Great to see what the students are up to and how they are enjoying their time off. Parents, thanks for sharing the pictures!
We were visited by Dr. Amy Salgo who introduced the students to Stronger and Clearer Each Time. The instructional approach was developed by the Understanding Language Project at Stanford University and has students engage in multiple rehearsals of a problem or question before coming to a final answer.
Dr. Salgo asked the students if fractions are numbers and the students ultimately arrived at the conclusion, yes!
We used a sample Smarter Balanced Test item to get ready for a persuasive essay on service animals. We read through three texts, annotated for evidence and then rehearsed for our writing using a Fishbowl.
In a Fishbowl, students sit in a circle with several students in the middle. Participants share ideas around a topic and if someone in the middle needs help or has run out of ideas, they will replace themselves with someone from the outside.
The students spent part of the last two days sharing persuasive essays. Following the model in the children’s book I Wanna Iguana, students wrote back and forth to each other in their “Writing Coaches” corresponding journals. The writing was terrific and students stuck to our model of Claim-Evidence-Reasoning-Closure.
Students wrote from the perspective of pillows, tennis balls, favorite pets, celebrities, and family members.
This week we leveraged many of the elements of Google Classroom including building presentations for our Great American Day, taking a quiz with Google Forms, reviewing geography with http://www.earth-picker.com/ and Google Maps, and sharing data via Google Sheets. Taken together, we were able to blend our learning and reach outcomes not possible just a few years ago.
We continued our exploration of chemistry by looking closely at how things can be put together and taken apart. Further, we worked with creating a solution and then discovering the saturation point. Students are building a important bank of understanding around dissolving, evaporation, saturation, mixture and solution.
Thank you families for all of your help in making the afternoon a lot of fun!
