Let's start with the really important stuff...BIOGRAPHIES! First of all...I have spent the past two and a half days conferencing one on one with your children...reading their biographies and helping them edit...either due to lack of info, disorganization, or the need to shorten it for our museum!! This was NO easy task...meeting with kids one on one while the other 26 are "working independently" for hours on end...yeah...you've got the picture. Anyway...mission accomplished and I am so impressed with their work! There were SO many biographies that needed little to no editing because your kids had done such a good job. Then there were some SEVEN pagers that had to be pared down "a bit"... Since I have all but one blue slip returned signed, I'm assuming you all have down on your calendars the big event for this coming Friday, February 24th! Please plan to stay for the entire museum tour...approximately an hour and 1/2...we will begin at 9:00 am. At the end of the tour, I would love to celebrate their hard work with a cake, so if any of you have time and want to order and pick up a cake from Costco, I'm MORE than happy to pay for it, but I know I won't have time to get it ordered and picked up. Please email me if you are available to help with this!
So...now what needs to be done to get your child prepared???...a ridiculous amount of practice!! They need to practice their biography so much that you literally never want to hear about that famous person again! ;-) Since they are portraying this famous person, they shouldn't have to read off their paper the entire time. The only way they're going to have outstanding eye contact is if they read it a million times (well, not quiet a million.) They will also have to use an uncomfortably loud voice, so have them increase their volume to where you think they're loud! Oh, what fun!
Believe it or not, we've been doing other things. We've worked on more cursive, we've read TFK articles, scoured through important facts to find main ideas, and answered questions based on the articles...all reading comprehension of non-fiction. This biography unit was a huge integration of comprehension and communication. They will be scored on their ability to show they understood their books/articles/resources and they will be scored on their ability to write it into an organized story. After conferencing with many of the kids, it was obvious that although they may not have written an outstanding piece, I could usually fill in the missing parts by asking the student questions. They had the knowledge, but not the ability to put it all into an organized written product. Then there were a few that truly didn't understand a lot of what they had read...or possibly they hadn't read at all. It was a great experience sitting side by side with each student while looking at their products. We will leave ALL of this non-fiction behind and head into a novel unit next week...YAH!!!! I'm ready and I'm sure the kids are, too!
WORD STUDY...so we tried something new and...I like it? Do you? At least no one was trying to learn how to spell "sesquepedalian" this week!! The words were all great vocabulary words all tied to the roots...and so I'm planning to do the same thing next week. Let me know your thoughts by email if you are so inclined!!
Trixy has five letters in her name because that is the mean number of letters in our names. Trixy is 54 inches tall because it, too, was the mean height in our classroom. We used mean to find her shoe size (4), weight (67lbs), and age (9 years old). We used mode to discover her favorite school subject (the beaker exploding in her hand should help you with that one), her hair color, her eye color, and her favorite food (shirt design gives that one away!) This was a great way to apply the reason for having different ways to find averages...without numbers, the mean is impossible, but the mode can be very helpful. The kids pulled all of this information from line plots that we had created all over the room. Trixy is completely THEIR OWN project...and they are very proud! This week the kids also took the Quarter TWO post test (yes, I know a tad late)...and by the end of next week I should have them all scored, so if you'd like to know the growth your child made in math concepts from the beginning of the quarter til now, please email me! The kids will see the tests once I'm finished and we will go over them. Next week in Math we are headed into the world of fractions.
Unfortunately, Science took a back burner this past week, but we will forge ahead next week and do some very fun, hands-on experiments...so stay tuned for pictures and fun stories!
I have SOOOO many great photos from Valentine's Day...I will create a movie at home and post them this evening if all goes as planned. Thanks for always being patient...I really do try to be timely...but my goodness there aren't enough hours in the day!
I just now saw that there is a Winter Weather Advisory for Sunday into Monday...although snow would be fun...it could REALLY mess up my Wax Museum...just a heads up...if for any reason we were to lose any school days, it would be ALMOST impossible for us to perform Friday...so keep your fingers crossed.
Enjoy your long weekend!
