Friday, November 16

It was only a four day  week but it was very busy.

I would like to thank all of the parents for coming out and having a conversation about the learning of their son or daughter.  In building for the interviews and Progress Reports going home, we did a few reflective items in our journals.  Here is one of them:

A sample response with some details.

Explaining the key word explain and what it can do

Last year, the class participated in the Strength Based Resilience Program.  Basically, it was about teaching students how to develop different character strengths or non-cognitive skills.  [Cognitive skills, put simply, would be developing the skills to read, write, and do Mathematics.]  When you are learning about developing your non-cognitive skills it may involve the skills of being resilient or able to bounce back, determined, enthusiastic, and demonstrating some self-control.  By no means are these all of the things that make up one's character but they are important.

Here is a note I have up in the class:

You will see an example of resilience and determination, for example, when someone decided to do a Rewrite in Math.  They may be disappointed in a mark they got but are making an effort to try to improve it.  I think this is very important and work on going out of my way at pointing out when students are demonstrating certain non-cognitive skills.

Last Tuesday I went to listen to a speaker named Paul Tough.  He has a new book:

Having a listen to an interview with him will give you some more insight into his belief in the value of developing non-cognitive skills:

 Here is one more addition to the collage we have been developing.  Five more need to be handed in.

Zhao Lun

On the same note of Art and design, we have been working on a Media/Art/Language project.  It will involve some writing, speaking, and creativity.  The students are responsible to create a product and use elements of advertising to help sell it.  To assist in the thinking and development of the product, I will create one.  Also, I have posted some print ads for the students to look at.

Here are some close up shots of the different icons they might see if they look closely at the ads.  For their assignment, they have to create an icon unique to the company and product they invented.

We will continue with this on Monday.

HOMEWORK
- read for 15 minutes/day
- complete Spelling and be prepared for final dictation on Monday
- continue to brainstorm and add ideas to your Media project  

Have a great weekend.