Hello again... time for an update.
I want to take some time to encourage you to remind your child to blog regularly. It is usually the only homework I give (aside from perhaps finishing some unfinished math), and I am impressed with the progress the students are making in writing.
We took the month of December off of the Nanowrimo novels, and then in January we went back to them, focusing on our writing lessons on revision and editing. Revision is the hardest part of writing, especially for children, and I am proud of how many took my lessons to heart and really thought about how to make improvements in their stories. This Thursday the "good copy" of the novel is due, and I will be marking it and doing some more editing so that they can publish their story in hard copy.
As we're finishing this up, we are also moving on to speech writing. I am doing this a bit early, as the district speeches will not be until early May, but I prefer that they have extra time to practice their speeches than to feel rushed. Because we only have writing a couple of times a week, they will need to work hard to finish their speeches before Spring Break.
In Socials, we have moved on to studying New France. We may do a small project with this unit, but nothing that will require the time and focus the Aboriginal project did. I do need to say how pleased I was by how well the groups worked together--group work was a new thing for many of them, and they flourished.
I hope your children told you about the Maple Man presentation we had on Thursday. What a great presentation! The students learned about the Quebec maple syrup cottage industry, got to play wooden spoons, and ate wonderful maple syrup taffy. Thanks to Ms. Ramsay for organizing this speaker to come present to the intermediate classes.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Socials Studies Projects
Students presented their socials projects last week, and I wanted to share some highlights:
