Student-Led Family/Teacher Conferences Continue
The conferences continue throughout the week - portfolios/reports are ready, so this means making the time to listening and responding to students' reflections, questions, and explanations.
Fraction Nuts and Bolts
We'll dive into a lot of details using models, numbers, and words via paper/pencil and tech venues too.
Reading Meetings
The Lit Mix group will focus on discussing what we've read so far--talking about what we've noticed in the book and what questions we still have.
Math RTI
Students have reached out to me for specific help and I'll spend that time responding to their questions and supporting their individual and collective math needs at that time.
Students will have time to work on these projects with depth. They've come up with good ideas and now they need to create their prototypes/drafts, then revisit their plans, and carry out the projects.
Town Engineer Visit
The town engineer will come to speak to the students about water conservation and more. This talk will enrich our science standards, environmental, and climate change studies as well as boost students' sense of knowledge and stewardship for their local environment.
Class Meetings
As a class we're all working on our listening skills, so we'll put aside some time on Wednesday afternoon to visit this topic with an open circle conversation.
Poetry Focus with Kindergarten Buddies
Last Friday students read informational books about animals and wrote/illustrated mini reports with their buddies. This week we'll focus on reading poetry and a related activity.
Science Study: Physical versus Chemical Changes
There's some prep to do in order to be ready for Friday's hands-on exploration of physical versus chemical changes.
Class Community
In addition to the open circle, I'll focus on class community during my recess duty times a bit more this week.
Professional Learning and Advocacy:
Math RTI: I've been thinking for a long time about how to better our RTI models and I think the key is to do the following. We should have teaching assistants manage the core-enrichment students in homeroom using a tech menu as a guide, and then the grade-level and specialist educators can use that time to take small groups and individuals to target specific concept, knowledge, and skill development. I believe this model would be more fluid, reasonable, and successful with regard to the overall math program goals. Currently the model in place, I believe, is more cumbersome than it needs to be and I believe this approach would streamline what we can do in more manageable and successful ways. It's not the time to push out this idea, however, I'll continue to think on it and have the information ready for when the right time arrives.
Student-Led Conferences: I truly believe this is a worthwhile approach. One I want to continue to reflect on with my colleagues as we think about continued student portfolio work and future learning.
Computational Thinking and Learning: I'll be attending a conference next Saturday to lead my efforts in this area ,efforts that I'll embed in the students' fraction unit.
Science Study: As I teach the science units with colleagues, we'll continue to support one another's efforts to develop these units and teaching in meaningful, hands-on, standards-based ways that emphasize teamwork and the scientific, design, and engineering processes.
STEAM Survival Projects: Our grade-level STEAMwork is essential a series of survival skills science exploration and design projects. Hence, I'll likely combine them into that theme and prep for this series with a number of survival-related videos. The concept of survival is popular with students via the games they play, shows they watch, and books they read so I think this will be a good way to create even more enthusiasm for these upcoming projects.
Field Study Prep and Permissions: We'll continue to collect family members' permissions via our online permission slip form and prep for our upcoming environmental field trip.
A busy week of work has come to an end, and now with plans in place, it's time for the weekend. Onward.