Friday, February 05, 2016

Plans: Week of February 8th

As the weekend takes hold, I'm readying for the week ahead, the week before the February break.

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Team Week
Next week is team week. Each student has a "secret" teammate, one that they'll do special things for all week. The special actions include making a character word search, book mark, net and box with a treat, coordinate grid "happiness" message, and "party in a box" with a healthy treat, drink, and small gift.

Character Day
Friday will give students a chance to focus on the attributes of character through story, discussion, and creative projects. We'll provide students with a menu of possible projects and then they'll have the chance to focus on the attributes with one or more of the projects which include making posters, videos, short skits, stories, and more.

Fraction Exploration
Students will continue to explore fractions in a number of ways including continued focus on the fractional parts of decimeters and foot-long rulers, making fraction bars, making 100% pictures, comparing fractions and adding fractions with like and unlike denominators.

Professional Learning
The TLI School Redesign Cohort will meet again via an online webinar, and our in-school tech team will take a deeper look at Brain Pop and how we might use it as part of our curriculum units and flipping the class home study. Out child study meets to to discuss specifics with regard to serving specific children well, and I suspect the ECET2 team will continue our efforts to plan an event for Massachusetts.

Math Tech
I want to give students time to catch up on their online practice programs, programs that students are expected to complete or use with regard to their study.

Read Aloud and Reading
We're still working on Sharon Draper's book, Out of My Mind. I also need to give my small RTI reading group a short assessment and catch up with them with some reading. I think we'll focus on President's Day by reading a number of "mystery paragraphs" about a number of Presidents and then matching name to mystery paragraph. That's a good way to practice "reading for understanding" and learn a bit of American history too.

Room Organization
The room is overfull with creative materials, but that's the way it will be for a while until we use up the many boxes that line the back of the room as well as our new supplies for upcoming STEAM Theme Days.

The learning continues, the team grows in strength and focus, and the weekend provides the time to re-energize before the start of another week. Onward.