Set and Self Evaluations

Hi all,

A busy week, but I feel like we got quite a bit accomplished in Math and Science. Hopefully we can start squeezing even more in as we get more and more familiar with routines and expectations.

First off - as requested, I've posted the link to the game SET on the side bar under Links. (HN - See! I remembered! Just for you! :))

Yesterday, we began our home reading logs. I asked the class to record what they read each night so that they may start to be a little more accountable with their nightly reading homework. I will be doing a "homework check" each Monday to see how much they've recorded on their logs.

Today, we added another component to their homework duotangs - A oral language/self awareness assessment. We will be completing this once a week, on the last instructional day of the week. Students are to reflect on their own participation and listening in class and from there, share this information with you and decide on one area that they are going to focus on in the coming week. We briefly talked about the importance of being honest with themselves on their evaluation because it really doesn't effect anyone except yourself - that this is meant for their own self-improvement! Since it's all about self improvement, we also discussed the meaning of reflection and also shared with them that it was meant to help each of them improve themselves and explained how I am continuously reflecting on how I am teaching them. For example, I will sometimes completely scratch an activity even though we first start it because I might notice that it's not working or I might go back and re-teach a concept in another manner because most of the class isn't understanding. Each Monday, I will also be checking these self-assessments to make sure that they've shared them with a parent and had their parent "autograph" (they were absolutely thrilled to get to autograph their own). 

We had a quick Math quiz today on patterning. Students were asked to build (with tiles), their own growing or shrinking pattern, transfer the pattern onto grid paper, create a t-chart and finally, describe the pattern using words. The quiz will hopefully be returned to them on Monday and will be sent home for a signature.

Grade 4's began a unit in Weather yesterday. Some of what I will expect them to do will be a little more independent - for example, read pages from the textbook and highlight key ideas. We will be focusing on identifying important facts and non-fiction text features this term as we work on Science. Next week, we will conduct a simple experiment that will demonstrate the water cycle and create a flap book that identifies the 4 phases on the water cycle and what each phase does. 

The Grade 3's continued to work on their unit on the Solar System. We have finished talking about the phases of the moon and have completed a book about the phases. This will get sent home next week for them to share. In the last two days, we've been learning about the sun and found 6 or more interesting facts about the sun from watching short clips from Bill Nye the Science Guy and reading about it from the Magic School Buses' tour of the Solar System. The children wrote down the facts they learned and then transferred them onto a "flower" foldable which will become part of their lap book on the Solar System (basically, as we learn different aspects of the solar system, they will add something they've learned to their book).

Hope that was not an overload of information on a rainy Friday night! Have a great weekend and see most of you next week at PT conferences!

IT

ps/ at the conference, to help me stay on time for appointments, I will be posting a notice asking you to knock when it's 1 minute to your appointment! I hope this helps eliminate too much wait time because 15 minutes just flies!