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Monday, January 24, 2011

Hello!

It was another whirlwind day in room 310.

In math, the students created story problems based on the following math sentence:

2 1/4 + 1/8 + 1 1/2 = 3 7/8

I have not had a chance to check their work but I believe some of them were struggling. From their homework, I can see they are struggling with finding common denominators. We have been trying to learn how to do this by experience rather than by me telling them how. I find when I just tell them how, I quickly lose a lot of the class.

We have been experiencing the "how" of common denominators through our continuing sandwich saga. Today, Vita showed us how, for last week's homework question, she counted by 5s and by 4s and found that 20 appeared in both lists. This showed her that she should cut all of the sandwiches into 2o pieces because then she could easily compare them and see, with numbers, who got more pieces.

Because so many of them were struggling with that part of last week's homework, I assigned another question that focuses on just that concept. Most are doing a question where they are cutting three pizzas so that each pizza has the same sized slices.

Some, who did not struggle with the concept, are doing a question that involves adding fractions. I did not show them how to add fractions, but we discussed how you could extend the thinking from last week's question in order to add fractions that have unlike denominators.

Next up in math will be a connection between fractions and decimals. Grade 6s will also be looking at percents.

This week marks the beginning of our letter writing portion of the reading program. I have divided the class into four groups and have assigned each group a day of the week. This will be the day that their letter is to be handed in from now on. We will start with the Thursday group who should hand their letter in to me on Thursday. I will post the groups here tomorrow.

The letter is something that they will be writing in class. During our half hour of independent reading time, students will now also be responsible for writing their letters. One letter per week. Some asked if they could do their letters at home. I prefer that they write them in class. If they come to the day before it is due, and they haven't started yet, they should check in with me and I may allow them to finish it at home. These letters should not be a summary of what they are reading. My expectations are that they reflect what they understand by asking questions, making connections, making predictions, and commenting on how they are feeling as they read. I expect that each letter (depending on the student), should range from three short paragraphs, to several paragraphs spanning a page. Please let me know if you have any questions about this process.

In class today, all of the 5/6s met with Megan, myself, and Amy (Ray's supply). We discussed Facebook as a group. Megan spoke about the dangers and related some incidents that she's experienced. Our message was that they, and you, need to be wary of how to protect themselves. We spoke about appropriate behaviour on social media, and inappropriate behaviour. If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to contact Megan or myself.

The students are working on creating dance moves and then putting those moves together into a routine. I saw their preliminary routines today. We have some groovin' kids in the group. I look forward to learning all of their moves.

We will spend some time this week completing another CASI. This is a reading assessment where students read a short piece and then answer questions based on it. We use these assessments to guide our planning.

This week, we have skating on Friday and our last electives date. Because of electives, our skating time will be earlier than normal.

Hope you are all having a warm evening. Keep in touch.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Here is this week's math homework question.

I gave a group of 5 students 4 submarine sandwiches to share. I gave another group of 4 students 3 submarine sandwiches to share. The students came back and complained that it was not fair. How much did each student in each group get? Which group got more? How do you know?

This question is based on a similar one we solved in class last week. If students have questions, please send them my way. I do not want anyone to be spending exorbitant amounts of time on this. If there are problems, please let me know as soon as possible.

This week we are going to focus on non-fiction articles in Literacy. We are going to look at their text features and how they help us. I will also be reviewing the differences between a summary of an article (need to know information versus nice to know) and how to find the main idea (the big idea that you may have to infer). I will model how to write these two things and they will then get a chance to write their own. Students with SEA equipment can use the Talking Word Processor to complete these two things.

In gym, students have been creating call and respond dance moves. Ask them to show you their progress.

In dance, students have also been skill building in order to create dances that incorporate different levels and that represents big ideas from some of the texts we've been reading.

That's all for now folks. Stay tuned for more!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Today we took a closer look at some of the pictures in A Day's Work by Eve Bunting. Here are the pictures and some of the thoughts that the students shared.

We had a deep discussion and the students built off of one another's thinking. Matt even made a connection to the Berlin Wall which sparked others thinking about marginalization. It was a great discussion.

Monday, January 10, 2011

I am realizing that being explicit is an important part of this job. Here are some things that I've been explicit about lately:

Days of the week and months should be capitalized.
Write the date every time you write in your notebooks.
Start your writing at the margin unless you are indenting at the beginning of a paragraph.
Your pencil must be sharp and should be taller than the width of your four fingers stacked together. You need to have your own eraser.

In math, I presented them with this problem:
I went on a field trip to downtown Ottawa and I split up the class into groups. Eight students went to the Parliament Buildings, 4 went to the National Gallery, 5 went to the Byward Market, and 5 went to the Mint. One parent organized the lunches and preparped sub sandwiches. They sent 7 sandwiches to the Parliament Buildings, 3 sandwiches to the Gallery, 4 sandwiches to the Market, and 3 sandwiches to the Mint. When we got back, the kids got to talking and complained that the lunches were not fair and that some students got more than others. Were they right? How much did each student in each group get? Who got the most? Show your thinking in a way that someone else can understand. Use pictures, words, number cubes, and any other helpful tools.
Each math partnership will teach the rest of the class how they solved the problem. I will take pictures of their thinking and post them here tomorrow.

For homework this week, this is what they need to solve.
If
Green Eggs (G) = $2.25
Regular Eggs (R) = $2.00
Ham (H) = $1.50
Bacon (B) = $1.25
Small Drink (S) = $0.75
Large Drink (L) = $1.00
Today's Special-Green Eggs+Ham+Large Drink (X) = $4.25

Then solve these equations:
3(G+B+S)=?
B+R+L+3X=?
2R+H+B+L+S=?

This is due on Thursday.

Happy New Year!

Welcome back everyone! So glad to see the students' smiley faces this morning. We wasted no time and got off and running today.

We have volunteered our services for starting a new routine at Churchill. Our class, along with Roy's class, are taking charge of the morning singing of "O Canada". Two of our students and two of Roy's students go down each morning and sing the anthem and make other announcements. Each student will do it at least once this month. I will have them write their assigned date into their agendas tomorrow. These announcements are made at 8:10 every morning. Students who are not present for this routine will be marked as late or absent. Please make every effort to get to school on time.

Another new routine is the switch in our nutrition breaks. Students will now be eating before they go outside. Some students mentioned that they did not like the change today. We discussed giving this new routine at least a week. I also mentioned that students are always allowed to snack on fruits and vegetables at any time, as long as it is not interrupting their learning. We also talked about how they may have to re-think what they pack for their nutrition breaks if they are feeling hungry at different times. I encourage you to discuss this as a family.

Today we did some review of multiplication and division. We will also be looking at the metric system this week. Coming up soon will be a unit on fractions.

Next week, I will assign a math problem for homework. This problem will be one very similar to one that the students have completed in class.

In Literacy we discussed how to punctuate quotations (not an easy thing to do incidentally). The students looked at examples in groups and tried to write their own rules.

Coming up in Literacy will be a closer look at non-fiction articles.

We have had another change to our schedule and are lucky to have Cheryl Ashfield joining us for 30 minutes during Literacy. Cheryl will be spending this time doing guided reading groups with some of the students. Kelly Poulin also continues to support us and will be completing some reading assessments with the students and she will then also be doing some guided reading groups.

In science, we will be beginning a unit on "Forces Acting on Structures" for the grade fives and "Flight" for the grade sixes.

Here are a few more reminders:

We are skating this Friday and we welcome any help and company.

There is a PD Day next Friday.

The whole school will be participating in "Electives" during the month of January. Students will be given the choice of different workshops to join. Look for more information to come soon.