Group 1 Announcements:
September 18 - 22:
Group 2 Announcements:
We are introducing many of the routines that will be a part of your child's schedule in Group 2. We hope you have seen your child's homework folder at home. On Monday we hand out a homework sheet for the week, with spaces to write in assignments as they are announced. This sheet is snapped into the homework folder. As our schedule becomes more fully established, there will be a corresponding pattern to the weekly assignments. For now, the important thing to practice is taking the folder home each night and bringing it back to school the next morning. If you get in the habit of asking to see the folder after school, you can review with your child what homework is due when. We try to give at least 2 days' notice for an assignment so that you can fit homework in around your other after school events. Now is an excellent time to help your child plan afterschool time. For example, if there is a math assignment due on Thursday, and your child has soccer practice on Wednesday night, you can point out how it would be helpful to work on the homework Tuesday night so that it will be finished on time.
On a different note, another procedure that we discussed and saw in action this week is the "eye-to-eye" conference. NCCL has always worked to help children resolve conflicts peacefully and positively, and the "eye-to-eye" conference is another tool in our repertoire. If two members of the community are having a disagreement, they can choose to have a conference. With a teacher, they meet and agree to: listen respectfully, speak honestly, and want to find a solution to the problem. The participants take turns relating their sides of the story, pausing to let the other person tell back what s/he heard. They are encouraged to talk about how the other person's actions affected them. They both suggest solutions to the problem, and they work to pick a solution they can both agree to. The teacher's role is to help the participants take turns and to check in with them later to see how the solution they agreed upon has worked. This approach is very similar to what we've all been doing here, but the process is just a little more formalized.
We've been reading more about the life of Shakespeare and the history of the Globe Theatres. We also began reading some of Shakespeare's plays. Sue read aloud the story of Macbeth, and then children chose to read from the scripts of "Macbeth," "Romeo and Juliet," or "The Tempest." We also discussed (and marched to) iambs.
We spent a lot of time with "Much Ado about Nothing." Sue made a chart that helped us keep track of the relationships among the characters, and we made frequent reference to it as we watched many of the parts of the Emma Thompson/Kenneth Branagh movie version of the play. [Please note: we did choose to skip several scenes that we felt were more appropriate for older audiences.] With this help, most of the kids were able to keep the characters straight and to understand some of the motivations behind their actions. We began reading a story version of "Romeo and Juliet," with an accompanying character chart. In addition, kids spent several sessions working on some other aspect related to Shakespeare and Elizabethan England, whether learning more about Shakespeare's life, reading other plays in parts, researching costumes, or reading other stories based on Shakespeare plays. Go Shakespeare!
Kids did a good job preparing for and conducting our "Me Museum." If you didn't have a chance to stop in, we will have more museums in the future, and we'll do a better job of advertising them at home. (The kids made great signs for the school.) Artifacts from the "Me Museum" were sent home on Friday.
We worked a little on handwriting. Everyone is working on cursive, but not everyone is at the same place. In anticipation of your questions, no, the kids are not required to write in cursive for homework unless specifically directed to do so (but they are welcome to use cursive; some students have found that their cursive handwriting is neater than their printing.) After we introduce and review proper letter formation, we will ask that more assignments be completed in cursive.
We started regular reading and math groups. At this point, the kids are divided somewhat arbitrarily, but we will be re-arranging groups as needed to best meet the needs of each child. In math, our focus has been on learning the conventions of our number system with regard to larger numbers. We have recognized that the "ones, tens, hundreds" pattern keeps repeating, but that we have to learn the names of what those larger groups are: units, thousands, millions, billions, etc. We will continue developing familiarity with reading and writing these large numbers.
Much of the conversation in reading class has focused on picking books. Kids worked on making book posters for some of their favorite books and series, and many of them are on display in the room.
Using string, spoons, tuning forks, and other equipment, we have been exploring sound and talking about the way sound waves travel through different media. We will continue to create vibrations in different ways.
Our first gym class focused on catching and throwing. Kids also worked on moving to an open spot when they didn't have the ball. The field is in great condition for sports, and the weather has mostly been accommodating for outside activities.
As always, contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
We began our reading and spelling class. In spelling, we started with an overview of what spelling is - a code that represents the sounds we speak. (In English we have between 40 and 45 individual sounds, which make up all of our words.) We talked about the roots of the English language, which come from the Latin, Greek, Gaelic, Germanic, and Romance languages.
The focus at first is to introduce some of the "rules" that apply to English spelling. Once we have reviewed these and done some practice, we will begin studying word lists and take weekly quizzes on Fridays. To some extent, the lists will be individualized. Some of us find spelling easy and others struggle with it. Spelling has little correlation with intelligence. It seems to be a specific ability, like musical talent. We can all get better at it with practice, but some will need just a little practice and some will need much more. The best support you can give your child is to help him or her practice the words each week. If your child struggles with spelling, it is best to practice for about 15 minutes, two or three times per week.
In reading, we began reading a short story, "Save the Moon for Kerdy Dickus" by Tim Wynn-Jones. For homework, your child is to finish the story, by Wednesday, and answer questions in his or her Reading Response notebook. Each student received a sheet with the questions to be answered. On Wednesday, your child will use the answers as part of a reading discussion group.
In math we put several definitions in the math journal. The definitions included proper factors, prime numbers, and composite numbers. Homework was assigned based on these concepts.
If you have any questions, please call or e-mail us.
We have had a busy and productive beginning of the school year. Everyone is settling in nicely and we are delighted with the way that the Group 4 students have been thinking, participating and problem solving. They are truly an exceptional group in terms of their enthusiasm and their ability to discuss and work out social concerns.
We are gearing up for the start of the apprenticing program. Each student will be apprenticing at local businesses on Friday afternoons. This Group 4 rite of passage is much looked forward to. The kids found out about their placements and are eager to start on October 20th, following their trip to Shaver's Creek, which is Monday, October 9th - Friday, October 13th.
We have been working hard in writing class, studying the playwriting genre. We have the wonderful opportunity to work with Delaware Theatre Company by participating in their Young Playwright's Festival. I learned a great deal and was very enthusiastic about this project after attending a workshop by DTC. David Stradley, the education director, came to our class to do some drama/writing exercises with the class and to help kick off the project. The theme for this year's plays is DEFIANCE. Is there a better theme for middle school kids to write about?
In class, we have been doing a lot of work exploring how to create believable and interesting characters, looking at how the setting of a play helps enrich the story that is being told, talking about different types of conflict and the importance of a powerful conflict, looking at story structure within a play and how to set up the problem, lead to a climax and have a resolution. The kids have also been doing a great job helping each other brainstorm ideas for their individual plays. In addition to doing writing on these various components, we have been having a great time acting out our writing and doing other dramatic exercises.
The deadline for the first draft of our plays is November 6th. We will be setting small, manageable writing goals so that we aren't overwhelmed by the Herculean task of writing a 10 - 20 page play! After we submit our plays to DTC, they will give individualized feedback for each child's play. Rewrites are due January 22nd. Each child will take in consideration the suggestions that the DTC staff makes and will be responsible for revising their play. Whether or not they want to submit it to the contest is up to them.
We have been having a great time discussing books. The kids are reading independent reading books and have been enthusiastically trading books and information on "good reads". We have a recommended reading shelf in our room and the kids pick the books that go on it. There is a definite buzz going on in our class regarding daily talks about the books that we are reading. The kids have writing exercises that they do in their reader's journal about their books and are using post-its to mark particularly interesting or puzzling observations about the author's writing.
We are reading 5 of the previous winning middle school plays from the DTC Young Playwright's Festival. The kids are delighting in taking turns acting out the parts in the plays as the rest of us read along. Everyone chooses to read and we are constantly amused and entertained by the acting skills of our classmates. We have also been very impressed with the level of writing of the plays we are reading and it is helping to further our "good playwriting" discussions.
Research class has produced many lively debates. We are studying the period following our independence from England and discussing exactly how running this new government went down. The kids are divided into four of the original thirteen states: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Georgia and Virginia. ( 2 northern states, 2 southern, two big states and two small.) They have been debating the issues of how each state will be represented by votes. Should each state have the same number of votes or should it be based on population? We have discussed where the states stand on slavery and whether or not slaves should be counted in terms of numbers for representation. We have just started looking at the first articles of the constitution and trying to get a sense of why those issues are there and were important. Our hope is that through this process the kids will learn that the founding of our country, its laws and governing bodies, was a messy business, full of controversy and debate.
In math the graduates are reviewing algebra from last year and the non-graduates are starting algebra in addition to learning some simple computer programming.
The first study in Science class is Astronomy. Ray and the kids went out the other day to look at sunspots, but were only able to find one. They began constructing sun dials and are looking at the interrelationship between the sun and the earth.
It has been a busy few weeks, but we are taking time out to have fun and enjoy each other's company. We met with our "buddies" from Group 2. Each student has a partner that they are starting to get to know and will be doing activities with over the next few weeks. The kids were excited and are looking forward to getting to know more kids in our school community.