Restless Learning

Not every day is absolutely perfect.

We started today with a fire-drill and lunch procedures assembly on the yard, and it was just enough of a bit of weirdness in the day that the students never seemed to quite focus. Everything seemed to take longer than usual. I began to look at the clock and wonder when lunch would finally come….

Still, we have some solid learning to show for our day. About half of the students have completed their first complete Writer’s Workshop compositions. The others should be relatively close to a final draft soon. We took our spelling test, and the scores look excellent. We started to really analyze “Angel Child, Dragon Child” in Reading to understand how stories really worked. We learned important technical terms like “plot” and “character” and “setting” and “climax.” We talked about problem and conflict in a story, and how they are not always exactly the same thing. I challenged the students to find something in the text to back up their assertions about characters – that was really a new concept for them! So, I’m proud of the learning we’ve done.

I will be finishing setting up the Gradebook this weekend, and you should receive your email with logon and password by Monday morning. I think you will find this an invaluable tool.

I also changed the comment option on the blog so make it harder for strange comments to be automatically posted. You can still comment, and I’d love to see more comments, but you’ll need to type in the word you see on the screen, just like you have to do with Ticketmaster. It helps defeat the programs which automatically attach unwanted comments to blogs.

Finally, to all our families whose roots are in Korea, Happy Chu Sok.

Homework: As promised, just some math and the students had a chance to start it in class. (1) Predict & Test, page 45, all questions. (2) Add greater numbers, page 47-48, #2-44 only.