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