Weekly Update June 18, 2010

We've wrapped up our first week and, as an educator, I'm so excited about what we've done, what we're going to do, and the students I'm doing it with. 

What We Did This Week:

• Thank you to all those parents who hustled to get their children Artemis Fowl. We've already read the first 3 chapters and the children seemed excited about the story. This week we've talked about the importance of reading comprehension and how it's makes reading more effective and fun. Case in Point: One of the characters had his boat blown up by the Mafia. It occurred to me that none of the students knew what the Mafia was. As a result they didn't understand why the character was attacked, what the nature of his "business dealings" were, or how that would have influenced our main character. When I gave a (sanitized) explanation of organized crime the children demonstrated a deeper understanding of the story and it's implications. We've are also doing a translation activity. We are decoding a fictional language (Gnommish) into English.

• In Math, we put our measuring and geometry skills to the test. We built boxes. This tends to be a bit more complicated than it sounds. The children have already created templates for functional containers and we will assemble them to use in the classroom. This is a project that can be done at home. All you need is a ruler, paper, scissors, poster board or cardboard, and some glue. 

 What We Are Doing Next Week:

• Next week we will be reading chapters 4-6. We will cover new vocabulary, critical essay writing, homophones, and subordinate clauses.

• In Math we will be making math posters. This is an exercise to teach children to use math to communicate ideas. This is a useful and fun thing to learn. It was our Math teacher's inability to do this that lead to many of our frustrations with Mathematics.

Camper of the Week:

Thaddeus Gue!

Thaddeus is an enthusiastic and prepared student. After he finishes projects he doesn't mind helping others. He is not afraid to ask questions and seeks to comprehend everything. He is a good sport and he defends our classroom from Decepticons.

Snack Parent:

The Gue family! Thank you for your help. Anything is appreciated but fruits and vegetables are preferred for growing minds and bodies.You will find the entire snack list in the Parent Resource Center.