I hope you all have plans to stay warm this weekend. Hopefully you have your Christmas preparation mostly done so you don't have to brave the cold to do too much shopping! Here is a little reading and YouTube-watching to give you something to do while you snuggle up on the couch. I wrote a blog article a couple of weeks ago about the different mutliplication strategies that you may see your child (especially if they are in 4th grade) trying with our new curriculum. I thought I would give you a glimpse at what long division strategies look like too. Fourth grade just completed their unit on division, and they did great! Fifth grade will be doing a review unit after break to see what they rememer about long division and also reviewing division when deicmals are involved. Please let me know if you have any question. I have also included a quick video that I shared with 4th grade families that will explain how the Partial Quotients method works. Ultimately, we still want kids to know how to do the standard, traditional algorithm that you and I learned in school, but sometimes in order to understand why that works, it helps to have a method that is more conceptual and based on better number sense ideas. Today was our second Engineering Challenge of the year. 3rd graders were building parachutes to save the astronauts. 4th graders were landing their astronauts on the moon. 5th graders were building robotic arms for space rovers to explore distant planets. A HUGE thank you to all of the parents that were able to come and help and join in on the fun. To add to the fun, 4th and 5th graders wanted to participate in the latest social-media craze by filming their own Mannequin Challenge. I'll have the videos of their actual work up by next week. In the meantime, enjoy this freeze frame of our work today.
And here is one last attempt to help you with your Christmas shopping. This time I am hoping you are planning to buy a couple of books for your child to read in the new year. Here are some of my favorite young adult fiction. (You might even enjoy reading some of these yourself!) Also below is a document that I helped created a few years ago to suggest higher-level series that are great ideas for gifted students needing to get hooked back into reading.
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What an exciting couple of weeks we are having, especially in math classes. Here are a few of our special events that we have completed or are coming up:
Language Arts students in 3rd grade are now in the middle of their first literature circle during their time with me. At various points in the year, all of my language arts groups doing literature circles and they look simliar in all grade levels (of course, with different levels of books!) Let me give you a quick run-down of how they work... On Thursdays (almost always,) students must show up to class with their required reading done. This is usually about 5 chapters from their current book. Each child is also required to show up with their literature notebook and job card. In that literature notebook, they must have their job for the week done. These are the possible jobs they may have to do during a week:
Finally, in case you are looking for a few ideas for Christmas, here are some of the kids favorite games/toys in my classroom that you might consider.
Please check your calendars to see if you might be available to sign-up for helping with our next STEM Engineering Challenges in our regularly scheduled math classes on Thursday, December 15, and Friday, December 16. Plus if you volunteer you will get to witness the fun we'll be having first hand. 3rd grade @ 1:30-2:30pm 4th grade @ 8:55-9:55am 5th grade @ 10:30-11:30am This week's blog focus will be on third graders. First off, third grade language arts students have resumed their studies with me for the month of December. To kick off our week together, they all presented their book projects from our last novel study on The Green Book, a story about a group that leaves earth to establish a new colony on a distant planet called Shine. Below are some pictures of their work. Some students dediced to create an invention that the people of Shine could use while some students chose to make a mind map of Shine, document the lifecycle of the moth people, or fill in a Venn diagram of the similarities/differences between Shine and Earth. After closing up our study of The Green Book, we have been learning how to participate in literature circles this week and will begin reading short novels this week and the students will be leading and participating in their small-group discussions. Third grade math students are finishing up the last multiplication and division unit of the year. They have done a great job beginning to learn and master their basic facts. But one of the most important skills in math is understanding when in life you will need to use the various operations. This week we spent considerable time not only solving problems but also creating problems so they could continue to explore those areas of life where combining equal groups or dividing equal groups is necessary. The pictures below show our activites where they had to write a real-world story problem requiring either mutliplication or division. Then they had to solve each other's problems, and final check each other's work. Much more fun than Mrs. Bean making all the problems and checking their work! Finally this week, I would like to share some pictures I took Friday of my small 2nd grade group. Since I am only part-time, my schedule is limited to work with the primary grades. But on Fridays I do have half an hour where I can challenge some of the 2nd grade students who have presented a need for more problem solving and logic. In the pictures here, these gentlemen are solving "Logic Links" - using the clue provided, they have to place the right color of chips in the right order. They were AMAZING! In our half hour, most of them solved at least 10 different puzzles!
Somehow the holiday season is upon us again. Time flies when you are having fun! I'll take a minute this week to catch you up on what we have been up to in math classes lately. Please also watch your email for the latest Sign-up Genius to help with our next engineering challenge which will be December 15 & 16 during regular math classes. 3rd Grade Math - Multiplication and division have been our focus all semester and will continue to be for one more unit. Before we break for Christmas, we'll also be covering a unit on perimeter and area. I have been so amazed with the growth these kids have made this year in their ability to explain their thinking and justify their reasoning. 4th Grade Math - Fourth graders have been working learning to multiply multi-digit numbers. If you did not have a chance, read over last week's post about the "crazy" methods that your child has learned and how we try to build understanding as well as computational knowledge. We just took our test over this work this week. We'll move onto long division after Thanksgiving which will probably take us to Christmas. This is another challenging concept for 4th graders to understand so please be patient as I work with them to build background knowledge before we learn the traditional/standard algorithm. 5th Grade Math - After beginning the year with challenging algebra equations and inequalities units, we have moved onto a unit on integers and rational numbers. Otherwise known as the positive and negative numbers work. Students have learned a lot of new vocab (absolute value, irrational numbers, rational numbers, and more.) We just took our test on this unit this week. When we return from the short break, we'll be working coordinate grids and beginning to learn how to graph formulas/algebra equations. Last week I shared a project that the 5th grade language arts/creativity students worked on. This week 4th grade language arts/creativity students completed projects too. These students have been reading books about courageous children that defied the odds. One group was reading Hatchet while the other group was reading Bud, Not Buddy. Below are some examples of students projects to share what they learned while reading and to showcase their creative abilities through writing, art and more. Students had lots of choices from creating a timeline for their character's story, creating a flyer for the jazz band in Bud, creating a new cover for Hatchet, writing their character's rules for life, drawing characters or scenes, comparing yourself to the main character, and more as you can see here. Fun presentations today! One final note wishing all of you a restful, happy Thanksgiving this year. May it be filled with family, friends, and plenty of good food!
To begin a couple of quick reminders... Our first Math Olympiad contest with 4th and 5th grade is on Tuesday, November 15. Report cards will be coming home this week. If your child is in my math class, their math grade comes from me. Reading and writing grades are determined by work in homeroom. The time they spend with me is considered enrichment so the work we do is not graded. Let me know if you have questions. This week I would like to help parents understand why math learning may look different from when we were in school. I feel like this information is most timely for the 4th grade parents who have been watching their students learn to perform long multiplication (and soon long division too!) You may remember how when you were in school, there was one method taught by your teacher, you memorized the steps, and did the tasks assigned. I heard a lot of the 4th graders come to school and say, "My mom/dad tried to show me this other way, and it didn't make any sense." We do ultimate want students to learn the standard algorithm mainly because it is, in most cases, the most efficient. However, we want to make sure students understand how and why math works now. Let me see if I can share rationale behind what some term "new math." Let me share some images from the 4th grade math curriculum, and show you how we try to build a full understanding of math and concepts instead of just teaching a procedure. But also how ultimately, they will learn the standard algorithm with understanding intact... I found another teacher blog that I think makes the rationale clear why we don't begin with the standard/traditional algorithm anymore like the "olden days." I will summarize the points and attach the link here for the details: https://medium.com/i-math/common-core-math-is-not-the-enemy-c05b68f46b3e#.1vtlxy5if Why don't we teach only standard algorithms anymore? 1. Students forget. Learning steps and memorizing them with no "why" doesn't make for good long-term memory. 2. Students aren't machines. We are preparing students for jobs that will require problem solving and that requires them to understand "why" not just perform tasks. 3. Students have number sense. We need to build on their prior understanding and scaffold their learning. While the traditional algorithm seems so logical to us as adults, the standard procedure to a 4th grader begins to defy what they know about numbers and place value and math and is not inherently logical to them. One more update this week...5th Grade language arts and creativity students got the chance to share a creative writing project that we had started in honor of Halloween. The students were working on slowing down a story to write about the setting by showing and not telling. They were writing descriptive paragraphs that could fit into a larger story later if they chose. I like to do this project around Halloween because we watch a video on YouTube of the most beautiful abandoned places on earth. Most of these pictures, although beautiful, are a little creepy too. The kids pick one of the locations and pretend they are in this location, using all of their senses to describe what their character is experiencing while there. It is interesting to think about what might have really happened there, but the kids have just as much fun creating a completely fictional account of an experience there. Below is the video you can watch. Then read a couple of the examples and see if you can pick out their location from the video. This is actually a peek at the week before this one, but I finally had a chance to put together the photos and videos from our engineering challenges to give you a glimpse at what we were up to the week before. Thanks to those of you parents who are willing and able to come and help us! For those of you who weren't able to help but think this looks like too much fun to mix next time, we will be doing challenge number two in December. Stay tuned for a Sign-up Genius in November. Check out all the photos on the photos page of the website. Below you will find the three videos from the three math classes... Third graders were learning about how these challenges work and learning about the engineering design process this time - that idea that you design, build, test, and rebuild. And it did take many rebuilds for them to create their pom-pom launchers in order to get the furthest distance possible! They did a GREAT job working together and persevering to find a solution to their challenge. Fourth graders were the rocket scientists for their first challenge. They had to work as a team to turn a straw into a rocket using a balloon as the engine. Their goal was also to go the furthest distance possible. This was a challenge, and we had some interesting failures but sometimes you can learn as much from failure as you can from success. No one gave up though (or lost their sense of humor!) Fifth graders worked to create an airbag landing system for their rovers (really an egg!) for this challenge. A drop of 9 feet poses quite the challenge - especially when we decided to add to the excitement by trying to drop their creations on the cement outside too. They were amazingly creative in their building!
This week in your child's Friday Folder, you should have received the Advanced Learning Plan (ALP) for the year. As I mentioned last week, this is a document required by the state of Colorado to help communicate to families what goals your child has related to their gifted identification and what services the school will provide. Last week, I shared with you what to expect for afffective/social-emotional goals. This week let me briefly describe what you should see for academic goals. Depending on what academic area(s) your child is identified in, you will note that there is a goal written related to that. If your child is identified in math, their goal is to do advanced work. Advanced work is defined by looking more closely at the math rubric (also included with the ALP.) Areas for focus include, of course, increasing mathematical knowledge, but also include communication, effort, problem solving, creativity, and doing well on assessments during the year. Each student was also required to pick one of these areas for their focus area for growth too, and you will see which one your child picked by looking at the rubric included with their ALP. If you want to know the types of things we will be doing in class this year, make sure to read the "Instructional Actions/Strategies" section of the ALP which spells out more details. You can look more closely at the rubric here or click on the image here. Each grade level also has a standards focus for the year: 5th grade - Math Practice Standard #3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others 4th grade - Math Practice Standard #2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively 3rd grade - Math Practice Standard #1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them If your child is identified in reading, again students are expected to do advanced work. The rubric explains the focus areas of independent reading, comprehension, discussions, assessments/projects, and effort. Click on the image to the left or click here to see the rubric larger. Similar to math, students were asked to reflect on which of these areas needed the most work for them and write their individual goal on the back of their rubric (included with your child's ALP.) The standards that each grade level will be focusing on for math are: 5th Grade - Colorado Academic Standards (Reading, Writing Communication) 4. Research and Reasoning 1. High-quality research requires information that is organized and presented with documentation 4th Grade - Colorado Academic Standards (Reading, Writing Communication) 2. Reading for All Purposes 3. Knowledge of complex orthography (spelling patterns), morphology (word meanings), and word relationships to decode (read) multisyllabic words contributes to better reading skills 3rd Grade - Colorado Academic Standards (Reading, Writing Communication) 2. Reading for All Purposes 1. Strategies are needed to make meaning of various types of literary genres The final academic area that we have students identified in is creativity. This goal area for ALP's requires that a student be graded using the Creative Product rubric when they complete projects both in my class and in their homeroom class. For details on what those expectations are, click on the rubric on the right or click here. Projects can be related to social studies concepts, novel studies, scientific studies, or writing samples. During the year, we try to make sure students have the opportunity to see how it is possible to be creative in all academic subjects - not just the arts. Recently, I met with all of our gifted identified students to go over their affective needs (sometimes called social-emotional needs.) We talked about how affective goals relate to being a better student and/or being a better you. It is a Colorado state requirement that all GT students have not only academic goals but also a social-emotional goal. It is a requirement I am happy to fulfill because at Werner we are always concerned with the whole child and their growth in ALL aspects of their lives. Here is a quick explanation for each grade-level's focus this year. Lessons and discussions in homeroom, with the counselor and with me will be going on all year to support these goals. Next week you will receive your child's ALP in their Friday Folder. In it please look for the colorful copies (yellow for 3rd grade, green for 4th, and blue for 5th.) One of those important papers will be your child's affective needs checklist and their goal they chose to focus on for the year. If you can focus discussions this year at your house on this goal and learning skills and strategies to be successful on that goal, that would be awesome! Each grade level has a different focus. Let me give you some details below... Fifth Grade - Healthy risk taking is the 5th grade goal for the year. We spend time talking about the four types of risks: intellectual, social, emotional, and physical. Students worked with me to brainstorm healthy risks that they could take at school during this school year. They also completed a quick survey about their attitudes towards risk taking. Students have to pick two (one for each semester) that they are willing to take. Risks range from trying the spelling bee, speaking in front of the class, running for Wildcat leader, trying to make a district track meet event, challenges at Eco Week, and many more. Students will reflect at the end of each semester on their activity. The focus is not on being 100% successful but instead focus on being willing to try something new. Click on the document on the left to see what paperwork to expect from your child and see the goal-setting document too. Fourth Grade - The fourth grade goal is related to organization and study skills. Since this is the first year the kids get a planner and begin receiving letter grades of A,B,C,D,F, this seemed like a logical year to spend discussing how that can help students be better learners. Categories on the checklist for organization/study skills are time management, study skills, managing materials, homework, and using their planner. Students could choose any one of these 5 categories to write their specific goal after they reflected on their own greatest area of need. Cleaning out backpacks and desks seemed to be a popular need - and maybe you parents agree! Fourth graders will be hearing about these topics all year as our Werner staff works to reinforce good study habits. Students will reflect again at the end of the year on the checklist and answer questions that ask them to think about how their work in this area might continue to help them in the future. Click the document at the right to see more details. Third Grade - The third graders' goals relate to peer relationships. The overall categories within peer relationships are large group interactions, small group interactions, conflict resolution, and communication. Students completed a checklist to self-evaluate as a pre-assessment. They then took a look at an area they marked as a 1 or 2 and set their personal goal on that specific area. In addition, students had to brainstorm what they might need to help them be successful. Ideas ranged from help from Mrs. Flemister (our counselor) to more patience to suggestions from a teacher about new strategies. We will complete the checklist at the end of the year again and students will reflect on their progress with a form I will provide them. Forms are linked on the left if you want to take a peek. Just a quick note about my schedule next week. I will be attending the Colorado Gifted Educators' Conference on Monday and Tuesday so I will be out of the building. I'll be back on Wednesday and also working on Thursday and Friday to hopefully complete ALP's while you enjoy time with your children at home. Please watch in the coming weeks for this important paperwork to be in your child's Friday Folder.
This week I would like to give a brief update on each of my classes so you know what your child is currently studying in their time with me. 5th Grade Math - Fifth graders have been seriously hard at work growing their brain power in the form of tricky algebra learning. They have been learning to use the Distributive Property to create equivalent expressions and then also learning to simplify algebra equations before solving. We have had a lot of conversations about, "When am I ever going to use this?!" and so have also been doing lessons showing the kids how formulas in life use algebra to solve for the unknown quantity (using formulas for perimeter, area, volume, acceleration, interest rate, US to metric measurements, and more.) We'll take our test over this unit next week and then explore how algebra relates to solving inequalities (greater than, less than and the like.) 5th Grade Language Arts- After the completion of our first round of literature circles reading realistic, kids-save-the-environment fiction, the kids got their new mystery books last week to begin reading. I always think spooky mysteries are a great way to experience the Halloween spirit at school. While we read mysteries, we'll also continue our study of Greek/Latin roots of English. 4th Grade Math - Now that we completed a review unit of addition and subtraction, we are moving onto longer multiplication problems. We'll explore the traditional algorithm but also look at why it works (not just memorize steps that have no meaning.) It is very important that students be practicing their basic multiplication facts because that will make these multiplication units MUCH easier. We have discussed how students might use flash cards or online games (check out the Web Resources for Third Grade under Basic Multiplication Practice.) 4th Grade Language Arts - This group is on hiatus until November when we will pick back up again with books about fictional courageous characters. I think the kids really enjoyed our last session of short-stories and talk of irony and satire through O'Henry stories. This group will also begin exploring Greek & Latin roots in our next month-long session. 3rd Grade Math - The first few months with our new curriculum has a major focus on basic multiplication and divisions facts. This group is also exploring how the Distributive Property works and how it can be a useful tool to learning "hard" multiplication facts (think about 6X7 as (3X7)+(3X7) as an easier way to solve.) We are just beginning a unit exploring strategies for 4's, 6's, 7's, and 8's - some of the sets that kids find the trickiest. Our new curriculum focuses not just rote memorization, but instead on building understanding of multiplication, its uses, and yet still learning your facts for quick recall. We are also trying out fun ways to learn them through videos and games too. 3rd Grade Language Arts - We are looking at the them of change through literature. Part of my goal in their time with me over the years is to introduce them to genres they may not pick up themselves. This first book that we just began reading last week is a science fiction book called The Green Book. Life for the characters in the book change in a drastic way when they are forced to board a spaceship and abandon Earth for a new planet called Shine. We are focusing on learning to ask good questions too while we read - a great way students learn to monitor their own comprehension. Below are a few pictures of our first day together exploring how change is a theme in our own lives (a few more are on the Photos page.) Conference time is coming up in the next couple of weeks. If you would like to meet with me, I am happy to schedule a time. I am available before school most mornings and also all day on October 13. Please just email me your availability. I am also happy to try to stop in to your regularly scheduled conference with homeroom teachers if that is easier. My contact: [email protected] Math grades are updated in our Synergy gradebook system. You can log into Parent Vue at any time to see how your child is doing. I will warn you that I only add grades once every couple of weeks. For my math classes, assessments and homework make up almost all of the grades. Homework is worth 20 points each week. Assessments are each worth 100 points. I rarely grade practice assignments because they are just that - practice! And remember that students have the option to fix assessment scores with extra work and reflection (see last week's post.) My biggest concern is that they learn the material so I do everything in my power to make sure they know the math so that grades are secondary to understanding and learning. If your child was in my math classes last year then you may remember that we took a few days to have some fun with math and see how it applies to engineering. If you look at my profile picture on this page, you'll see a peek at me in an Orion space capsule simulator from when I was at Educator Space Camp in 2015 in Huntsville, AL. When I got home after that summer, I wanted to bring some of my learning and experiences home to my students. I wrote a grant for materials and found activities that would allow my students to experience more problem solving and collaboration through designing and building. We will be doing four challenges again this year in each class. In fact, homeroom students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades will all be doing the challenges with us too. Click here or on the letter on the left to read more details. I need your help too! You should have received a Sign-up Genius email asking for parent volunteers. You don't need to know anything about engineering. Your job will be helping "sell" supplies and simply supervise the fun with me. Our first challenge will be in October on the 20 & 21st. We will do ones in December, February, and May too if you can't help this time. Math families make sure that you are watching for the Home School Connection letters that your child will bring home this year. This will give you a glimpse at what our current math topic is in class. I always joke with the kids when I hand them out that these are your parents' homework. It does have a family activity that is optional so you do have a little homework to do with your child if you choose. Those letters do not need to be sent back to school. One more possibly useful family tool that our new math curriculum provides is the Bounce Pages app that can be downloaded on phones or tablets. Once you download the app, it will use your camera when you point it at your child's homework page. It will then automatically connect to "Another Look" videos that can possibly help your child remember what we learned that day in order to help them with their homework. |
Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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