Hello,
It was an odd day. I was looking forward to getting back into our routines, but I was called out for a conference call right after lunch. A few fourth and fifth grade teachers attended a conference call with one of the higher ups at Math in Focus. The main topic was grouping. Unfortunately, I was out of the classroom for over an hour. I left some reading and writing work for the kids to do. Apparently, the class saw a revolving door of teachers coming in to cover for me. I am thankful that so many chipped in with their time to make it possible for me to attend the meeting.
Homework is unusually light tonight. I apologize. I didn't get to what I had planned, so I scrapped it for another day. They need a day to get back into the swing of things anyway. Heh heh.
We did get to talk about our "tribes" that we formed on Friday. Each tribe was given their own series of gestures and sounds to use for their language. They were also given a goal. For example, in one tribe clicking their tongue meant "no", holding their nose meant "yes", and shaking their butt at someone was a sign of great respect. Their goal was to try to make as many friends as possible. In their culture, friendship was symbolized by visiting each other's homes, so they needed get as many people as they could to come into their "home" (a marked area on the rug).
Some tribes had more devious goals like trying to see how many people would touch their shoe, which was an obvious sign of their superiority. (Meaning that those who would bend and touch the shoe were inferior.) Each tribe was also given different trinkets. Each was given a different instruction on what their specific trinkets meant.
In the end, the lesson was all about assumptions. The tribes with innocent goals tended to do what other tribes asked. The tribes with more devious goals played it much closer to the vest, being very suspicious of other tribes' goals. Two tribes tried to get a lot of trinkets, thinking that they were all some sort of cash.
Overall, it went well. I think most grasped the point. Some just thought it was fun. We had a good discussion afterwards about how it is very natural to make assumptions, but we need to be careful of them just the same. Ask your child about their tribe's goals and what they thought during and after the activity.
We started multiplication math facts today. I have been going back and forth on this. Many don't have the addition skills down, but it is generally accepted that multiplication should be learned by the end of fourth grade. Some may take three or four months to get a firm grasp of the concept and the facts. The new math program expects that they are already learned, so we need to get going on them. We'll be using a program called Rocket Math. I will spend a lot of time in class getting them to understand the concept, but the memorization (automaticity) will have to come from some time at home as well as in school. Old fashioned flash cards and some online learning websites are great ways to practice.
We went to the computer lab on Friday to get the kids reacquainted with IXL Math. All kids should now have their IXL math login and password for work at home. The website is www.IXL.com/signin/hbse and your child's username is their first initial and last name @hbse. For example my username would be sshea@hbse. Your child's password is their first and last initial. (Mine would be ss.) I get an email every week telling me how much time is spent by your child on the site and what questions they worked on. We had two student put some time in this weekend. Very nice. Pay it a visit. It's a pretty good site for math practice.
All for now. Hopefully, we'll get back to normal tomorrow.
Thanks for reading,
Mr. Shea
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