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Summer Homework

May28

Because I feel strongly that children, and adults for that matter, need to practice what they know in order to retain it each of your kids will have summer homework.  A letter was sent home with your child on Tuesday outlining the expectations.  This homework is due the first day of school, August 17.   I am sharing the letter that was sent home with your children in this blog post.  The links provided in the post are only ideas for practice, your child may choose any way they would like to practice as long as they log the date, activity, skill practiced and amount of time spent.   If you need the passwords for the scholastic sites, please email me.  They were provided to your children in the printed letter, but I did not include them in this post for obvious reasons.

In addition to the required reading and math I will be unlocking all essays on Utah Compose for your children to practice as well.  I highly recommend your children practice their writing this summer.  Writing in Utah Compose will give them instant feedback and allow them to revise their essays to improve their writing skills.  We will be spending a lot of time writing next year and practicing this summer will give them a jump start for next school year.

Summer Homework

Summer is here and so are those long lazy days that seem to zap your brain of everything (or at least a lot) you worked so hard to learn this year.  In order to avoid losing too much of that hard work, you will have summer homework.  Now, don’t worry too much, it won’t take up your entire summer break.  In fact, it will take about 20 minutes a day.  What fraction of the time you are awake will this homework take?  Let’s turn that into your first math problem of the summer.

Let’s say you sleep for about 12 hours a day this summer which gives you how much awake time?  That’s right, 12 hours.  How many minutes are there in 12 hours?  A number sentence for the problem would be the number of minutes in each hour (60) multiplied by the number of hours (12).  12 x 60= ?  That’s easy to do in our heads if we remember our magic zeros from the grey tower.  12×6=72 then we add a zero because we wanted to multiply by 60.  The answer to the first part of our problem is 720 minutes in 12 hours.

But we aren’t done yet.  Remember the question we are trying to answer.  What fraction of the time you are awake will this homework take?  Let’s turn the information into a fraction.  20 minutes of homework out of 720 minutes you are awake is a fraction of 20/720 (for you 5th and 6th level students let’s write that in simplest form by dividing your fraction by the highest common multiple, which happens to be 20= 1/36).  That fraction converted to a percent (I’ve done it for you since you will learn that skill next year) is 2.7%  That’s less than a nickel of your time if you think of it in terms of money, heck that’s less than 3 pennies of your time.

See how we turned the amount of time it would take for you to do your homework into a fantastic word problem?  FUN!!

Summer Homework Assignment Due the First Day of School, August 17th.

10 Hours of Math Practice – IXL, Workbooks, Cooking, Gardening, Lemonade Stand are a few ways you can practice your math skills.

Dynamath – http://dynamath.scholastic.com/

Scholastic Math – http://math.scholastic.com/

IXL – https://www.ixl.com/signin/mariamontessori

2 Book Reports – Read to books of your choice with a minimum of 100 pages at your reading level.  Complete a summary of each book complete with book title, author and number of pages.

 As always, if you have any questions please let me know.

SAGE Writing Tomorrow

Feb1

Good Evening.

Just a reminder that your children are taking the SAGE writing assessment tomorrow afternoon.  Please ensure they get a good night sleep, eat a healthy protein packed breakfast and have a nice lunch packed.  Please do not send sugary snacks as this will not feed their brains in a manner that will enable them to be their best.

Once the test is complete, they will need to have something quiet to work on while the rest of the class finishes.   Please make sure they bring a book or have a doodle journal to draw in.

They have been working hard during their practice, I know it will pay off on their assessment!

 

Update Week of January 26

Jan26

January and February are very busy months at MMA, as such, I wanted to give some reminders as to upcoming deadlines and due dates.

January 28th: Level 6 – David Holladay Lecture (During class)

January 29th: JA Biztown (Level 5 and some Level 6)

January 30th: Biography Book Report (Timeline) – All Grade Levels

February 2: SAGE Writing Assessment – All Grade Levels

February 18th: Elementary Science Fair (Level 4 and 5)

February 19th: Middle School Science Fair (Level 6-8)

In order to prepare for the SAGE writing test, we have been working on our essays for several weeks.  Your students have another essay rough draft due tomorrow evening.  In order to be prepared for the in class peer edit and to take advantage of the time we have left, please ensure your child completes this assignment on time.  If you are experiencing any trouble with Utah Compose, have your student first write their essay using Word or Pages, saving a copy to your computer.  At that point, your student can copy and paste their essay into Utah Compose and then submit it.  If by chance the website errors, your child will still have a digital copy and can resubmit on Utah Compose without losing all their work.  Most children did not experience any trouble, but a handful had repeated problems and this is the only work around I could think of so that they could still have the benefit of the score report.

In addition to Utah Compose, level 4 and 6 students have had math homework recently. This will continue on a relatively regular basis throughout the remainder of the school year.  Please check in with your students each night regarding homework assignments they may have.  I know that everyone is busy with after school activities, but it is imperative that your children are completing the required practice in order to continue progressing.

 

Room 24 Updates

Jan16

Whew!  This week flew by in a flash.  I know time is moving quickly when the children comment that they can’t believe it is already mid-January.

First and foremost, students should be using their peer edit papers to revise and refine their essays on Utah Compose.  I cannot stress how important this practice at home is.  I hope we have worked out all of the log in bugs by now.  If you are experiencing any problems with the site, please let me know.  Most students have been able to login, complete their essays and submit them without problem.  The final draft of the essay, having made revisions based on peer edits and my online input, is due Tuesday, January 20th by 8pm.  We will have a brand new prompt available Wednesday, January 21st.  This will give your children 2 more weeks of practice before the writing assessment February 2.

4th grade students have begun a metric conversion unit.  Some of your children are so excited about the ease of the metric system that they are prepared to write letters to the government saying we should switch from our method of standard measurement.  I’m behind them 100%!

5th grade students are working independently on math practice that is challenging to them.  The majority of the work I am seeing is division using the standard algorithm. Please ask your children what they find challenging and work on it with them.  Although we don’t have specific IXL or SAGE math assignments coming home, you can still log in to IXL with your child and see what they need help with.   Ask them what they find challenging in class and do a practice work with them!  It will benefit them greatly if you are working with them at home on concepts they find challenging in school.

6th level students began a unit on ratios and proportions.  So far all students who have been present for the lessons are making great progress.  Each day that we have a lesson, your children will bring home a printed homework assignment.  In most cases, there will be fewer than 5 problems as homework.  The culminating activity for our unit is going to be SPECTACULAR!!  I’m so excited and I hope your children will be excited too!

Our botany units have the students excited about fruit, nuts and seeds, photosynthesis, and monocots and dicots.  Please ask your children about these important plants and plant processes.  One of the most exciting things about MMA is the extensive botany exposure. Without plants, there would be no life on earth!

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, we have been discussing the timeline of the civil rights movement.  I am so thrilled to hear your children’s input and feedback.  There truly is hope for humanity in our children.  The deep discussions we had this week would make you, as parents, proud of your children.  They are kind, caring, thoughtful and extremely sympathetic to the plight of those who have been treated unfairly in our nations history.   I challenge you all to take some time on Monday, January 19th, to study the life of MLK and the civil rights movement.

Please watch the blog for sign ups for February Parent Teacher Conference.  These conferences will be student led.  This is an opportunity for your children to share with you what they have learned and what accomplishments they are proud of.  It seems like a long time since our last meeting in October and at the same time it has passed in a flash!  Please watch the blog for sign ups for Parent Teacher Conference.  I will have a WeJoinIn link posted by early next week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Cheers

 

Utah Compose Reminder

Jan7

The new Utah Compose writing assignments are now available.  Please remember to have your children work on their Utah Compose assignments at home.  The assignment will be visible when your student logs in.  The current writing prompts are as follows:

Level 4 – Help from Clouds: Write an essay explaining how clouds can help us to predict weather. Read the article and view the video before you begin your graphic organizer. Be sure to use science words and other information from the article and the video.

Level 5 – How do Banks Work? : Read the webpage. Try the compounding calculator. Then write a letter to a younger brother, sister, or friend, explaining how banks work. Be sure to explain how banks have money to loan and how they make money.

Level 6 – Origin of the Alphabet: Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the article about the alphabet. Then, in your own words, explain how the alphabet came into being. You may use facts from the reading. Be sure that your summary fully and accurately explains the origin of the alphabet.

I carefully selected these prompts to draw on background knowledge that your children already have from our math, science and history lessons.

This assignment is due next Tuesday, January 13th,  so that we can peer edit and give feedback.  Your child will have one more week to revise and edit before submitting a final draft on Tuesday, January 20th.  Your children can submit as many drafts through Utah Compose as they would like in order to improve their writing with feedback given through the website.  I will also be checking their writing and giving feedback through the website.

When a draft is submitted, your child will receive a score with a breakdown of why they received that specific score.  The essays are graded on a scale of 1-5 in each of 6 categories: development of ideas, organization, style, word choice, sentence structure and conventions.   For each category lessons will be suggested in order to improve the essay, thereby improving the overall score your child receives.  I highly recommend your child take a look at the lessons.  They are in the form of games and exercises designed to address each particular writing trait.   In the past, the students have quite enjoyed the lessons.  After viewing a lesson, your child should go back to their essay and apply what they have learned.

Thank you for supporting your child in completing this homework assignment.