Announcements:
4th Years – This week- 2 Assemblies: Utah’s Water Van and Local Government Workshops
6th years – WED. APRIL 18TH, 5:30 pm – FINAL REDWOODS MEETINGÂ – ALL STUDENTS GOING TO REDWOODS & THEIR GUARDIANS NEED TO ATTEND THIS MEETING.
6th – Clark Planetarium – April 24th, 7 am
SAGE – WRITING – 9am Thursday, April 19th
Greetings!
We have certainly had a busy week this week. We’ve learned about symmetry in geometry figures, lines, angles, and a wide variety of geometric shapes. Ellipse, oval and egg sure can be tricky. Some students have been working closely with abstract decimals operations, while others been concentrating on their math facts and square root manipulatives. The map making is moving more slowly; yet it is amazing what five and ten minute checks can do to stimulate and reinforce world geography knowledge.
In addition, students are still developing their physical handwriting abilities (penmanship) as well as developing writing their ideas. This week we performed another practice in free thought writing. Many students still resist the blank page. Therefore, I am pushing them to recognize how many great ideas are already there and that conversation is a wonderful way to hear writing before it’s written. Help your child this weekend to work on their writing with a handout I will be sending home. It will give you a perspective of how their writing is progressing as well as insight into their gratitude.
I am also implementing a student blog writing team each week, starting this week. The writing team will consist of at least one student per grade level. Those assigned for the past week’s blog post writing will write up one paragraph either in email to me or on paper about the grade level’s “experience” for the week. They can choose anything which occurred in our activities: a lesson, an assembly, a visitor, a group’s ability to work through a problem, etc. I’m hopeful this will also spark and drive the writing bug, when they can see their writing distributed. Again, nudge them towards success when it is their turn and support them until then by having them write more sentences for you. Look for punctuation, capitals, and suggest they use a thesaurus to find new vocabulary for words they already know! These are many of the things we’ve been working on.
Another thing we’ve been heavily working on is evidence. We’ve been talking about finding it in text, being able to support our verbal arguments with it, and being able to show it to support our work in class. Have a discussion with your child about it. You and your child could even make a game of it; the student can provide evidence of almost anything you point out! Does Chick-Fil-A sell chicken? How do you know? Prove it to me.
I need to also address two other topics. I am attending the Redwoods trip with the 6th years. Our two assistants (one part-time, the other full-time) will be leading the class. Anyone who is willing and ready to help that week for a couple hours at a time would be highly welcome. Please email me to coordinate.
Also, I mentioned at one point in the year that I was attending school. Between my assignments there and obligations here, home projects and some communication were put on hold or missed. I deeply apologize for this oversight. Thankfully, I am done with the hardest part of it, and it will not continue into next year at this pace. That being said, we will have one home project left for all students and two for 5th and 6th years. Students will have through to May 16th to get them ready. The rubrics will all be sent home and uploaded by Monday, April 15th. Thank you for understanding.
See you Monday!