After learning about our skeleton, muscles, and joints, it's time to put these systems into action! Over the next few lessons, the kids will learn about coordination. Starting our first activity today, the kids tested the speed of their left and right hands as well as their left and right feet. After much testing, we met as a class. It turns out that our experiment can't work correctly unless everyone performs the experiment in the exact same manner. Tomorrow, we will set some guidelines to make this experiment fair.
*Note: two words, 'stimulus' and 'response' will be used a lot over the next few days. Using them at home will be a helpful reinforcement (i.e., a buzzing fly - the stimulus - causes us to swat it - the response).
The class has been working incredibly hard at mastering their basic facts. They have been practicing specific multiples at their instructional level, completing Wrap-Ups, and enjoying several multiplication games at www.multiplication.com. For the next several weeks, I will be posting a "Game of the Week" for the kids to enjoy. This week's game is "Harvest Hootenanny". In this game, answer ten questions correct. Next, move the farmer around the holes and crows to get to the scarecrow (think "Super Mario Brothers"). Reach the scarecrow, move to the next level, answer ten more questions, and continue on.
Click on the picture to go to "Harvest Hootenannny"!
As mentioned earlier this year, your child will know all their facts fluently by the end of the year. Laying this factual groundwork will make mathimatical concepts easier (i.e., perimeter, area, adding/subtracting fractions) in the coming months. I will continue to work closely with each child so everyone can meet their goals!
These are quotes from class this week:
(1) But I don't want to get my video games taken away for a week!
(2) You're going to get in trouble!
(3) Is this good enough?
I once read that we need to have heroes, regardless of our age. Two of my heroes are teachers Rafe Esquith and Ron Clark. Rafe is a fifth grade teacher in Los Angeles, and he is the author of three books on his experiences with education.
I wanted to bring this up so you can understand my philosophy and underlying mindset throughout the school year in the context of working with your child. The video I'm posting is a short clip of Rafe talking about the theory of moral development. While it isn't completely reasonable to expect every fourth grader to get to "Stage 6" by the end of the year, I continue my aspirations of getting students to realize this within their lifetimes. Here's the video:
To summarize:
Level 1: [I don't want to get in trouble]
Level 2: [I want to get a reward]
Level 3: [I want to please other people]
Level 4: [I follow the rules]
Level 5: [I am considerate of others]
Level 6: [It's my moral code...That's just how I am]
This has spun around in my head for several years, and I am convinced that if we all strive towards level six, we can be more focused on working together and reaching our goals.
