Dear Parents, Happy week of gratitude! Though I know that Thanksgiving can be a time where we debate historical accuracy and the stories not told around this holiday, I see it as a wonderful time to pause and reflect, giving thanks for all that is good in our lives and the world. At times such as now when the world is in watch, it is especially important that we take the opportunities provided to celebrate those whom we love and all that we have. I wish you and your family a relaxing, joy-filled time when you take a moment to express gratitude, break bread together, and sit in quiet reflection. As I reflect, I know that I have so much to be thankful for, not the least of which is this wonderful community of learners (and their parents) who help to remind me of why I became a teacher. Let me share with you a recent moment of : WOW! I AM SO LUCKY TO BE WITH THESE LEARNERS!! By now, I hope you heard about our exciting lesson last week in which we asked the question: How can we use data to plan for action? To help the children better understand how great questions can lead to useful data, and how analyzing data can clue us in on problems and possible solutions, we took a look at the work I used to do on the Buduburam Refugee Camp. Specifically, we zeroed in on the day in the life of Bakayoko, a young refugee child who captured my heart. During this lesson, the students had the opportunity to create a pie chart showing Bakayoko's day. Then we analysed the chart using our Visible Thinking Routine: See, Think, Wonder to answer the flowing questions: What do you see in the data about Bakayo's day? What does this make you think about his life and the problems he faces? What does the data make you wonder? What solutions do you wonder about? The students made keen observations, and identified some key problems for Bakayoko. Just look at some of the things they said! As the students identified issues, we were able to also identify ways that different organisations worked together to resolve some of the issues. The children saw the Global Volunteer Network (my employer) worked with the local NGO Children Better Way as well as UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, World Vision, and Save the Children to make it possible for Bakayoko to attend school, have access to clean water and food supplies as well as medical supplies, and helped to solve some big problems all so that the children could have the opportunity to be children who play and learn. This lesson truly helped to solidify the work we have been doing to identify how organisations and individuals can work together to solve problems in the world. It also helped the children develop stronger questions to guide their service projects and support their arguments being made in their persuasive writing pieces. This was a lovely opportunity to see truly integrated learning in action. I wish you could have been here to see how enthusiastic they were, and ON FIRE! Some of the children asked that I share the powerpoint with you so that they can help explain everything to you, so here it is! Moving ahead, the students will be putting their service learning projects into action, publishing their persuasive writing pieces, and officially closing this unit, though we hope that the learning and attitudes gained stay and incite action in our next unit of study, which will also bring us into new writing and reading genres- but more on that next week...
MATH: We kicked off our new unit today when investigation began with the context of a grocery store. Students looked into how grocery stores and markets around the world organise merchandise, and developed an understanding of the key vocabulary term: array. On Tuesday, students will view illustration of fruits and vegetables arranged in bins, packages of paper towels piled in stacks, six-packs of water bottles, and other things in a grocery store. Although the objects represented could be counted by ones, the arrangements naturally invites repeated addition, skip-counting, and doubling strategies as well as the language of grouping--for example, 8 groups of 6 is equivalent to 4 groups of 12 which is equivalent to 4 groups of 6 plus 4 groups of 6. (Fosnot, Catherine. Groceries, Stamps, and Measuring Strips: Early Multiplication. In Contexts for Learning Mathematics from Mathematics in the City, City College of New York.) This unit takes us into the concept of multiplication, making the connection that multiplication is an elegant and efficient way to represent multiple groups of something. I have asked that the students take pictures of grocery store arrays over the break. If you could send those in either electronically or printed, we will use those in class to support our studies! Dates to Note: Nov. 25th, 26th, 27th: Thanksgiving Break Dec. 10th: Photo Retake 6:00-8:00 J3/J4 Winter Concert (arranged by the music department) Dec. 21st – Jan 3rd: Winter Break (classes resume on Monday, January 4th) That's about it from me this week. If you are traveling, be safe. Enjoy your time together. Take a moment to breathe and be calm, opening the opportunity to take stock of all that you have around you. Yours in gratitude, Erin M. Threlfall
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Dear Parents-
WHEW! I am feeling all talked out! I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet with each of you about your wonderful learners. We have a fabulous community and it felt really great to share that with you. Please remember that we are a united team for your child, and you are welcome to speak with me any time you have questions, concerns, or things to celebrate. Definitely remember the "things to celebrate," as I love to hear about the great stuff, too! As was mentioned during parent conferences, we are excited to bring Raz-Kids and Dreambox into the fold for home study. On Tuesday, in addition to the new home study menu, your child will come home with their username information for both sites. On the Math page you will also find power points explaining how to get onto dream box from your home computer and iPad. Please take special note that the site address for Dreambox has been updated for this academic term, so you may need to adjust your settings if you bookmarked the site last year. Gold stars went out last week to Enis Guri, Scott Nadel, and Maria Sigge for naming the changes on the site. They listed details I didn't even think of, including the flash playing of the pictures, the UNIS calendar link, and Happiness 101 link to the side. Also new to the site are the literacy and Home study pages, linked at the top of the page. New this week is a Math page linked at the top. With many of you, I shared ideas to support learning at home. Here is a recap of some strategies we talked about. Literacy:
Math:
Unit Studies:
What's on my Bookshelf? I have three books that I have really been enjoying. Buddha at Bedtime: Edem and I read this together at bedtime, and we are really enjoying the opportunities that arise to talk about character and kindness. And the stories are just fun to read, too! The Conscious Parent (and the second book: Out Of Control) by Dr. Shefali Tsabary has to be one of the best parenting books I have ever read, and it helps me in the classroom, too. The Mindful Child by Susan Kaiser Greenland shares fabulous strategies for practicing mindfulness with your child. I started this one a week ago and have incorporated some practices at home and will be bringing them into the classroom. Social Emotional Learning: The recent events in the world have been very difficult, and I know that many of you have connections to Paris, Beirut, Iraq, and Syria. At UNIS, we will begin the morning on Tuesday with a moment of silence, and I will introduce this as an opportunity to send positive thoughts and energy to those having difficult times. Dr. Topher Collier sent out a message offering support; please know that we are all in this together, and I am also here if any of you need to talk about how your child is processing the tragic events in the world. Please also keep me informed if your child is expressing anxiety or sadness; knowing this will help me to be of greater support in the classroom. I found this article to be very helpful for talking with children about these events.. That's it from me this week! Sincerely, Erin M. Threlfall P.S. On Nov. 19 the PTA hosts the parent teacher social. I will be able to stay for a short while at the very beginning, from about 6:00-6:30. There will be many other families there as well, so it is a great opportunity to meet up with otter UNIS families! Dear Parents, Happy last day of Because of Winn-Dixie to you! I know, this doesn't sound like an official holiday, but it should be and I assure you, it was a holiday to us in J3T. Today we read the last chapter in Kate DiCamillo's fabulous book, and celebrated with a small party that mimicked the party in the book, complete with funny dog pictures, egg salad sandwiches, and pickles. We were so lucky that "Otis" popped in with his guitar to serenade us. Ask your child to tell you about this wonderful tale and some of the themes we discovered within it. Though we strive to keep it fun in J3T, we also keep it seriously busy. Here's what's ahead, and what you can to do to support the children's learning. MATH: This week we transfer our math skills into working out story problems that involve calculating with money. The children will work to answer the following questions:
The homework menu has questions that will help to reinforce this understanding. It is also helpful for the children to tally bills at the restaurant, to pay for items at the store and receive the change, to add up the items you are buying at the store, and even possibly to work with their own money if they receive an allowance. I found this helpful organiser on Accountability for children over the weekend, and will be putting it to use in my home; a portion of it works on tracking money. It may be something that interests you, as well. The creator has other great printables such as one on manners and another on age appropriate chores, so take a peek at the site if you need some helpful organization/info tools. READING: We are working on answering the following questions:
UNIT STUDIES: The children are continuing their UNIS Cares projects, and are working to identify the people who can help them solve their identified problems. They will also be creating surveys to find out how other people in the community feel bout the problems, and what they would like to see instead of the problem. (This connects to the data collection and analysis math standard as well!) Ask your child to tell you about Feel, Imagine, Do, Share! One of our big focus points this week is in being reflective, and consider another's perspective. We are also learning that organisations have to talk to the people whom they are serving if they want their projects to be successful. HAPPINESS HABITS: In addition to continuing with Express Gratitude, we are developing our skills in practicing mindfulness. A few of the many goals with mindfulness is to develop a sense of calm, increase focus, activate the mind for deeper learning and fact recall, and to help bring about a general sense of peace- which in turns helps with the habit of Build Into Relationships. Today we talked about taking deep breaths and pausing during stressful moments so that we can recenter and ground ourselves, allowing us to think clearly and take the best course of action for that moment. You can practice meditation and mindfulness at home, too! This is one guided meditation that we used after a stressful fire drill a few weeks back. It is great for bedtimes. Here are some tips for being mindful at home. A NOTE ABOUT PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES: During our conference, I will share with you my snapshot of your child as a learner. We will focus on the following areas: Characters learning through looking at the Social Emotional Learning and Well-being, Conceptual and Competency learning in Literacy, Math, and Unit Studies. We will have to stay tight with our 20 minute time allotments because I have a very booked schedule for Thursday. If you feel that you need more time, we can schedule a follow-up meeting after the conferences finish. As I shared at the curriculum night, we can arrange times to discuss your child's progress whenever it is needed. Dates to Note: Nov. 9th – 20th: City Harvest Collection Nov. 12th (evening), 13th, and 16th: Parent/Teacher Conferences Nov. 19th: 6:00-8:00 Parent Faculty Social Nov. 25th, 26th, 27th: Thanksgiving Break Dec. 10th: Photo Retake 6:00-8:00 J3/J4 Winter Concert (arranged by the music department) Dec. 21st – Jan 3rd: Winter Break (classes resume on Monday, January 4th) That's it from me- I hope you have a wonderfully mindful week with your children! Ms. Erin M. Threlfall
Dear Parents, Welcome to a new week of learning in J3T! It feels as if it has been ages since we saw a Monday! The last few weeks were so full of celebrations and special events, that the children almost didn't believe me when I said there wouldn't be a dress-up or celebration today. Luckily, Leo turned 8 so we had the chance to celebrate something special. In this week's post I would like to touch on fluency and accuracy, both in reading and Math. The goal with fluency in both reading and math is for the children to have fast, accurate, and elegant recall so that they can read expressively and solve problems easily using their schema, or prior knowledge. As we work to develop new skills, this basic foundation is crucial so we can take in more challenging skills, strategies, and concepts. Here is how you can support your child at home. MATH You will notice the children coming home with their "math scales" cards today. We took on this name because the children decided that knowing and practicing certain math facts is like a musician practicing the scales. It warms up the muscles, calls on prior-knowledge, and helps the "artist" play more complex pieces. To this end, the children have addition fact cards that they have been working with. These are facts that they should be able to do with mental math skills. Each card has equations on one side and the sum on another. They also have "clues," to help solve the problem. The children should know each fact "like they know their name." We have been working on this in class, and have talked about various ways they can practice these, including a math challenge game and speed sorts. They can also string different equations together to make more complex problems. I have asked that they do the math scales for 5 minutes each evening before they take on any other assignment. This habit will serve them well when we approach multiplication problems, as this is the kind of thing I will want them to do when they are learning their times tables. Of course, I love to hear about the children taking on real life problem solving scenarios in their day whether that be at the store, with telling time, when baking, adding their Halloween loot (a new one added to the list today,) or when accepting a great challenge from the people who love them! The "math scales" are mentioned on the homework menu. I have asked that the children also do these for 5 minutes every day this week, in addition to the self selected items on the menu. READING: In reading, “Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.” (Reading Links, 2002, p. 9). Fluency doesn’t ensure comprehension, but comprehension is difficult without fluency. If a reader is constantly stopping to decode and figure out unknown words, most likely meaning will be disrupted and the process of reading becomes long and laborious. When students make gains in reading fluency, they are able to put their energies into comprehension and are better able to analyze, interpret, draw conclusions, and infer meaning from texts. I have asked the children to practice reading aloud as much as possible so that they can improve their fluency and expression as readers. Their task is to pay attention to punctuationThey can do this by reading to themselves, a stuffed animal, real life pet, family member, friend, recording themselves reading (one of my favourites for effectiveness) or even acting out what they are reading. They can read in front of a mirror to track their facial expressions, or Edem's favorites is to make a movie on photo booth. Not only does this motivate the children, but then you also have a cherished video of their reading to share with family members. (Here is one from Edem when he was 5. He rehearsed, and rehearsed and rehearsed until the alien voice was just right.) The attached Parent Pipeline should be helpful to support this strategy at home. HOMEWORK A new homework menu is coming home today. I have asked the children to be diligent about recording their work in their "Thought Journals," so that I can check in on their choices and give feedback to their work. This sheet is due in on Monday November 9 for a check-in, and then the final due date is November 17. Please let me know if you are experiencing difficulties with the reading or menu. We agreed to have none of the home study nightmares, so let's communicate if there are struggles. HAPPINESS HABIT: Express Gratitude This month we will focus heavily on the habit of expressing gratitude. The students started their gratitude journals today. Be sure to ask them about this habit! Here is an interesting article on Happify about the attitude of gratitude. UPCOMING DATES: Thursday, Nov.12: Parent Teacher Conferences evening session Friday Nov. 13 : Parent Teacher Conferences day session NO SCHOOL Monday, Nov.16: Parent Teacher Conferences day session NO SCHOOL November 15: City Harvest Collection November 25-27: Thanksgiving Holiday: NO SCHOOL As always, thank you for your support! Sincerely, Erin M. Threlfall
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SnapshotsA peek at life inside of J3T , curated by Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Archives
June 2016
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