We hope you were able to spend the week with family, relaxing and enjoying each other. We hope you return to school with full bellies and full hearts. Mr. Carter and Ms. Jones will be switching days this week, because Mr. Carter has a conference on Wed-Friday. As such, Mr. Carter will teach Monday and Tuesday, and Ms. Jones will teach the rest of the week.
We realize our project about the American Dream is quite timely, and we are glad to have the opportunity to have open discussions with the students about their thoughts and feelings regarding the political changes in our country. We want you and your children to know that we are here in case they are worried or concerned. As Obama said to his daughters, "Societies and cultures are really complicated. . . . This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy. And your job as a citizen and as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understanding. And you should anticipate that at any given moment there’s going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn’t stop. . . . You don’t get into a fetal position about it. You don’t start worrying about apocalypse. You say, O.K., where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward.” We hope this current project continues to help push us forward.
We will begin our voyage into American history this week, starting with exploration and colonization. We will be presenting multiple perspectives on each time period, examining ethical issues and power relationships, as well as drawing parallels to the present-day. Our big order of books for this project just came in, and there are so many great resources! We hope the students will ask questions and share some of our learning with you at home.
Before the break, we started presenting out Genius Hour projects. Students will be presenting their work to the class, and sharing what they have learned in their independent, self-driven projects. We will be sending home rubrics with the students to assess their work on this.
Students also recently took a personalized spelling test, with words that they missed on previous tests. We will do this every once in a while, so students will have more opportunities to practice words they struggle with. This week, we are back to a new list starting on Wednesday.
In math, we have focused primarily on multiplication and division strategies. We are now focusing on fractions, decimals, and percents. We continue to work in math stations that have a spiraling topics, so in addition to the focus, we will be reviewing symmetry and area.
KQED Mindshift often has great articles about education and parenting. Here's a recent article called, "Talking about Failure: What Parents Can Do to Motivate Kids in School." Enjoy!
We realize our project about the American Dream is quite timely, and we are glad to have the opportunity to have open discussions with the students about their thoughts and feelings regarding the political changes in our country. We want you and your children to know that we are here in case they are worried or concerned. As Obama said to his daughters, "Societies and cultures are really complicated. . . . This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy. And your job as a citizen and as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understanding. And you should anticipate that at any given moment there’s going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn’t stop. . . . You don’t get into a fetal position about it. You don’t start worrying about apocalypse. You say, O.K., where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward.” We hope this current project continues to help push us forward.
We will begin our voyage into American history this week, starting with exploration and colonization. We will be presenting multiple perspectives on each time period, examining ethical issues and power relationships, as well as drawing parallels to the present-day. Our big order of books for this project just came in, and there are so many great resources! We hope the students will ask questions and share some of our learning with you at home.
Before the break, we started presenting out Genius Hour projects. Students will be presenting their work to the class, and sharing what they have learned in their independent, self-driven projects. We will be sending home rubrics with the students to assess their work on this.
Students also recently took a personalized spelling test, with words that they missed on previous tests. We will do this every once in a while, so students will have more opportunities to practice words they struggle with. This week, we are back to a new list starting on Wednesday.
In math, we have focused primarily on multiplication and division strategies. We are now focusing on fractions, decimals, and percents. We continue to work in math stations that have a spiraling topics, so in addition to the focus, we will be reviewing symmetry and area.
KQED Mindshift often has great articles about education and parenting. Here's a recent article called, "Talking about Failure: What Parents Can Do to Motivate Kids in School." Enjoy!