August 27, 2011

We did it! We survived the first full week of school. It seemed to be a bit of a long week trying to get back into the swing of things, but here we are, moving forward and ready to go! I have a couple of pictures that I promised this week. First off, on Monday, we finished up our watercolor flowers:

We ended up using these flowers as a lesson on perspective. Each student started with the exact same picture, the exact same view finder, the same paper, and the same paints, but there wasn't a single picture that turned out looking the same. There is not one picture up there that is the "correct" picture. This is because we all see things differently and need to learn to respect that, though other people may see things a little differently, it does not make their way wrong.

The other picture I promised was what we used the cans for. Here it is:

The words "I can't" are not allowed in my classroom. Especially not now that we've made a physical representation of an "I can". I'm going to be putting a shelf up in the room and these are going to remain up for the whole year. If I ever hear somebody use the words "I can't", I will simply refer back up to the cans and say, "I know you can. There's proof right there."

I want to make sure you're aware that the state is slowly transitioning into what is called the "Common Core". This is a fantastic thing for several reasons. First off, the Common Core raises the standards. I am a firm believer that children will reach whatever bar you set for them, so this raises the bar a bit and pushes them to excel. Also, the word common in it refers to the fact that it is the same thing across the nation, or at least it will be, right now I believe it's 46 states that have adopted the Common Core. This is great! Especially for the military in the area. They're children will be able to move from school to school and not be completely lost. This year, the state has decided to have sixth grade adopt the new math core, so if you've had other students come through the sixth grade and things seem a little different, this is why. I believe 2015 is the deadline for the entire state to have adopted the Common Core through all content areas and within all grades, k-12.

Here's our week at a glance:

* In math this week, we've started into our unit on ratios and proportions.

* Our first reading story is "The Best School Year Ever".

* In science, they began diving into the Scientific Method: Question, Research, Hypothesize, Experiment, Analyze, Conclude, and Report.

* Arts and Technology has started right into the beginnings of I-Movie, which they will use to edit the newscasts and other videos they produce throughout the year.

* Social studies has started the year by teaching them about different personality types and having them figure out which personality type they were.

* In Writing and Grammar we have been learning about how to construct a complete sentence, the four sentence types, and the 6(+1) Traits of Good Writing: Ideas, Organization, Voice, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, Conventions, and the (+1) Presentation.

All in all, I'd say it's been a pretty productive week. These kids have taken on each project with class. I truly am blessed to be teaching your students this year!

"Always shoot for the moon because then, even if you miss, you still land amonst the stars."