I hope you all had a fabulous break whether you traveled in state, out of state, or just enjoyed some extra time with your children last week. Here are a few updates and things we did in our first of the fourth (and final!) quarter of this school year: Spring Parent/Teacher Conferences are in April. I am available for conferences as needed before school any day but Tuesdays. Please let me know if you are interested in meeting with me or having me sit in on your conference with your child's homeroom teacher. In May, you will be receiving your child's final updated progress report and ALP (Advanced Learning Plan)related to their GT goals. When Colorado updated our state learning standards, they included standards in math related to financial literacy. Fifth graders in my math class will be learning about these standards through playing the Stock Market Game. The Stock Market Game is an online, free, educational program that allows students to actually trade real stock at the current value. Students in my class have a "business partner" that they work with to make buying and selling decisions with the pretend $100,000 they get through the game. Of course, the goal is to have more money than you began with. As the kids login to the program, they see how their stocks are progressing (or regressing!) and a ranking among students their age in our region of the U.S. for portfolio value. Here are a few more of the rules they must work with: *Work with your partner to make all decisions *$100,000 to spend on the stocks in the NYSE/NASDAQ (no bonds or mutual funds) *No margin trading (don't spend more than your $100,000!) *Must buy 10 shares at a time; can sell less *No "penny stock" (cost less than $3) *1% brokerage fee for buying AND selling *Purchases/transactions go through at 4:00pm eastern time *Trade ONLY on designated class trading days *No need to sell off at the end (May 8) And just for fun, we watched a silly video this week that (hopefully!) helped them begin to understand how the Stock Market works: Every quarter, I have the chance to meet with all of the GT kids at each grade level together to discuss their progress on their affective goals. Today was that opportunity. Here is a quick update: Fourth graders' goals this year relate to study skills and organization. Today we discussed strategies for effective studying and test taking. We also had some fun reading silly book about students taking standardized tests (a very timely topic considering what we have been up to at Werner lately!) Fifth graders' goals are centered on learning about healthy risk taking and dealing with making mistakes. We read true accounts of people who made mistakes that actually ended up with favorable outcomes (like the inventions of Velcro, chewing gum, sticky notes, and popsicles.) We also discussed professions where failure is a natural part of the job. Think about these situations: - Great quarterbacks only complete 60% of their passes on a good day. - Oil companies dig 10 wells to find 1 that will produce. - Actors auditioning for TV commercials hear no 29 times before landing a job. - Authors like John Grisham might be rejected 28 times before getting a novel published. Third graders' wrote goals this year related to peer relationships. Today the students worked with a partner to invent and complete a task. They had newspaper, tape, a cup, and paperclips to remove a special snack from the wall. They did a great job of working with one another and encouraging each other even when it was challenging. Here are a few shots of the cooperative fun (more on the photos page):
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I can't believe we have reached the end of the third quarter already! This year is flying past. Grades were due this week, and you will be receiving your child's latest report card after Spring Break from their homeroom teacher. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. One last quick reminder related to this is that ALP end-of-year progress reports will be coming in May. The timeline for this is: communicate ALP's in the fall, submit mid-year progress reports in the winter, and write up final ALP progress in late spring. Teaching math is different than when I was in school where the focus was on memorizing algorithms. Today in my math classroom, we certainly still spend time learning algorithms, but we also try to make sense of the concepts and apply them in the real-world. One of the ways that a student can begin to understand a concept (especially one that is tricky or confusing) is by creating mathematical models. In all three of my math classes, I encourage students to draw a picture or use a number line, or somehow make their thinking visual. One example of this from the past week was third grade's work learning to multiply fractions. What I love most about creating models/visuals with kids is that many times they will discover how the algorithm works before I even introduce it. Case in point: while folding and coloring rectangles to represent 1/2 times 1/3 and then 1/2 times 1/4, one of my students shouts out, "Wait - I think there is a shortcut. What if we multiply the numbers on top and then multiply the numbers on bottom? Don't we get the answer?" I didn't confirm or deny it yet. We tried a few more models and tried fractions other than unit fractions to test this mathematical hypothesis. Boy was that student excited when we were able to prove that he was, in fact, correct! See the pictures of student work below for one example from third grade for our model-making math lesson. It was a sad day in my classroom today as I said goodbye to my fourth grade language arts/creativity group. With the end of the third quarter comes my transition to teaching third grade next quarter. The great thing is I will see them all again next year, and I have to brag on the amazing job they did on their final projects for me. Each student has been reading a biography about a famous person from Colorado history. They wrote the ABC facts of their person's life and completed a project of their choice. Today they had the chance to share with a partner and with me. I am including a few of the facts I learned about their famous people and some shots of their sharing time (see the photos page for more of the shots from today.) Note: It was crazy hair day that day!! General William Palmer "V is for victorious because he built a good railroad." by Connor R. Well my Three for Thursday has turned into Friday this week. Busy at school and busy at home put me behind this week. PARCC testing for language arts is complete (except for one more session for 4th grade.) Next week 4th and 5th grades will be taking the math tests. Third grade will be taking their math tests after Spring Break. Thanks for supporting your children through this testing process. It has been a learning experience for all of us involved, and the kids have been very patient as we have dealt with technical issues as we transition this year to a computer-based test. Encourage your child to simply try their hardest and do their best. It was less than ideal timing on top of testing this week, but our last Math Olympiad competition was this week. The Math O folks in New Jersey pick the dates before the school year begins so even though it added one more thing to our busy week already, we persevered this week. The kids did great even though they were convinced one of the problems was impossible. See if you can solve it: Jimmy is filling up a pool using a large hose and a small hose. The large hose, working alone, could fill the pool in 3 hours. The small hose, working alone, could fill the pool in 5 hours. The small hose is turned on and allowed to run for an hour. Then the large hose is turned on, and both run until the pool is full. How many hours did it take to fill the pool?. Thursday, March 12, is my last day to have fourth grade language arts/creativity kids. They have their biography projects due that day. They have been warned that they have only two days in class next week (Tuesday and Wednesday) to work on their projects. Please check with your child and see if they need to spend a little time over the weekend getting ahead so they are ready for Thursday. I can't wait to hear all of the amazing facts they have learned about prominent people in Colorado history through their reading and research! |
Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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