Wednesday, 23 October 2013

DRUG FREE ESSAYS DUE TOMORROW!  NOT MANDATORY!

This morning we learned cursive "P".  We also did spelling sorts with Morse Code.  You should have heard the soft tapping; I thought we worked for the telegraph!  Grammar was about pronouns.  The kids call them Super Powers, after Subject Noun, because they have the power to take away the name and we still know who is meant in the text.  We worked on Bull Roarers here and there throughout the day, adding weather symbols to our Native American names on what used to be paint sticks but now are rain sticks.

For Reading, we happily strode through chapter two in Summer of the Monkeys.  The students first took a five question quiz.  Question 1 is always:  Is your reading assignment (or book) here to enjoy?  Question 2 is: Did you do read the assignment?  Question 3 is from the beginning, Question 4 from the middle, and Question 5 from the end of the chapter, to assess comprehension.  We then read, taking parts in Reader's Theater fashion.  Students were quick to pull out similes, characters, problems, and to catch humor.  HOMEWORK IS TO FINISH CHAPTER 2.

In math we worked like crazy on deciding how to show division story problems in bar model fashion.  Students were amazed that both Whole-Part and Comparison models could come up with the same answer.  I showed them there are many different methods to obtaining a correct answer and as long as you can communicate how they obtained the answer (and that it is the correct answer!) that I will not dock points.  HOMEWORK IS A WORKSHEET REVIEWING MULTIPLICATION, DIVISION, ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION STORY PROBLEMS.  YES, BAR MODELS MUST BE SHOWN.  If we slow down at the beginning of the year a little, I find that students speed up in comprehending processes a little down the road.

This afternoon we had an assembly given by Officer Clements, of the Orem Police force.  He talked to the students about drugs and had many fun activities to encourage them to stay off drugs.

We were fortunate to have two presentations from Native American tribes from our class:  a Navajo hogan and 20 Native American foods.  I don't believe the students will ever forget how Native American foods contribute to our society and the world after sampling today's mix.  Thank you, generous parents.  Thank you for your continued support.