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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
