Our first Full Week!

We had an incredible first full week!  We finally had Art class, we logged into Fastt Math, we had indoor recess, we logged onto out Kidblog pages and we had another Snack Shack!  Your children also worked diligently on math and reading assessments this week!  We will be prepping for NECAP next week as testing begins October 1st!

Our Wednesday Math class was challenging, yet every child persevered to understand the different strategies we can use to solve Cube Sequence Problems.  We started the lesson by reminding ourselves that productive mathematicians make thoughtful observations about sequences, equations, patterns, etc., before they can do any work with a problem.  By reinforcing this, we generalized about the sequence that we were working with.  We knew that the pattern increased by 5 each time, we knew that the arms of the arrangements were one shorter than the sequence number and we knew that we need to account for the nested cube!  We worked to solve problems to figure out the 16th arrangement, arrangement 21/2 and we even had to work backwards to figure out arrangement numbers when the total amount of cubes was given!  As we shared our strategies, we saw that to solve these problems we could create a table, simply count the cubes, draw diagrams, and come up with our own algebraic formulas!  Without our thoughtful mathematical observations, none of these strategies would have worked!  During our discussion students took the time to practice many habits of mind and interaction.  I was witness to students explaining their thinking, revoicing other student thinking, finding and using multiple pathways to solve problems, and justifying and generalizing about their thinking.  These habits are integrated into our teaching, all day long.  The hope is that they become internalized and that students are more successful because they are interacting with the content as well as one another to deepen their understanding!

On Thursday, our class logged into our Kidblog site!  Every child was able to write a post titled "All About Me" and practiced leaving comments for one another.  The activity that this Kidblog has generated at home has been tremendous.  I can barely keep up with moderating  the comments.  I will be posting prompts for students to respond to, or at times we may record a reflection about our learning, or we may simply do some creative writing.  This blog gives us an authentic audience to share our work with.  Soon, I will be asking you to log into to our blog and leave comments for your child as well as others students about their writing.  My three rules for this are Be Responsible, Be Safe and Be Kind!  Ask your child to share our Kidblog with you!

Lastly, we shared our timelines in a museum format on Friday!  Endeavor students asked such thoughtful questions of one another, shared thoughtful comments about student work and learned about so many connections we have with one another from our lives!  A few of us were born in China, some of us have visited Italy and France, we play a lot of the same sports, we've been to Jay Peak, had special birthdays and all of us cherish members of our family!    These timelines will be on display in the kiva!  The kiva is truly becoming a place where every student and adult on our team is recognized and celebrated!  We are all part of our community!

Many, many things came home in your child's Homework Folder.  Please go over its content with them.  We still need 1 more chaperone for Shelburne Farms!  We need nonperishable food items for our Food Drive!  If you plan to hike, don't forget to sign your child up for Hike for Hunger on September 28th! We sent home our sharing schedule for September, 2 children a day will share a Turning Point from their lives!  Happy Fall!