Monday PE | Tuesday Out & About to Tom McCall Forest: ODS reflect & extend | Wednesday ART | Thursday | Friday -We present at ASM @ 9:45 -Crazy Hair Day |
Important Dates
- 10/2 ASM @ 9:45, Crazy Hair Day
- 10/9 No School
- 10/16 No School
- 10/22 & 10/23 Goal Setting Conferences, No School
- 10/6 from 12-2:30 We need volunteers to help with our O&A to Fernhill Wetlands
- 10/13 from 12-2:30 We need volunteers to help with our O&A to Fernhill Wetlands. You'll be overseeing a research group.
News of the Week
Reflecting on Outdoor School
What a successful, terrific week at Outdoor Science School! The weather, the location and most importantly, the kids created a wonderful week. I hope your child has filled you in on all the details. But, let the photos on the "Photo tab" help you get your kiddo talking. We had 4 field studies: earth, water, animals, and forest. On Thursday afternoon we played an incredible game called "Life and Death in Forest" that has everyone (all 100 students, student leaders and teachers) playing a role in a forest energy pyramid. Our evenings were filled with campfires, and one night we went on a night hike. But, the thing that was really touching was seeing how well the Merlins treated each other and bonded as a class. People were looking out for each other, helping each other and making sure everyone felt included. It made missing 3 nights with my own family feel manageable! We'll use this experience to wrap up some work we need to do on expectations for our classroom. My hope is that the team feeling we all had last week will carry over to the classroom.
Plus, everything that we learned will help us as we embark in our upcoming science unit, Systems: Nature and Design, which will have us looking at how nature designs solutions to problems. Students will write letters to their future self reminding them to volunteer as a student leaders when they become juniors in high school and these letters may even persuade our legislators to fund the law that states all Oregonian children should have the opportunity to attend Outdoor School.
Bridges
Our bridge study continues and is helping lay the foundation of thinking like engineers for when our Nature and Design unit begins. Most groups are just about done drawing out their plans and will start building their bridges!
Ask, what design is your group using?
Listen to what makes the project interesting and frustrating.
Extend the learning by investigating or visiting local bridges!
Literacy
This week we'll continue reading Love that Dog, finish our reading assessments, and read and write more poetry! Before we headed to ODS, students wrote Squeeze Poems, where they squeezed a poem out of 1 word.
Ask, what were some words you squeezed out of "Breakfast" and "Outdoor Learning"
Listen to how Jack's feelings towards poetry is changing in Love that Dog.
Extend the learning by reading favorite poems together as a family.
6th Grade Math
I look forward to getting into our math routine with the sixth graders. We'll break out the textbooks for our first unit, which will be in Algebra. And, we'll be starting with Order of Operations. Our routine is basically that we start by reviewing the previous day's lesson and then work through one lesson a day. Homework is to finish up any remaining problems and get our notebook ready for the next lesson. Be sure to check the agenda --both your child's and our online version.
Ask, what as the Order of Operation bingo game you played last week?
Listen to what your child is looking forward to with the textbook.
Extend the learning by writing equations for things that happen in your day, like shopping, driving, etc.
5th Grade Math
This week Mathematicians will dig in to our first unit of study, Multiplication and Volume. This unit sets the tone for the year and establishes what a math community looks and sounds like. Students will play a work place game called Product Game, discuss several strategies and use the game board to make mathematical observations and preview math strands they will encounter during the course of the year. Midweek, students will take a short pre-assessment and complete mathographies, reflective writing that gives a glimpse into their understanding and beliefs about mathematics. Later in the week, students will be introduced to a math in context problem that invites them to work with properties of multiplication and volume. We will end the week with students reflecting on their pre-assessment, as well as an introduction to their first problem string (this is a series of problems that students will solve in order). Math homework begins this week. Check out the home page of our Level 3 website and your student's agenda for each night's homework.
Ask, what's the difference between an expression and an equation.
Listen to your student's goals for this year in math.
Extend the learning by finding all the factor pairs for 63, 28, and 48