5th Grade 9/13-9/22 2012

We've done so many things recently. We are done the whole human body section, students will have their first science test on Tuesday. We are lucky like my friend got a deer and I can have the leg in the class to demonstrate muscles, bones, nrevous and circulatory system.

Most of the students were excited and few didn't like it that much. But it was so good to let them see something real and different. It is not a chicken leg, it's a deer leg!!

Everything that we have, this deer has it too. They have been asked to fully wash their hands after they touched it. We had a lot of fun on observing the movement of the joint. They see the real deer tendon and ligament. I was going to brain to head to show the brain but not sure will it be too much or not. Maybe next time.

Students also finished their science project. They did good amd we all like it. They will bring their project to show the higher graders one day and teach them the human body.


                  
You might wonder why there is English on it. Are they supposed to learn and do it in Chinese? Well they actually learned it in Chinese. But as a 5th grader, they will have TCAP for science this year and it is very importatn to let them know all the terms in English as well. My first school was a Chinese Immersion school in Minnesota, one of the very first in the United States. They just won the Top 10 school in Minnesota last year and the Chinese level for students was incredibly high. But even for them, they still need a science teacher to teach them science in English in 5ht grade because those terms are just too hard to won't make sense for them.

                                                        Sorry Shai, I can't post your face.

We had our first field trip too, the Science Museum. We had a staff to teach students more human body lessons. It was fun, they have so many cool supplies to let kids experience the systems. Unfortunatly I was not with my class. I will get the photos as soon as possible.

We slightly change the curriculum this year. We used to have science and social study one by one. But we decided to have all the science first, then the students can have all of them before the TCAP. So we will have science all the way to Chrsitmas. After that we will have social study and maybe 3 weeks science review before the TCAP.

From next week, we will have the earth science. Kids will enojy it.

6th Grade 9/13-9/22 2012

The saddest day so far for me as a teacher. One of the students from 6th grade class left for a new but not so good school because of some personal reason. Having the same group of kids for 2nd year. I don't feel they are just only my students. More than that, I feel like they are my family and my own kids. Especially I had a such a small class, I get to know each them very well. There is no word can describe my feeling. I know the school is still going, kids are still learning and I still need to teach. But I understand I am missing a piece in this class.

I didn't realize how will it feel untill now. I am worried about her, afraid of the students in her new school will be rough to her. I am afraid the teacher will not treat her well and won't take care of her.

I was very very sad when I had to take her name away from the grading/student list. She did very well on all the test and didn't miss one single homework. The only student improved on the TCAP math over 30 points last year.

All I can do is to cross my fingers everyday and wish everything is going to be good for her and she will have a good education in the new school. I deeply wish her future teacher will treat her well and keep all the progress with her. Thanks for letting me to be your teacher for over 1 year and thanks for all the energy and smile you brought us for the past 14 months. You are always one of us, we will always miss you and we wish you the best. Welcome back to visit anytime!!

                                                        Sorry Bay, I can't post your face!!

I hope this won't happen again becasue I don't think I can take it again. I can't take it if I loss any of my kids again. Please not again.

At the mean time, we still need to do what we are supposed to do even we are all sad. They received their second math test and first science test. Everybody did good!! But we still have some old issue, uncareful mistakes. Students so far know everything they need to know but they can't get a good score like the TCAP last year because we made uncareful mistakes. This is gonna be a huge lesson and practice this year.

Overall I am satisfied with them so far. They grew so much from last year. I am proud. Losing a good friend in the class might have some impact to them. I am not sure of the new dynamic but I will hold the class together still.

6th Grade 9/2-9/12 2012

Having the same group of students two years in a row is a very unique experience. I enjoy it a lot, I believe the students too.

We finished the water cycle project and we had two great movie, "The Inconvenient Truth" by the ex vice-president Al Gore, and "The day after tomorrow" for the global warming issue. If you combine the two movies together, you will understand more because there is a strong connection between these two movies. Especially when the first one is kinda boring for the kids and then they can have a real good disaster movie, and all the sudden they realize the theory in the second movie was actually metioned by the first one.

Students did a very good job on the project. Basically for me they all got an A on this one. Different style but full of creativity. It also has everything they should have on it. Very proud of them.

Besides the water cycle and global warming. We also talked about water conservation, which is a very improtant topic. Student know that people around the world do not have enough water or even access for it. But they didn't realize that some people in the US without enough income couldn't pay for water either. The fast and best way to let them understand the pain and frsutration without water is to having them experience it. They need to draw a number for a box to get their "Shower water container". Whatever they got, they can only use that much water for a full shower at home. (Everything is from my house and I hand washed it)

Of course it has different size and our lucky girl Ges had a chance to pick first and she got NO.6, the smallest one. Everyone crossed finger to get No.7, it was a fun process. After that they need to write down a 200 words essay about how did they feel and how can they do to conserve the water. It turned out great, I had many great and deep thoughts.

We are done algebra for math and you know what? All the students passed the algebra test and it was not a easy one. Some students didn't do good on the TCAP last year but I watched them doing math everyday and I know how good they are. This year we will work more on the test aking skill. I to be honest don't like it, but somehow that skill is important for students.

We had Solid Figure and Nets as our topic for the past two weeks. Student kept drawing nets, cutting nets for fold it to a solid, and draw 3D structure for things like cube, cuboid, triangle prism and cylinder. After that they need to label how many faces on each different solid.  It was an everday practicing process and it is a good way to let them practice having patient. They were tired of doing it but they all got it in the end.

We actually used those cubes with labeled numbers as the dices to do a traditional Chinese fun gambling. People usally do that during the Chinese New Year. Like myself and my family. Students promised me that they won't gamble with money first then we started it. They use their free outside time as a bet. They win they get more time on that day, they lose and the time will decrease. I ONLY won one time out of 11 students. They were all happy and I was happy too, if they understand everything they learned, what is wrong to let them have more fun and more free time as a break?

5th Grade 9/2-9/12 2012

We were learning about the human body for the past two weeks. My 5th graders were very engaged and I was happy to see it. We had respiratory, circulatory system and digestive system lab.

Students took turns to be a little doctor with the stethoscpoe to learn how does a normal breathing sounds look like. It is hard for them because they didn't have any experiences before. But all the students can find it and hear it after the practice, some said it sounds creepy, some said it is weird and some even siad it is scary. But they all had fun and they do know how hard to be a doctor to help others.

We also had a digestive system lab. We put different items such as real prairie dogs bones, egg shells, gum and muffin into Coca-Cola and real human body enzyme solution. They also have questions about what's gonna happen if we drink too much coke, or swallow a gum. They best way for them is to show them. We only keep the reactions for a week becasue that is enough. Students saw the change on different items that they usally eat or drink. Also they saw the impact too.

                                                                    after one week

For math, we did a little shopping in the class. Students need to make their money and purchase the thing they would like to buy from me. Then they need to sell it to make a profit. The reason for having this activity is because students was not sure what does profit mean in their math question. Such as Mr. Yao paid 2 dollars to buy a cake and sold it wtih 4 dollars. I am supposed to earn 2 dollars since I paid 2 for that. But they think I should earn 4, because I sold it with 4 dollars. We talked about this idea during the game, how to save the money and how to make the biggest profit, either you earned the most cash or buy the highest value product. I am glad they all got it. It is a very important lesson for all the students, they need to know how to save money without spending it easily.

They received their Chinese name on Sep 1st. I spend a month to observe each student and I choose the best character that eitehr fits their personality or my expectation for them. They used to only have their Chinese nick name, such as 小麗。 But from now on, they have real Chinese last name and a first name. Please do make sure to ask your child what does it mean.

Time passed fast. It is mid september already. I will keep helping students to have the best education.

6th grade first two weeks

Except the new math learning method, everything remains the same.

First of all, our old friend came back to visit!! Some students did not return to GVA this year. But they are always one of us and we all miss them a lot!! It was great to see my old student.

  

Back to classroom. They are having Algebra for math and Water for science. Just like the 5th graders, they are using the Mathboard as well. But questions on the board is harder and the amount of the questions are bigger. Whatching them doing math is something really makes be proud. They do math like college students, they argue with each other in math, they will be proud if they got it corret but they won't be sad if it's wrong, they will want to figure out why and even argue with me. But they still forgot some skills so we need to work on it.

 

We had water cycle for the first week and basic water properties on second week. We talked about how water transfer in the world and how do they keep this world alive. Here is a short video that one student made up a song for it. It was quite during the taping but they laughed so loud after that.

They also learned water surface tension, we did a little experiment for that. They need to use burette to drop water on a nickle and record on a chart that how many drops they can do before it breaks the surface tension. Learning by doing, the best way to learn.

What we did for this week is coming up. Sorry for the late update, I will try to post once a week.

5th grade first two weeks

Fifth graders were just ok for the first two weeks. Of course they had to spend some time get used to the new rules, schedules and expectation. They are now doing well, they know it is different know. They will not have a chance to fool around in the class doing nothing. They need to finish what they are supposed to do on time. If they didn't, there will be a consequence waiting for them. It won't be a punishment but it will be a chance for them to learn something from the mistake they made, such as spending time on talking instead of doing works.

The new system for learning math is combined by the document camera and the "Mathboard". The concepts for today will be taught and written by me and showed on the screen. They can exactly see how I write the process and how to use the pages on the notebook.

On the left is the Mathboard. It has been seperated by different themes that followed by the Colorado/National standard. For example, they are estimation, operations, decimal and fractions, algebra, geometry, probability and word problems. This board is mainly for review. They will have a chance to do similar concepts again and again every single day. They will also have chance to come up and teach other students on the whiteboard. It is a very powerful and great tool to make they keep the contents in their brain.

For science, we are haveing the Human Body for the first six weeks. We have done the digestive and musculoskeletal systems. In the science class they will have a lot of chance to draw. We will not draw it perfectly but it is fine, through the drawing process they will learn and have a better memory on the things they learned.

Although I am not asking them to make it perfect, but they should have everything on it. If there are two bones on the lower legs, then there should be two bones on the drawing.  They wiil read the notes and see the drawing at the same time.

Sorry for the late updates, it was busy for the first two weeks. I will update every week for now on.

Still the same awesome class

We had our Singapore math pre-test for the 6th graders.

To be honest, we screwed up. Although it was not a test but we didn't do good on it. I was worry yesterday because last year we did so many practices and questions. It seems like they all forgot after a summer.

But guess what, they did so good on today's review on decimal computation. Here is the best part. Watching them doing math is like watching college students doing works.

They were talking, chatting and laughing when they were answering the questions. But they were talking about math, they shared their skill to each other. Even sometimes when they talked about something else, they still know when to come back to do work. Not all of them like math but they were ok and happy in the math class. I feel so good about it. They don't need to be quite as long as they can finish their work.

We also had a new schedule, again. Here is the schedule, a bit different from the letter I gave it to parents on the B day. But please use this one.

We had PE today. Of course football for the begining. I am going to do soemthing else later, I don't want them to lose the chance to learn new things and skills. Football team works very well. I remeber last year, they will start a fight because of some accidentally push. They will be so mad if their teammates didn't get the ball.

But their are so good now. They know how to encourage others in the game. They will high five to their competitors. It is a huge growth for them and this is something very important that they will never learn it on the book

There will be more exercise for both boys and girls. I want them to learn how to work with different gender this year. It is just so good to have them again, I know what we had and I know what are we going have.

Yao

5th grade start to work!!

Second day of the first week. I have no complain on my 5th graders. Yes they sometimes but they can be very quite during work time, such as math class. I am actually surprised that they can be that good. You should all come and see them do math. It was incredible. 

Here is the schedule for 5th grade.

They will have PE class on their B day, but it will be in Chinese. Today we did the kick ball. They learned what is first, second ,third base in Chinese. We will use PE as a tool to work on their social language skill. The break time might be longer than 10 minutes.

They are doing times table everyday now. They need to practice this everyday in this year. It is the base of math. I need them to be very good on it.

We also start our science class today. The topic for the following six weeks is the human body. They had a basic introduction today. They will have test every 6 weeks for their current topic.

Here is another great work from student. It has date on it, good drawing, good Chinese hand writing, good English hand writing as well and organized note.

I am just proud of this class.

Yao

6th Grade First Chinese School day

Welcome back my dear 6th graders.

It seems like this year we only have 11 students, 7 boys and 4 girls, same old faces, same old classroom. I am very happy to see you coming back. Everybody gets taller and bigger. We will have a very small class, it is actually better becasue I can spent more time with each of you. I can actually help you more.

The classroom rules remain the same, except you will have couple new and harder rules for the whole middle school. Concepts are harder, my expectation will be higher too.

I expect you are more mature after one year. You don't have to be super mature but you need to be better than last year. Also becasue you are older now, I need you to show a good example for the new 5th graders.

We had an awesome year last year. I will treat the 6th graders in the same way, we will be fair, honest still but also more respect and know better on how to take responsibility.

Today, we again, like the 5th graders, we made a "Hands Cirlce Contract". Three things we will follow all together will be Respect, Honest and Responsible.
I am still not used to call them "6th graders", I called them "the 5th grades" several times today.

The 6th grade schedule is tricky, they have A and B day. They will have their art class on A day from 11am-12pm. They will not have art on B day, instead we will try to give them PE by teachers. My 6th grade football team will be still working hard this year. According all of the research, exercise help individual develope their brain function, they could have a better academic result in the future. They will also learn teamworks, cooperations, tolerate, strategy and the sipirt of being an athelic. Of course the girls will do something else too.

We will keep the hard work just like last year. I am looking forward to have a wonderful year.

2012-13 5th Grade first school day

First school day for 5th graders!!

I think I am lucky to have these angels as my 5th graders. Yes they know each other well and yes they did talk a lot today. But they litsened well when they need to, they responded well when I had questions for them. They can do projects when they are assigned.

This year, they are the only 5th grade class at the 2nd floor. I think it is a very good chance for them to see how do the upper graders do and act. They can learn from them even they are doing something inappropriate. I believe my job is to let them understand what to do and what not to do by any chance, instead of blocking their eyes and only let them see the good part of the world. 

Altough it is only the first day. I can tell we are going to have a good year. We have a small class and I will have a higher expectation on my 5th graders. It is totally ok and fine to make mistakes in my class. Everybody makes mistakes, the most important part is to learn from it and don't make the same mistake again.

We had our first class project today. We made and "Hands Circle Contract". In the middle of the circle, there are three things that we, including me all need to follow during this year. From NO.1 to NO.3, they are, Fairness, Honesty and Responsible. I think we had a very good start today.

New Blog

Dear Parents and Students,
Welcome(back) to the Global Village Academy. I am excited to see my new 5th grade students and I am extremely happy to see my old 6th grade students.

I would like to annouce that we are having a blog for all of my students and parents from this year. There will be activities, projects photos to let students, parents and your friends to see, to know what we are doing in the class. I will also have articles about education on the blog.

I will label all the articles by different grade and year. 

Please enjoy it. If you have any questions, welcome to contact me.

Yyao@globalvillageacademy.org or 720-248-4242 x2207

Thanks a lot
Mr. Yao