4R Experiences: Volume 7: 23 September 2016

During community meeting, we add to vivacious vocabulary to our wall.

It is just magic. Perseverance and stamina are two words that aptly describe this week. While we maintained our fun in learning, we succeeded in taking our MAP reading and math assessments. Each assessment is a snap-shot, or moment in time, as we climb our mountain. Such hard work must be rewarded in some "brain" breaks, so enjoy the photos.

We have started planning for our final project of our inquiry into how Sharing food is complex and presents challenges. Students will choose one book from our catalog of food books, which interests them and they will learn more about a natural food. After answering research questions, they will present their information in a creative project. More to come later...

We look forward to seeing everyone at the International Potluck this week in celebration of our first unit (and the fact that we all love delicious food). As an extension of our unit's celebration, we are also learning What compost is? How it helps farmers? and How it relates to our central idea? It is a dirty, smelly, poopy job but someone has to do it!

Multiplication clusters are awesome. Let's see just how many different topics and skills we have discussed that stem from them:

multiplication and division are inverse operations
multiples are like skip-counting
factors are groups and the number in each group
decomposing and composing equations
representing arrays as equations
prime and composite numbers
square numbers and square roots
rules for divisibility of numbers (slightly)
even and odd numbers - what happens when you multiply them in different combinations?
how to be sure we found all the factors of one number
chocolate bars are an example of arrays in real-life :)
7 x 3 means "7 groups of 3"
4 x 8 is equal to 8 x 4 because of the commutative property of multiplication and addition

Gee, did we get them all? We shared our strategies for solving multiplication clusters during a "fishbowl" activity. Each person gets to share and we move at the same time. Pretty cool!

Nonverbal communication (i.e. body language) can say a lot. You may know this from the look your child gives you when they first look at you in the morning? Well, this week we worked on using and "reading" others' body language to help us understand how people may feel, or what they may be thinking. During one activity, Two on a Crayon, students worked in dyads, or pairs, and drew a picture with each person having one hand on a crayon. The catch - they could not talk. From our reflection on the activity, we learned that sharing and cooperating is more than just words. We can use body language as a way to communicate our feelings, ideas, and thoughts - similar to when we read and discuss our books during Book Clubs. With our new knowledge and practice, each Book Club then created 3-4 agreements to encourage others, ask meaningful questions, include others, share ideas, have fun, and more.

Our reading strategy focus this week continues to be how great readers use questioning, while they read. We used our Questioning Thinking Stems, like I wonder... It confused me when... to ask critical and deeper meaning questions about characters and events in the story. Some students are even questioning the author's choice to include certain details, or asking What if the author didn't write... Impressive! Even more, we recorded our questions before, during, and after reading each day. We seem to be finding a theme here: Questioning never ends; 24/7. Answers to questions are often other questions, so we did play the "Question Game" for fun. You know, the one where a 3 year old responds to you with one answer, "Why?" and you give another explanation to only hear, "Why?" again and again. What fun we had!

"We like to be balanced learners, who are open-minded and willing to take risks, when in situations that require us to be caring and knowledgeable towards others. As thinkers and principled students, we are becoming great communicators and are reflective on our learning." So, those are two weird sentences. The highlighted words comprise the Learner Profile, or are apart of the characteristics of successful learners that we try to instill in our students here at TIS. We had some fun this week with them by talking about what they mean, who already embodies them well now, and how we can see these qualities in others all around us - especially in books.

We are prepared to see you for 3-Way Conferences (Parent-Teacher Conferences, or some may know them as Student-Led Conferences) this week as well. This is a special moment where you come into our world and see the magic of our learning. We are proud of our work and can't wait to share it with you. Be ready to be wowed!

Until next time, enjoy the weekend!

Homework

Homework: Read each night for 20 minutes. Make sure you enjoy your book and that it is at a comfortable reading level for you.

BRING IN ANY VEGETABLE/FRUIT SCRAPS, EGGSHELLS, COFFEE/TEA GROUNDS FOR THE GRADE 4 COMPOST PILE this week!

Monday: Continuing Patterns activity

Tuesday: Recipe sheet for the potluck: it should be filled out thoroughly and should have a picture in the box that shows us what the food will look like. Color helps. Plan your clothes for tomorrow's portrait.

Wednesday: Cook for the potluck. Help your parents with the project, and show your responsibility by helping to clean up as well.

Thursday: Do a solid 30 minutes on IXL. Grade 3 E.5 E.6 E.7 It's all about arrays this week! If you find E.5, or E.6 too easy, move to E.7 and have some fun!

Friday: Recite your 2 multiplication facts while standing on your head and wiggling your toes. Now THAT takes concentration! Have a good week.