I'm happy to say we had another great day today; we delved into Science, Health, French and English Language Arts with some good general discussions. We conducted some simple Science experiments as a way of exploring "What Science Is", and they conducted interviews with a classmate. In Science, we focused on methods of questioning. I am encouraging them to approach their projects with an eye to the "big picture", and keep their questioning open. By this, I mean that rather than asking a question with a specific, narrow answer they should try to ask and answer broad questions that cut to the heart of what they would like to know. I would encourage you to do the same, as many of their projects and units will be structured as such.
In English Language Arts, we focused specifically on what genres they prefer and I had them describe some characteristics of literature they enjoy. We started a Language Arts journal that I will send home for you to take a look at periodically. I have sent home the schedule for September, which contains as much information as I have at the moment. If I get a lot of new information, I will send home another.
My link for the day concerns writing, and provides some useful guidelines for helping your child with writing projects as they come up this year. It gives general ideas, not rules, but can act as a helpful guide for encouraging writing of different types and developing higher-level skills. It is a rubric that someone else has created, and doesn't correspond exactly to the templates I will be using, but you might find it useful nonetheless. Rest assured that I will always provide the class with an evaluation rubric for "serious" work that they will be formally evaluated on.
One last note is that I have introduced a token system for good class behaviour and speaking French. They pool the tokens they receive through this system, and will receive a group prize when they fill a container.
Talk to you soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment