I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving. My family enjoyed our time in New York City, and we made it to see the Macy's Day parade (although if you watched it on tv, you know that it was not the warmest day of the year!) Now we have the fast and furious weeks before the Christmas holiday. Here is a quick update on the world of Werner GT... I had the chance to check in this week with all of the gifted kids regarding their affective (social/emotional) goals for the year. With 5th grade, we talked about what it means to make "intelligent mistakes" by reading a silly story about failed science experiments and talking about what can be learned from failure. The kids also took their first semester reflection sheet so they can think about how their first risk-taking goal experience was. Those are due by December 19 (check with your child and make sure they turned in their blue reflection sheet in the coming weeks.) Fourth grade talked with me about how to manage paperwork which relates to their goal about study skills and organization habits. And by manage, I mean cleaning out their binders and backpacks and determining what to do with papers when they are completed or need to be completed. Take a moment to chat with your fourth grader and talk about a weekly time to clean out backpacks and binders. Also consider helping them find a place at home to file papers that they want to keep (if you don't already have a system in place for important papers and fourth grade memories.) Finally, third grade is working on peer relationships. We read a silly story with tips on making new friends called "Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend" and then we brainstormed what it looks like and sounds like to be a good friend. You would be surprised how challenging it is to truly define a good friend. The picture below is the chart of ideas we came up with: Fourth grade math students have begun learning different strategies for multi-digit multiplication. I know parents can feel a little frustrated with the methods that we use to teach kids mathematical algorithms these days. You probably think that the traditional method worked for you, why don't we just use that? I think it is important for kids to learn multiple methods, especially gifted students. Some kids "see" math differently and one method or another makes more sense for them. Math using Common Core standards is no longer about memorizing procedures like when I was in school. Math is now as much about understanding the concept thoroughly as it is about correct process. Some of the other methods (like partial products) help students understand the concept of multiplication through place value understanding. I was taught to put an "X" on the second line of a 2-digit times 2 digit equation. I never understood why until I became a teacher and realized that X is a place holder for the ones place. All of this is to say, please bear with me, fourth grade parents, as I teach your child different methods. Ultimately, I'll let them pick their favorite method, and I'll make sure they can compute with that method accurately. If you want to understand more about these methods, check out these links to videos that will explain to you just what that "crazy math" is that your child is learning. Partial Products http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/teaching-topics/computation/mult-part-prod/ Lattice http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/teaching-topics/computation/mult-lattice/ The Hour of Code is a national movement to have kids experience computer programming at all age levels for at least one hour of their school year. All of my math classes will be participating in the Hour of Code on Tuesday, December 9. Students will be using various websites to program a light robot, a tank, Anna & Elsa (of "Frozen" fame,) and many more options. These links to the programming games are on the website now if you would like to check them out or your child would like to experiment more with basic programming at home. Go to the Web Resources page on the website and scroll down to the Hour of Code links. I tried to provide a basic description for each of the links and guidelines for ages. You might even be interested in playing around with some of them yourself! http://traceybean.weebly.com/web-resources.html
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
Sign-up for updates: |
Knowledge Peak | Blog |