Monday, 10/24/16 8:15 departure
field_trip[_notice_-_google_docs.pdf |
Monday, 10/24/16 8:15 departureWe will be going to the Museum of the American Indian in downtown Manhattan. This trip is ahead of schedule, unexpectedly, but we need to share a bus with grade 3 or it won't happen. details are attached in the document below. please fill out and sign the permission slip tonight!
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Friday Night is our School BONFIRE honoring Lynn Jarvis!It will be a fantastic time where current students and alumni can enjoy music, activities, and of course yummy s'mores! I will arrive at 6:45 PM - see you all there! Our WeekLast week was the last official week of our Brain unit. Students built accurate brain models using modelling clay, and began a short research report as their summative assessment. In math, we are past the 4th grade review and are working on some higher multiplication concepts. Reading and writing workshop is centering on genres and paragraphs, respectively. As we begin our Perspectives unit, biography and historical fiction will feature prominently in our class library. We will also look forward to our first class trip to Clark House and Princeton Battlefield. Happy New Year and Welcome Back! I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend and spent it close to those you love. We have a concatenated week ahead! Our goal setting conferences are this week (on Thursday). Here, your child will share (in writing) his or her hopes and dreams for the year, as well as targeted academic and developmental goals. We will also take a close look at reading goals, writing goals, and mathematics goals for this year. We will be revisiting these goals in subsequent conferences, and tracking your child's progress as we navigate this year together. This week, we are getting further away from brain anatomy and more toward executive function (How We Learn) and other forms of metacognition. Math will move towards multiplication and its properties, including operations with decimals and fractions. We will also begin to explore exponents and perfect square roots. Writing workshop continues to focus on sentence structure and types. Reading workshop is moving towards inference, predictions, and better use of context to derive meaning. Let's have a great week!!!! AnnouncementsWednesday is PIZZA WEDNESDAY!!!! (no lunch Thursday
There are NO AFTERSCHOOL ACTIVITIES on Thursday and Friday during conferences. This includes aftercare, so please plan accordingly . Finally, as many of you know, I am out of town (Detroit MI) at a national fencing circuit competition from Friday through Monday. I return Tuesday, October 11. I will also be gone November 11-14 in Milwaukee WI. Last week's highlightsHello all! We had a fun and productive week together at Princeton Junior School. We started off our week by presenting our class covenant with its essential agreements at the all school gathering. We also dipped our toes into our new IB unit, Learning and the Brain. In Reading workshop, our topics included habits of proficient readers and journaling. Writing workshop consisted largely of storying - mostly oral stories prepared by groups or partners, and then shared. We read aloud the short story "La Bamba" and shared some personal tales of performance butterflies. Math focused maninly on numeration, though we also found some fun resources related to higher math which the kids enjoyed together. This week and upcoming eventsWednesday night, Sept 21, is Back to School Night. You have received numerous communiques on this event, so I will not repeat them all here. We are, however, certainly looking forward to seeing you!! Please keep our limited time in mind. There will be a short Q&A period at the end of the presentation. Topics will include IB units, SSAT, and admissions process and planning.
Reminder- September 28 is School Picture Day! Finally, if you have not returned your Friday Electives form, please do so as soon as you can. Getting into a grooveComing back to school is an enormous change in rhythm - for teachers as much as the students! Our fifth graders did an amazing job this week settling into their new roles at Princeton Junior School. They handled their new responsibilities - such as lunch setup and coordination - with enthusiasm and student-professionalism. It was a short week, but not without challenges from schedules, heat, and even *gasp * homework . . . "in the first week?!?!" By all accounts, including mine, they did a great job. What did we do?One priority was our Class Covenant. Each year, all grades are requested to self-identify a behavior code which both reflects our Community Covenant and the issues that are important to our own class. We will present this today at the All School Gathering. We also had our introductions to Reading and Writing Workshop as well as Math Inquiry. In reading Workshop, we spent our time discussing the ways active and thoughtful readers behave, and how thoughtful readers choose books. In writing workshop, we discussed elements of a story, and created a communal story, orally, as we practiced the integration and use of these elements. Math inquiry was spent developing a baseline assessment of each student's strengths and areas for review. A copy of the story is below.
Coming up this week - first IB unit! This week, we will start our Learning and the Brain Unit. In this unit, we will learn the anatomy of our brains, its basic electro chemical mechanisms, the effects of our own hormones and other chemicals on our brains, and - most important- how we learn and how we learn best. Please check the IB unit page for more details. We have our first Focus Friday this week. Don't Forget: This Sunday, the 18th, is our school picnic. Next Wednesday , 9/21, is Back to School Night, and September 28th is school picture day! Welcome Back, 5th Graders!Naturally, we hope you enjoyed your summer! We can't wait to hear all about it! Please allow me welcome you all back with open arms and an open mind! We are very excited to watch you grow into more capable, caring, and mature learners this year. Please remember two things this year: almost everything is possible, and - one of my favorite maxims - "hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." Before I begin a snapshot of the week to come, I must share some sad news. Our friend, Mr. Fishy, passed away at some point after summer camp. This was despite our best efforts to resuscitate him (her??) However, we have two new friends whom you will all meet on our first day. They are, as yet, nameless. I will ask you to come up with some name options and conduct a survey of grades 4 and 5 to choose the best options. Week SnapshotNews you can use! We have a concatenated (fancy word for shortened) first week! Friday is NOT a focus Friday, however. Students can expect to have class jobs assigned, get a feel for reading and writing workshop in its new schedule block, and do some math warmups (which will vary) during math inquiry. We will spend our IB time going over the learner profile and attitudes (as well as illustrating them) and talk briefly about the units, sequentially. We will also start talking about the Goal setting conferences in early October . Beginning in week three, expect the 5th graders themselves to start taking over the blog . They will work in pairs, largely at school. Important dates! |
Mr. Kovacs and the 5th grade students!Archives
September 2017
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