I want to start off by saying, I cannot believe that it is the end of the first semester. I have had such a blast with your kiddos that the time has flown by this year! POL's have been going very smoothly. I have loved seeing all of the students rise to the occasion. They have also had the opportunity to go watch the Core 4/5 POL's, which has been really neat. They have been instructed to come back with one bit of warm feedback, and one bit of cool feedback on the presenters that they observed. They have consistently come back with very thoughtful ideas on the older students' presentations, and we have had some really wonderful discussions about what makes a great presentation. We have fit in some more hundreds chart games this week. Please know that you can always stop by to check out the books that I am using, and/ or have your student teach you the games :) We have also brought back Writer's Workshop for the last two days, and I had no idea how much the students had missed it. It was great to see them diving right back in so enthusiastically! A quick reminder about Work Journal #4. It is due by Friday, and we have a staff party that starts at 4:00, so I will need to receive it by 3:15 on Friday. By now you have probably received Michelle's announcement that the Work Journals have changed. I believe that this change is going to greatly benefit everyone involved! Here is a list of the changes as they pertain to you: 1. The previous 20 school day timeline for each work journal period is now being extended to a “not to exceed 35 days” window of time. What does that mean for you now? Work journals will now be due approximately every 6 weeks instead of every month! Yay! This means that instead of 5 more work journals go to, there are only three! Double yay! 2. Another revision is that we eliminated one pesky document (one less thing to keep track of!) by combining the work journal and daily engagement form. We didn’t just combine them into one document (that would be too easy!), we revised the document to allow parents to record brief blurbs about the focus of each day’s work so that by spending 3-5 minutes each day recording your learning activities, there will be no more overnighters spent filling out the work journal! We hope… Your teachers will share this document with you tomorrow, so stay tuned. 3. There are no revisions at this time to the number of work samples turned in, so please continue to turn in your 2 reading, 2 writing and 2 math samples. Here is Work Journal #5 for Core 2: We will have our Work Journal #5 meeting when we get back from break, but I wanted you to have it today so that you can use it for the next day or two of homeschooling. I know that this is a bit different then the old Work Journals and we will be going over all of the ins and outs at the Work Journal meetings. If you have any immediate questions upon seeing it, please email me and I would be happy to answer them.
I hope that everyone has a wonderful, long, relaxing break! Robin Hello Hello!
Well we are busy busy here in Core 2! I want to start by just thanking you for all of the support you have given your kiddos with their Presentations of Learning. So far I am very impressed with the level of work that they are doing, and with how thoughtful they are being while creating their presentations. I can't wait to see their POL's, which begin tomorrow. We have been spending a lot of our class time preparing for POL's, but we have also managed to fit in some new things during Math and Reading time. In Math we have been focused on skip counting and place value. Our Problems of the Day have become trickier, and are focused on constructing and deconstructing numbers out of "10." Ex: Jim picked 50 flowers. He put them into bunches with 10 flowers in each bunch. How many bunches of flowers did Jim make? Ex: Patrick's class has 4 boxes of doughnuts, with 1o doughnuts in each box. They also have 7 individual doughnuts. How many doughnuts do they have? You can see that both of these problems have the student working on taking apart numbers using 10, or putting them together using 10. This really helps them build the concepts of base ten and place value. The students have become very adept at starting each word problem by underlining the important information that has been given, and putting a zigzag line under the question. This is a habit that you could help build at home as well! In reading we have been working on poetry. The students have been working on reading poems and practicing visualizing what is taking place in the poem. We then work on adding a soundtrack using our class instrument.s. It has been a really fun, creative activity to liven up our afternoons after POL Prep :) Reminders/ Announcements: - POL's will be going on from now until Winter Break. Please know that the students must come dressed for success to their own POL. We have a lot of student presentations, so please be on time to your child's POL :) -Parent Reflections for Report Cards are due by Dec 16th. Please email them to me and include in the subject line of the email your child's name and the words "Parent Reflection." -I have created a Wish List for classroom supplies. We have gone through a lot of the supplies that you so generously donated at the beginning of the year: http://www2.signupgenius.com/go/10C0D48A8A729ABFE3-classroom Thank you, thank you!!! - Work Journal #4 is due next week! - I will be emailing you Work Journal #5 next week. I have decided to wait until after break to meet and discuss the new Work Journal. We will also be at the beginning of our Insect Project at that point (YAY!!!) and we will have a chance to go over that as well. Thank you again for all of your support during POL's! Robin Happy Sunday Everyone!
I wanted to let you know that report cards are coming up, and I would like to include a parent reflection on student's home learning. The way this works is that you write a short reflection covering your child's progress on the subject areas that you work on at home (reading, writing, math, other) and send it to me. You can also include any progress that you have seen your child make in the Habits of Heart and Mind :) Please make your reflection less than 800 characters and include in the subject line of the email your child's name and the words "Parent Reflection." I will need to receive this by December 16th in order to include it on the report card. Thank you for taking the time to do this, I think that it will be meaningful to have both home and school feedback on the report card! Let me know if you have any questions, Robin Hi All!
I hope everyone is doing great and enjoying the cooler weather :) I wanted to update you on a few elements of the upcoming POL's. First, you should have received a POL sign up genius. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0D48A8A729ABFE3-presentation POL's will begin next Thursday (12/12) and will continue through the Friday before break (12/20.) Please sign up for a time when you will be able to come and participate in your child's POL. POL's will occur on school days, soplease sign up on a day that your child is at school (ex. if your child is in the Mon/ Thurs cohort, sign up for a Mon or Thurs time). Only a few students will be audience members, and the rest will be working with another teacher. Your child should have brought home the beginning of an outline for their POL. The basic idea is that they are going to give a short presentation on one subject area and one Habit of Heart and Mind where they feel that they have grown. For example, if your child feels that they have grown in the subject area of Math, and the Habit of Heart and Mind of Perseverance, then these are the two areas they will be presenting on. They will need some guidance from you in the next few days to help think of ways to demonstrate their learning, using either home or school learning. Here is an example: If your student feels they have grown in Math, they can choose to demonstrate this by doing a "Number of the Day" problem on the Docucam. If you feel that it is easier to help them when they pick activities that you do at home, you can encourage them to do this :) For the Habit of Heart and Mind, they need to think of some way of demonstrating their growth. For instance, if they persevered in Karate, then they can bring their Karate belt and explain to the panel how they persevered. You will need to spend at least 15 minutes a day working on their POL at home in order for them to feel successful presenting. Please send their rough draft outline back this Thursday/ Fri so we can continue working on it in class. Please let me know if you have any questions or if their is any way that I can support you :) For new families, I have an example of a POL on video, if you want to make an appointment and take a look at it (it's only 7 minutes long) I would love to share it with you! Thanks for your help in preparing your child for their POL! Robin P.S. Here is the POL Outline that we are using: |
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February 2017
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