One of the most difficult kinds of work students undertake in fourth and fifth grade is in the literature circles. Teachers provide all kinds of scaffolding to help students have academic conversations about literature. This round, they are reading various fiction novels that teachers chose. They have assignments due an average of twice a week. […]
Cerrito has begun Tuesday afternoon “Meetings for Business.” These are born out of a little blue notebook that rests on Tahiti, the side table where students go for a quiet refuge. Students write in the notebook with a special pen when they have issues in the community. They implicate the people with whom they are […]
Expect lots of fiction writing leading up to Halloween! Students will also dive into the history of the United States from pre-Columbian times to the Constitution. Ask your child about today’s timeline activity, and check out the three response questions that are homework. The timeline serves as an overview for the learning to come. Students […]
Alongside classroom set-up, curriculum planning, setting routines, and community-building, the K5 faculty has focused on positive school discipline as a priority for our division work this year. Our philosophy is generated primarily from the social curriculum, Responsive Classroom. One of the goals of this curriculum is to build strong and positive student-teacher relationships, and you can […]
Homework: Math: 4th grade next two pages of packet; 5th grade page 10 (you can download it by clicking on the “5th Grade Math” link to your right) Cultural Studies: slavery–primary source documents. Please don’t spend hours on this. Do what you can in 20-30 minutes and we’ll support you tomorrow in finishing […]
Students did a shared reading of an encyclopedia article from our library set of World Book encyclopedias on Thomas Alva Edison, a favorite inventor in American history. Whose favorite? you might ask. History has favored the accomplishments of Edison over those of, say, Nikola Tesla, who also made profound contributions to the advancement of electrical […]
I like to blog early in the week about what to expect in the remainder of the week. We are in project mode in both cultural studies and science, creating wall maps and gizmos, respectively. Fifth grade mathematicians are ending their first unit in number and operation, in which they have been learning about factors, […]
A quick reflection from the week on concept mapping: of the numerous thinking routines I gleaned from Harvard Project Zero (See, Think, Wonder, etc.) the concept map may be my favorite. The format mirrors the way our brains work, with thought bubbles resembling neurons and the connections between thought bubbles resembling firing synapses. Students connect […]
Homework: 5th graders have four pages of multiplication due next Tuesday. Language Arts: four pages of Wordly Wise, the new vocabulary workbook you had in your cubby Read! 20+ minutes and record what you read
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