Post date: Nov 21, 2015 3:35:56 AM
Hello Parents and Kids.
This coming week will be a time to celebrate family, history, tradition, and a bit of food. I've had great times at school these past months, but a week off is welcome, if for no other reason than to clear my head and the piles of clutter that have been sitting in the classroom since school started. I also have some student work to go through and a unit on electricity and magnetism to plan out.
1. Walkabout Recap: Even after talking about the trip to a few parents, I've run out of sufficiently glowing terms to describe those three days and two nights along the coast. The group worked, walked, played, cooked, cleaned, and made decisions together, as a large loving family. There was magic in the weather and the places we visited as well. A few weeks ago I mentioned something about the potential of the "powers of our spirits and the magic of nature", and looking back, I completely believe that we were blessed by both! Much of the pre-trip planning was mine, but what really made the trip work was the attitudes and efforts of the kids as well as the six amazingly devoted parent chaperones -- my continued thanks to Diann, Violeta, Janet, John, Kevin, and Leo.
2. Upcoming Curriculum: During the 15 school days in December our class will be spending 100 minutes each morning with Mr. Dowling increasing their grammar skills and story-writing abilities. When they come back to me, during the 11 to 12 hour, we will be doing a science unit on electricity and magnetism. This will be a "hybrid" experience, involving textbook reading each night and activities, labs, and demonstrations during the day. To make the routine transparent to you parents, I'll be posting the reading schedule on my website and also including it on the nightly assignment sheet. I'll give short reading quizzes on most days, during which the kids can use any notes that they may have taken the night before. Those skills, along with the lab skills and knowledge (and questions) gained during experiments will hopefully lead to a solid understanding of the topics, readiness for high school physics, and increase in self concept regarding science.
3. In addition to the teacher-prescribed topics, everyone should be amidst two projects about topics or their own choosing. The first is a "Target Topic" from their curiosity slides, about which they are highly interested. On this spreadsheet there should be a link from one cell in your kid's row to a document that has their initial topics for investigation and some signs of research. Additionally, I signed our class up for a 2 week trial of an online animation site called " GoAnimate", and each kid should be building an educational cartoon about an academic topic, again, of high personal interest. If you have a chance, please have your kid show you each of those works-in-progress.
Thanks to all of you for just being such wonderful people to work for and with. I am so fortunate to be able to share lives with you a bit. Lets continue to treasure it.
Love.
Chris
December 4 (Friday): Middle School Dance
December 12 (Saturday): DCS alumni volunteering at Family Giving Tree
December 18 (Friday): Early dismissal
December 21 - January 10: Winter Holiday
January 18 (Monday): No School, MLK day
January 26 (Tuesday):8th grade class photo
February 5 (Friday): Semester 1 ends
February 6 (Saturday): DCS 10 Year Celebration
February 15 to 19: February Break
March 18 (Friday): Staff Development Day