P.E Lab was totally RAD!...and other news...

Earlier this week we had the opportunity to participate in P.E Lab.  This is a new venture that Mr. Blanchard is spearheading to develop lifelong movement practices with kids, as well as develop transferable skills.  This week we went rock climbing on a "stacked wall" in the Millstone Trail Association lands.  This experience was wonderful for so many of us, even "Blanch" and I got the chance to climb!  Make sure to check out our photo page for lots and lots of photos about this.  Students worked hard setting goals and working to achieve them.

We also have been working on the notion of mixed numbers and whole numbers in math, and just today came to the understanding that whole numbers are called as such because they are made up solely of "one-wholes."  We also have returned to our practice with multi-digit multiplication and thinking about when it makes sense to make a model to solve problems, and when it makes sense to use partial products.

In writing we are working to finish up our unit on the narrative style, and are looking forward to moving into a short unit on handwriting and spelling.  We will be working with adding suffixes to words, and will build this skill in a few ways, one of which is making sure we know how to spell the root-word, and a wonderful way to do this is through the poetry form Haiku.  I offer this haiku from William Shatner:

Haikus are simple

But sometimes they don't make sense

Refrigerator

Also, today I will be sending home the most up to date version of the conference schedule.  If you want to check it out, it is linked on the conference page.  If you still need to sign up, please either send me an email, give me a call at x308, or pencil your name in on the hard copy and send it back to school.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

-Dave

More on conferences, and information for P.E. Lab

I will be sending home a conference sign up sheet tomorrow.  This has the same information as my most recent post about conferences.  If you would like to sign up for a time, please either email me, or write your preference on the hard copy, and send it back to school. 

Also, we have P.E. Lab scheduled for Wednesday, and it looks a little rainy.  I met this morning with Mike Blanchard, and we are planning to go ahead with our lab, with a slightly changed focus.  Originally we were going to be rock climbing, but rain is most conducive to safe climbing, so we are going to switch our focus to disc golf and hiking.  Please be certain that your student is ready to be outside, in the rain, on Wednesday.  Thanks so much for helping make this a success. 

Also, if any of you would like to join us, please be in touch with either Mike Blanchard, or me as soon as you can.

Dave

Conference Schedule Update

Hey there, I just wanted to get this port out so everyone could have an idea about the conference scheduling progress.  Lower in this post there will be a link that will direct you to the conference schedule as it is currently. 

I would like to explain how it is set up.  I had quite a few requests for conferences at the same time, so when that was the case, I just gave priority based on the time people's requests were submitted.  If your child's name is on the schedule next to a time slot, that is the time that I have scheduled for you.  If your child's name is under the heading "People I need to find a time with" then I need to do just that.  Please note, that if you submitted a request for a conference time, and you are in this column, it is simply the case that the time you requested was already accounted for.  Please let me know if you would like any of the times that are not accounted for.  Also, if you would like a time before school I can meet Mondays or Wednesdays from 8:00-8:20, and again from 8:20-8:40. 

Please just let me know which times work for you, and we can meet!

Thanks,
Dave

Link to the conference schedule:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cWsga2DnTU1ZCfkvvIqQ1scjA8YO2YNeBkpUNhyUbwo/edit#gid=0

So much has happened in such a short time.

First of all it was so nice to see so many of you at our Open House on Thursday night!  If any of you couldn't make it, and would like to visit, please let me know and we can set up a time to do that.   Speaking of visiting, many of you have also signed up for times to have a conference.  I will be working with your requests to try and finalize a schedule during this coming week. We did have a lot of interest for the very first time slot of the day, so I will be polling people who like to meet early to see which other days during the conference week would work for them. 

Throughout the past two weeks we have worked on so much during class.  As many of you saw we spent quite a bit of time with the writing drafting process and have produced some wonderful final drafts.  We also have been pushing forward in the book Wonder.  During our reading of this book, we have been focused on discussion, and most importantly identifying the theme that an author integrates into their work.  We will be doing our best to intentionally integrate theme into some of our future writing. 

Our math work over the last few weeks has focused heavily on multiplication, and specifically on different modes that we can use to solve multiplication problems.  We have been working hard to build an understanding of partial products and how they are important for quick and accurate solutions to multiplication problems.  A quick word here on partial products....if one is multiplying together two two-digit numbers, let's say 45 and 13, you will have 4 partial products.  These products come from the decomposition of the two numbers you are multiplying together.  In this example, 45 is decomposed into 40 and 5, and 13 is decomposed into 10 and 3.  When using partial products, all 4 of these numbers get multiplied with one another, and the resulting 4 numbers are then added together: so 3 x 5 =15, 3 x 40 = 120, 5 x 10 =50 and 40 x 10 = 400, so we add together 15, 120, 50 and 400 to get the answer 585!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Dave

Conference sign up time!

Hey gang, I know it is a little early, but it is already time to start thinking about fall parent teacher conferences!  I have added a page to the blog labeled conferences.  On that page, please follow the link to a Google form that we will use to sign up.  After I have collected responses from this, I will compile a schedule and post that to the blog as well.

If it will be difficult for you to conference at the times outlined on November 10, 2017, please just let me know, and we can make other arrangements.

Thanks,

Dave

School store and so much more!

The School Store will have it’s Grand Opening for 2017-18.  We have items from $.25 to $1.75.

Also tomorrow, our fundraising forms for Solmate socks are due!  Please send them in with your student if they have sold any socks.

Also, coming home today are forms for our P.E. lab.  This is an opportunity for students to participate in lifetime sports outside of our school setting.  Please fill these forms out, and send them back by next Wednesday.  If you would like to join us, please make a note of this on the form!

Also, in our classroom, so much has been going on.  We had our last few monarchs emerge.  We let the last one go on Wednesday of last week.  We have been diving deep into the realm of discourse for all of our endeavours.  The premise of discourse in our classroom is active and thoughtful engagement by all students. We are seeing a real rise in engagement in discussion, as well as depth of knowledge presented.  All of this work is what educator's call "cross-cutting," or transferable skills.  That is to say that these are skills that are useful in all walks of life, and in all situations.  During our work these past few weeks, in all academic areas, we have been developing and delivering effective communication, and creative thinking and problem solving.  

I hope all is well with you!

Dave

Dorothy's Book Club

This is an opportunity for students to meet and discuss books they are reading on the DCF book list.  The first meeting of this club will be next Tuesday October, 10 at 5:30 p.m. in the library.  If your student has iny interest please email either myself, or our librarian Arlyn ( abruccoli@u32.org ) to let us know your student plans to attend.

Thanks,

Dave