Parents –
We will have a parent meeting to review these results in January. If you would like to learn more about the Milestones Assessment System, please attend one of our parent sessions. The sessions will be on January 28th, 2016 at 9:00 AM, 10:30 AM and 12:45 PM. Each session will be 45 minutes in length and be limited to the first 25 people to sign up for the session. Please click the link below to access our Sign Up Genius page and reserve your spot!
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0c4dacaf2e5-kemp
Report Cards will go home on Friday. There will be a signature card along with the report card, please sign that and return it the next school day. If you would like to get a jump on things, I'll need a self-addressed, stamped envelope for the 4th quarter report card from each family. Feel free to send those in now if you would like.
Our third quarter has started off pretty well. We've begun Lois Lowry's Number the Stars. This historical fiction story goes along with our World War II unit that we started in Social Studies. Both units should take us about 3 weeks to cover. The WWII unit site is up (http://brazile.education/social_studies/wwii2016.html) and our first project, Vocabulary, is due by 8am tomorrow. We started the project in class yesterday and they had time today to finish. Our next Science unit, Cells and Microorganisms, starts next week. According to the county pacing guide, we're right on time with Social Studies and a little ahead on Science. My goal is to finish all new material before the End of Year Milestones Testing in April. We'll go a little of course concerning the pacing guide but I think it's important to cover it all before they're tested (sounds logical to me).
In Math, we're beginning the 2D Figures unit. They worked on vocabulary today. There are a lot of terms and we do not normally do it this way, but this unit is different from other math units. It's imperative that they know these terms. If they don't understand this vocabulary, they will not pass the unit.
We'll continue to focus on various reading skills through our novel study as well as individual skill mini-lessons and activities. For writing, we'll be incorporating the skills into our Social Studies and Science units. Next week, we'll also start working on reviewing Language Arts grammar skills.
If you're bored feel free to tune out now. I'm going to ramble for a bit. My style of teaching is different, if not weird, to most. To me, it flows. I tell a lot of stories. There's a method to it. I've found that the kids really pay attention to the times I talk about things important to me, like family, friends, and sports. So, I use my stories to relate to what they need to learn. Yesterday, I started showing them an anamorphic picture (look them up, they're really cool). Basically, they're pictures that appear 3D at a certain angle. I related this to our 2D figures unit, then to our WWII unit (perspectives), and finally to life (things aren't always what they appear, so we should try a new perspective). I threw in some important information along the way. Does this work? I think so, but feel free to ask your kids what they're learning. Please ask them what we talk about. While many may not realize we're doing "lessons," I hope the messages are sinking in. Today's lesson was about critical thinking, not being passive about our learning. We talked about many things, whatever they brought up while we discussed it. It ranged from oceans to Asian Carp, but the main message was that we naturally want to learn. Sometimes, we let laziness invade and it pushed out our natural yearning for more. These kids are brilliant, but they don't all realize it. I harp on it a lot, and I'm afraid some are deaf to my message that they have the power to do it, they just have to put more effort into it. I'm talking about them all. Each kid has more potential than they realize, they can do more. I don't mean more work, I mean more creative thinking. Please push them to give their best and to push boundaries. Find out what scares them and then encourage them to conquer it (academically speaking of course, I don't want them handling venomous snakes or something like that!).
Thanks and have a great week,
Shane Brazile
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