This past week has seen the first of two MAP testing sessions. It is a good view of the growth, over time, of the learning of your student. It is not a good measure of grades for school. These two ideas are mutually exclusive. One of the things I talked to the students about is how some of the questions asked are really meant for an American audience. The best example of this is the use of money where it talks about pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters - something not used in countries around the world. I told them to do the best they could with these kinds of questions. I expect that you should have the results of these tests in about 2-3 weeks. I think they are emailed out to you from the office of learning.
We also had our first performance of the week with two songs done in rounds and also a dance called the sword dance. It was a sight to behold when you consider that 7 classes and 140+ students all did this together. I have a video of the event that you can see with this link. Look for several more of these over the course of the year.
Still in the frame of performing arts, students need to bring in their recorders starting next week. New students will be issued with one, if a student has lost their recorder there is a 50RMB fee for a new one. This goes to Mrs. Campbell during music class and she will issue the new instrument.
This week students completed their first reading journal entry on Seesaw. This is an assignment that lets me know what your child is thinking about as they read a book. There is really no format to the entry other than to show their thinking about the book they are either reading now or have read recently. Please remember that every student should be reading every night at home - no specific time, but some reading every night. Combined with the reading we do in class, this will show good growth and improvement in reading over the year. If it is at all possible, students should read aloud twice a week as this is the only way the fluency can be improved. We test the fluency of your student 3-4 times a year and develop strategies for teaching based on these results.
We have just about completed the drafts of our two small moment pieces. Most students have had them revised and so this coming week we should be able to get them published. After this I will be getting each student to choose one of their stories and create a book from it. We will publish these as a class. Some things we have looked at in this unit are transitioning from one idea to another, the specific use of time, writing from within the story and how the writing process works. It is amazing to see what the students have come up with and how they are expanding and enhancing their narratives. There are still more lessons to come, but I am pleased with what I see so far.
This week we took a long look at beliefs and values. We came up with our own definition and then looked at some CNN Heros - Young Wonders to see if their values matched with some that we came up with. Next week we will create our first class video on our values and beliefs. We will also begin to move on to the question; What influences people’s positions on global/civic issues? This always brings up some interesting conversations so be prepared for these around the dinner table or at home.
During our library period this week we did a Breakout Challenge where the students had a two boxes with 4 keys on them. To unlock the boxes students had to decipher clues they found. All groups completed the challenge but there were several of the clues which were quite hard and took the groups longer than they expected. I was pleased with the cooperation and collaboration shown to complete this challenge. We are thinking of doing another one while at camp.
Speaking of camp, we will go to camp the week we get back from October break. More information about this will be out in the next few weeks but we will leave on Tuesday morning and come back in time for busses on Wednesday afternoon. Due to the number of students and classes, we can only go for one night this year. Still, it is usually a highlight of the students year. We will go to Singing Deer Lodge again this year.
In Math we are busy with the operations of decimal fractions having covered addition and subtraction and just started multiplication. We are aiming to complete this unit prior to the October break. So far, I have seen good learning from the students on this subject area and expect that to continue. The biggest outcome from this is how to prove your answer.
That is it for now. If you have any questions or concerns please let me know and I will gladly set up a time to meet with you.
