What another blessed two days. You have bestowed upon me more generous teacher appreciation gifts this week. I have a healthy wonderful blueberry plant which I am committed to keeping alive. Plus today I received a great collection of healthy yummy snacks while also PFC put on an amazing diverse healthy salad bar lunch. I am so grateful to work for such a beautiful learning community.
What have we been working on the last two school days? Primarily project based learning. We still manage to throw in some time for a quick math lesson, review and 15 to 20 minutes of Scootpad. Yet, the remaining time is spent on completing projects related to our Troll Article, Johnny Tremain, social studies summaries, Dead President project and finally a “super secret” project. This has entailed working with the kids regarding prioritizing, staying focused, understanding how utilize their time, researching and reading through their work on our class Language Arts website.
As a teacher the increase in projects is quite a paradigm change. Rather than being in the front of the class, I need to sit in the back so I can see the websites the students are choosing to work on. Then I handle individual questions and teach in one on one scenarios unique to each student. Frequently I feel like Lucky at the chocolate factory with questions and teachable moments coming in faster than I help students solve them.
Tomorrow we will once again work on the projects + reading that are due on Friday. If you can ask students when they get home how they are coming along with their projects (social studies reading + summaries, Dead President Project, the Johnny Tremain on-line comprehension questions, the Troll & Bullying writing, the secret project and finally their graphing work) that would be highly appreciated. My main goal is to help make them more self-aware and conscientious regarding how to plan and attack “projects” rather complete “daily” handouts and/or assignments.
Finally we have been taking time every day this week to share and discuss about how wonderful it is to have moms in the world!!! Tuesday’s discussion with the class seemed to lack enthusiasm for the subject and some of the kids shared out how they weren’t feeling the need to do much this week. I watched Kevin Durant’s NBA acceptance speech on Tuesday night and how he went out of his way to thank his mom and called his mom “you’re the real MVP!” and I knew I had to share this with the class. The five minute video is him thanking his entire family but he begins to discuss his mom slightly after the 2 minute mark.
Thank you for a great teacher week,
Mr. Hubbard
“[Kids] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”
- Jim Henson
Homework:
Math
Social Studies:
All the summaries from last week typed into the class websites by Wednesday.
Read pages 99-110 and be prepared to type the summaries into the class website on Friday.
