Post date: Oct 07, 2017 1:57:34 AM
Hello All. Happy Sunday and I hope you've had a great weekend. I've had a good time getting the outside of our little hillside home a little more prepared for a possibly wet Santa Cruz Mountain winter and cutting the construction scraps into firewood. There's still the unfinished kitchen to deal with, roof leaks to mend/prevent, and a bunch to clean up in the yard, but it's looking better around here.
School life is going great as well. The kids are in the swing of things and working hard -- lots of learning going on, I think.
Science:
1. Last week your kid should have brought home for your review their packet of work from our first unit in science. I hope that you took some time to browse the stuff with your kid, asking them what they did/learned. We'll make 4 or 5 more of those packets this year in science. Although just browsing the assignments do not completely capture (or comprise) the learning attained, reviewing the packets together is one way of keeping the teacher-student-parent triad of communication and performance awareness open.
2. For the next 5 weeks, our class will be doing the chemistry intensive with Mr. Dowling in room 29 from 9:00 to 10:40 each day. They'll have many experiments to perform and great things to learn!
3. Starting this week, each kid will do a science demonstration for the class. Details and the presentation calendar are here.
4. The last science item is regarding SSEP; after meeting with a NASA scientist on Thursday, I think that there's a group of kids with an innovative idea ready to propose.
English:
1. The name essays are still sitting idle in my back pack, but now that I've created and refined (per students' suggestions) an essay feedback/evaluation sheet, I think I'll have them back to the kids by the end of the week. Likewise for the photo essay.
2. Book club meetings started last week (discussing Langston Hughes' short story Thank You Ma'am) It was great having the facilitators in class Monday and watching them establish working relationships with the kids. There is abundant experience in this group and I am certain that we can be ambitious in our goals and deep in the discussions. Tomorrow they'll get into their new groups (hopefully the kids were all able to get a copy of their book).
3. April came to class on Thursday and we discussed the upcoming process that will lead to the creation of a student-written portion of these newsletters. She'll coach kids 1:1 throughout the year, each contributing an article at least once. This will be a great thing!
4. Oh, there's also a vocabulary test tomorrow, just in case you want to review last week's words with your kid -- this time I'll be asking the kids to use the words in sentences rather than just knowing the definitions.
Social Studies:
1. We had some good lessons in history this week. The kids and I learned about the causes, battles, and effects of the French & Indian War (aka Seven Years War of World War 0). This sometimes overlooked portion of US history is important to the understanding of the lead-up to the War for Independence.
2. To set that stage even more, the kids got quite a shock when they were presented with some (fake but effective) new regulations in a letter from the School Oversight Board. The feelings of unjust treatment, resentment, and bewilderment reached an almost near-rebellion level as the kids argued the points in the letter and debated it's authenticity. When I finally came clean about the letter being fake and explained to the kids the connection between it and what the colonists (and English) may have felt back then, tempers subsided and (I hope) empathy gained.
3. The National Parks documents should be more than half done by now, and I've asked the kids to be sure that theirs emphasizes the geography of their park so that the viewers gets a great appreciation of the many amazing places exist in this country (and beyond, of course).
Redwoods & Ropes Trip: Next Wednesday is the first class field trip. Mount Hermon's ropes course program isn't offering us the morning of team-building activities this year, but I've decided to do keep the trip a full-day experience so we'll be taking a hike that historically has been part of day 1 of the Walkabout overnight. The kids will do math first thing on Monday, then at 9:40 we'll head to Scotts Valley and hike a the Eagle Creek and San Lorenzo River trails in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park until noon, then head to the Mt Hermon Conference Center to do the amazing Sequoia Adventure Course -- their biggest high-in-the-trees facility and a really fun place to test your confidence, trust, and teamwork.
Conferences: In a few weeks we will have student-led progress and goal-setting conferences. I am very much looking forward to spending time with you during those afternoons! Please open this document and fill in a time spot with your kid's name. Here is a page on my site that has a bit more info about Fall Conferences.