As part of our final project, we had a serious community discussion - "Which feedback do you value more: teacher, student, or neither?" We watched a video called Austin's Butterfly, which illustrated how peer, or student, feedback can be incredibly helpful towards creating something amazing. We saw that giving clear, specific, detailed, encouraging, constant, and positive feedback can help a student to focus on the process of creating and improving, rather than emphasizing only the final product. With these ideas, we worked in groups of three and gave specific feedback on each other's posters. Each student found at least one piece of advice extremely helpful and used it to improve his/her poster, whereby, making it even more insightful. Of course, the process of giving peer feedback, connected to our community's belief that working together and building on our ideas is our path of being the change we want to happen around and within us. Each student took this to heart and really put forth the best advice they could, so we could take a shared responsibility in making the Health Fair a one to remember.
Between all our hard work, we continued to enjoy ourselves through a variety of community sharing rituals. We created fun ways to celebrate our work, in which students worked in groups of four to create an original gesture and accompanying words. For example, one group came up with the saying "Thanks a lot-ta for sharing your hard work." while sipping a cup of coffee. Get it?!
We also changed our base groups, or table groups, with a focus on what it means to be principled, or honest, caring, and taking responsibility for our actions. We thought hard about who would be principled and who might still be working towards making choices that are more principled. As such, students created new base groups, and an accompanying name that embodies what being principled means to them. While this was going on, we did our first Mannequin Challenge, or a 30-second video of everyone in the room completely frozen, like a tableau. The video is excellent and we plan on making several more, including a Movember one. We will be sure to post those videos!
We did do a little Xtramath practice today, and everyone made positive progress. We talked about the importance of putting in the extra effort and persevering during difficult challenges, such as the number of questions given during each practice session. We also talked about doing an informal 10 minutes a day session at home, or during the day, each day to sharpen our skills. Nothing mandatory, just a suggestion. Time will tell how students balance their goals to improve their Math skills and other skills, like managing their time to prepare for their monthly book share. If you are doing a session, be sure to complete 3 parts, or until the programs asks you to "sign-out" so that your progress is recorded! This is really important, so if you have any questions, please email me.
Speaking of book shares, they have been fantastic and continue to improve with each student. December book share guidelines are up, so read them over with your child so you both know what is expected. Right now, all students have found a book to enjoy reading and, then, perform a scene with shadow puppets. We are looking forward to them! Enjoy the week!
Homework
Along with reading 20 minutes each night, please complete the following:Monday: The Newberry Medal & Misleading Graphs activities
Tuesday: One spelling Activity & xtramath
Wednesday: IXL
Thursday: one session of xtramath.org (info here); Practice your spelling words for tomorrow's quiz.
Friday: Balance on your head and drink from a straw while reading a poem backwards.
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