures are used for both the school’s information system and also for the yearbook at the end of the day.  If you want copies of the pictures, please send in the picture form and money by Tuesday so I can give them to the school’s photographer.

I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible next Tuesday evening for Back to School Night.  The schedule is on the ES Web Page.  AS this night will include a very large number of adults, we ask that students stay home.  There simply is not the room to have them along with 42 adults.

That is it for this week.  If any of you have questions or concerns, please email me and I will gladly set up a time for us to meet.

daw.com - August 17

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Our first week is over and already we are moving forward in all areas of learning.  We spent a lot of time this week getting to know each other and also allowing me to get to know my students.  It was a magnificent week.

This coming week we start off with our three units of study.  Our first writing unit is the Narrative where students take small moments from their own lives and write about them as they learn more about how to write concisely and with flare.  Keeping the reader in mind while we write is an important aspect of learning to write since, other than a diary, there is no time that we write only for ourselves.  It is always for someone else to read.  The lessons this week will focus on expanding our writing and writing that makes sense.

Our first math unit is place value and decimal fractions.  It looks at understanding why certain math concepts we take for granted really work.  There is a lot of work that goes up to millions and into thousandths, so this will have a lot of numbers that are both very large and very small.  Students learn just how small and how big these numbers really are.  We will also look at a problem that fits with this unit involving exponential numbers.  Please note that the first unit family letter is attached to this missive.

Our first reading unit is all about interpreting what the author is trying to tell us.  Just how do we know what a book is really about.  Some are very specific, and others are built in as part of the story that is being read.  We signed out books on Friday, so everyone should now have books at home to read each night of the week.  Please try as hard as possible to make this a reality.  Students are also required to log their night reading in their journal.

All of this is under the umbrella of Global Citizenship.  This means that as a unit of inquiry we will read, write and do math in this area of study where and when ever it is possible.  The essential questions for this unit are attached to this letter for your perusal.

Pretty much all the class routines are now in place so all I need to do now is work with the students to cement them into their own learning.  Everything I do is to make sure that learning is maximized and as fun as possible.  All I ask parents to do is read and sign the reading journal and planner once a week.  They are one of the ways I stay in touch with the families in my classroom.

This week’s home-learning is a little different than normal as I will doing it with the class on Mon, Tues and Wed just so they see what my expectations are.  Thursday will be the first day they bring home their home-learning to do at home.  Please note, all home-learning is marked the next day so there is not really any such thing as late work.  If not completed, then students will do it as we mark it.  A problem with this is going to be that I expect students to share their work as we mark it.  Since this is random, it is important to have their home-learning completed each night in time for tomorrow as they may be called on to share what they learned and did.

That is all for now, if you need to meet with me please email me at hdaw@isb.bj.edu.cn and I will gladly set a time up to meet with you.  Have a great week.