Kickball
Most fifth graders enjoy kickball this year and we'll use kickball as a way to develop our class community. Students will help me make fair teams, review the rules, and play in ways that everyone has a good time, supports one another, and gets some great exercise in the fresh air too. This will be a fun way to build our class culture.
New Rules and Protocols
Issues related to where people sit, transition issues, and ways to get along and solve conflicts came up at the conferences. We'll have a class meeting about this and make some changes that help all students have the best possible team experience.
A Community of Readers
Student reading surveys captured students' reading profiles including their genre interests, reading habits, and current needs. All students expressed high interest and great learning via the Global Read Aloud. I could tell that every child enjoyed the book Amal Unbound and were intrigued by the story and characters presented. The deep study of this book was positive. Clearly students' reading instruction is exemplar with terrific, deep activities and events that have introduced students to rich text, a variety of genres, and the ability to read with fluency, accuracy, and understanding.
Students' raw scores related to reading are mostly at grade-level or beyond so this issue is not one of worry, yet many families expressed a desire that their children read more. Parents expressed struggle with at-home reading routines and book choice. As a teaching team we're going to look at ways that we can better encourage a deeper culture of reading during the school day and beyond. This may mean an eventual schedule change.
A Community of Writers
Families loved listening to their fifth graders read their beautiful writing pieces. Some students still need to update their portfolios with all their writing pieces. The fact that we devote about 3-5 hours a week to writing alone is clearly positive and results in great writing interest and growth.
Math Enrichment and Support
Families of high performing, advanced math students requested greater enrichment which we will provide. Also as I listened at the conferences, my desire to teach math with more engaging project based learning rose. The challenge with this is the sheer number of math foundation points students have to master this year--lots of discrete concepts, knowledge, and skills. To master this breadth of information with depth sets students up well for later learning, but we know that deeper project based learning allows terrific growth, challenge, and interest in learning math. I'll continue to wrestle with how to do this best as I move the program along.
Science Teaching and Learning
Students expressed a desire for more leadership and adventure with regard to our environmental science efforts. I will explore possible geocaching ideas related to this. Many children named science as their favorite subject, and soon the whole grade will engage in more hands-on science learning events which the students will enjoy.
Special Events
Students rated the special events. The Boston Museum of Science was a favorite since students found it to be a playful, interactive learning event. Students also enjoyed a visit to colonial times at Sturbridge Village and the model making, games, and outdoor adventures at our nature-related trips. Overall students were delighted with the special events, however they enjoyed events where they had greater freedom to move and lead their learning better.
Extending Student Learning to the Community
In some cases we discussed ways to extend student learning into the community. Efforts related to service learning projects, writing for the local newspaper, and drafting grants for community projects were discussed and will be revisited in the days ahead.
Developing Culture To-Do List
In response to the conferences to date (there's still four conferences to go), we'll do the following:
- Discuss the kickball rules, teams, and good teamwork.
- Find time to being a routine of regular class kickball games
- Have class meetings to update seating, class rules, and ways to resolve conflicts and work together better.
- Look for ways to increase our ability to develop a rich reading community.
- Include more floor-to-ceiling projects in math.
- Include more performance assessments in math.
- Provide more enrichment in math to those that desire that.
- Work with small groups on special service learning and outreach projects.
Overall we have a great teaching/learning program and family-student-educator team, and we continue to listen carefully to the needs and interests of all as we develop our efforts to teach students in ways that result in happy, invested, curious, and successful students. Onward.
