Monday, March 26, 2012

Current Events Project

For our Current Events project, we've started by studying Syria, as you probably know. We've created a blog to share some of our learning.

Please check out some of the amazing stuff students are learning. Many of them just posted vodcasts and podcasts that they've made.

Click HERE to go the the Current Events blog.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Coming home today...

Today was a milestone check in day. We expanded the milestone because of the Gateway Exhibition to include FIVE things.

Coming home today is a note that shows what your child had done today. Please sign it and return it tomorrow. Thanks.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Detroit Institute of Arts FREE in March

You know I love the DIA, right? Well, this month is "DIA Fan Appreciation Month." The DIA is giving free admission all month to people who "Like" them on facebook.

Go to this page: http://www.facebook.com/DetroitInstituteofArts to "like" them. And enjoy a free trip or two this month. Maybe I'll see you there!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Milestone 2 is coming soon: March 22!

Milestone 2 is due March 22! Because we have the Gateway Exhibitions this time, the requirements will be more!

On the 22nd, students must have:

*All 10 "10 Places" paragraphs written on the forms I have provided.

*A list of resources for their Interest Project

*College letters written and mailed

*2 different types of poems written and typed: their odes and their "If I was in charge of the world" poem

*2 weeks of stock market project worksheets complete

These things are basically the homework for the next week and a half. Some students are done with their college letters, but there are a few who are not. Most of them can be accessed and printed from Google Docs, but I need to see them before they are sealed and mailed.

The poems are being written in class. If they run out of time, they may have to type them at hom.

The stock market work WILL get done in class. The only way they might not get done would be if a student wasn't using time wisely.

If you have questions, of course, shoot me an email.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

10 Places Project

Please make sure all 10 Places materials (notes, drafts, etc.) come to school every day from now on. We'll be writing paragraphs every day in our writing workshop and all 10 paragraphs MUST be done by March 22.

Furthermore, all paragraphs must be written out as rough drafts on the forms that I have provided the students with. These forms will help them write quality paragraphs.

So, please continue working on writing these at home using the forms that the kids have. And please send them to school every day. Thanks!

Stock Market Project Launches Today

Yet another Gateway Exhibition project started today, The Stock Market Project!

Students learned the basics about the stock market today. For the next few weeks we'll be using stocks as a way of teaching percents, decimals, fractions, money story problems, and more. Kids will be paired and each pair will receive 10,000 "dollars" to invest. We'll track the stocks over time to see who makes the most money!

It should be fun and quite educational.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Skype Session #2

We're going Skype crazy this week! Today we Skyped with Steve Goldberg again to discuss Syria. There've been more developments and we had another great discussion.

We are starting a blog to share our writing about this topic. This will be part of the CURRENT EVENTS project for our Gateway Exhibition. Everything we do on this topic will be, in fact.

Also, my reading students will by Skyping with students in Salem, Massachusetts to discuss A Wrinkle in Time, which we just finished reading!

Good fun all around. I'll be sharing the results of both things soon!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Interesting Article

Suhmer did an Exhibition about Lady Gaga, who is someone I think is worth looking up to in many ways. In her presentation, she talked about how Lady Gaga is a role model.

Check out this article and discuss it with your child..."Can Kindness Become Cool?"

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/can-kindness-become-cool/

Syria update and more

Our exploration of the events unfolding in Syria has continued. The discussions have been great and the information has helped us work on writing with detail. Tonight's homework is to write a paragraph about Syria's president. We watched an interview with him from December. In it, he made some startling statements. The students need to write a paragraph about their impression of him.

I'm also asking them to talk to you about what's going on there and what we've learned and why they think it's important for Americans to know about what's going on in country so far away.

That paragraph is due Monday. I'll also be asking them to share with the class what they talked about with you. (Also due Monday is the POW....two different versions of this went home. If your child has the one without scores in the table, here's a hint: the 17 scores have to add up to 119.)

Also, PLEASE make sure students are finishing up 10 Places research at home this weekend. I want to have all 10 rough drafts written by the end of next week. BUT without notes and research, the paragraphs are impossible to write!

In other GATEWAY Exhibition updates...the Stock Market Project starts Wednesday. The Mythology Project will start the week of March 12.

In other news, there is NO SCHOOL on March 16. There's also another after school event, Family Literacy Night, scheduled for March 28 at 5:00 p.m. Stay tuned for details.

In other OTHER news, our class was mentioned in a blog post about video story problems. Check it out HERE: http://www.techsavvyed.net/archives/2352

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Keep Working!

Keep working on 10 Places research at home! We've started planning the paragraphs at school during Writing Workshop. I'm pretty sure lots of kids have more research to do, though.

Also, POW didn't come home until tonight...so it will be due Monday. We'll work on it again in class tomorrow.