Hello again

Hello,

We had homework club tonight.  I could see that the math took much longer than I expected.  They were supposed to find out the cost of a page of books from the book order.  I wanted them to do seven pages.  I showed them quick ways to handle adding up multiple .99s, but seeing the students in the homework club constantly writing 99 over and over again was tough to bear.  It illustrates the need for more problem solving education.  The effort was there, but the efficiency was not good.  I repeated what I have said earlier in the year: If math homework is taking you more than 20 minutes, you have my permission to stop.  You are either doing the wrong assignment, doing something the wrong way, or you need more instruction.  Stop and live to fight another day. 

I did appreciate the effort.

Thank you for ordering books.  I have already seen some online book orders go through.  I have also been seeing when your child has gotten online to do IXL math.  I plan on setting some class goals.  I like IXL for practice, but there are some limitations to it.  I saw today that one boy spent a half an hour on odd and even problems.  They give sample math problems and then ask if the answer is odd or even.  The boy had got half of them right.  That is an example of one of the limitations. 

Our read aloud is going to lead to some serious discussion.  We will surely get into some talks on racism in the next few days.  Philip, the narrator and main character in The Cay, makes some pretty brutal assumptions about his fellow castaway.  Timothy is a big, old man with dark skin.  Philip is a twelve year old boy.  I'll keep you posted.  You might want to inquire about the story up until now.  Yesterday, well over half the class said that they thought Timothy was "mean." 

It's late.  I'm going home.

Thanks for reading,

Mr. Shea