Mr. Batchelor's Sensational Students!: SD23

Term 2 is in view!

Our theme is "How to be a hero!" in 2012

Thinking back to Remembrance Day in the Fall is, perhaps, the easiest way to think of heroes. The questions we will ask will help define what a hero could be and then examine what our role is in the world around us to be a positive influence. Wouldn't this make a great dinnertime conversation? Hint, hint...wink, wink! :)

I have found that the quickest, most efficient way to communicate with parents throughout the school year is by email. This works for most of our needs. Serious matters, of course, would be handled differently.

Term 2 Parent/Teacher communication:

Let's continue signing the agenda each night. Parents should sign after their child has shown them the completed work. If it was completed at school, the student should still take it home to show parents. Perhaps by the end of Term 2, if your child has demonstrated responsibility with it, you can free them from having the agenda signed each night. If you wish to communicate, use email or the agenda.

Term 2 Report to Parents: As in Term 1, we are having a similar DROP-IN event in our classroom for parents to view their child's work. I call them learning reports. I will send home a response form to learn how many parents may come on each day.

When: During the SD23 timetabled afternoons of Wednesday and Thursday, [Feb. 8th & 9th] 1-2 pm.

In addition to this, students will be celebrating the completion of Extreme Environment booklets they have made, reports covering their research of a hero, as well as other school achievements. This will be a time I hope parents will come to celebrate with us, too.

When: ...details to follow

How about coming just before lunch and joining them for lunch or treating them to lunch away from the school?!

Upcoming Work or Events

Our theme is "How to be a hero!" in 2012

Math - Students really look forward to Term 2 when we do the global competition for World Maths Day online. You can help them get ready and enjoy more success if they do a little extra practice with math facts at home. Here's a place for you to download some quick mathsheets you can use to reach your goals. Go for it! Use the online links, too. We have just negotiated accounts for Mathletics online. Students can log in at home.

A student sent me this link [Coolmathforkids] and it looks great for some fun Math practice. Bookmark it if you like it! Try this new math site called Sumdog for practicing all forms of Grade 6 math! It's fantastic.

Term 2 begins with angles and polygons, Unit 4, and continues with fractions, ratios and percents near the end of January. We will finish with geometry and measurement as we cross over into Term 3.

Social Studies - Science and Social Studies are double-blocked so that we can get more done without interruptions. This means that one subject is taught for half of the term and then switched for the other. In Term 2, I would like students to examine the environment that part of humanity must live in and consider how we can be the change to improve life for others. This was scheduled for Term 1, but we will get onto it in Term 2. It is an online webquest. Feel free to follow along with us.

Science - During Term 2, we will study 2 aspects of Science. We will introduce the experimental method and put it into practice through an investigation. Students will work in partners or alone. You might begin talking about something to investigate that interests your child. For example, an inquiry question might be "Do cleats really help you run faster in soccer?". It can be about any topic of interest. One critical feature is that what is learned will help benefit man's knowledge of the world, improve life or somehow help move us forward through learning. Feel free to email any questions.

The second thing we will study is Extreme Environments. We attempt to understand how living things can survive in harsh conditions where adaptations are needed...space, deep in the ocean, rivers of highly acidic water, etc. Check out this link for the top 10...you may be surprised! Students will complete a research assignment of an extreme environment. Their learning will be presented in the form of a narrative that they will illustrate and read to children in the younger grades. You should have a chance to read it too, right!?

Reading - Literature Circles will continue after research projects are more or less out of the way and students will consider our hero theme as they choose novels and read, meeting regularly in small groups. Completing worksheets and attending meetings to demonstrate their understanding and comprehension, students will also complete a project to demonstrate their learning. They are also evaluated for fluency and presentation skills. Marks may also be derived from Science or other subject areas involving reading.

Writing - Spelling words are drawn from subject matter and fit into phonics lessons that teach children to consider the letters used to make sounds. Spellodrome is an online tool we will use. Each child can log in at home to practice weekly words. A mark is recorded from a review of these every 4 weeks or so. Parts of the sentence and the elements of good paragraph writing are evaluated through a variety of assignments across the curriculum. Multi-paragraph assignments are evaluated. We still handwrite everything until June!

PE - Term 2 begins with fitness to wear off the Christmas meals. Quite quickly we get into Basketball which continues much of the term.

Music/Art - Music is taught by Mr. Vesterinen.

French - Mrs. Nittel teaches.

Health and Career Planning - Discussions around the issues of relationships and a healthy mind are part of this term. We also look at substance misuse and prevention.

Amazing kids who make the world a better place...

Weekly Wisdom Statements discussed so far:

1.You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be. - David Viscott

2. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. - Henry Ford

3. People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. - Earl Nightingale

4. The courage to speak must be matched by the wisdom to listen. - Sir Isaac Newton

5. The road to success is full of thorns. - Unknown

6. Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death. - Unknown [First Nations have the wolf story which is similar]

7. If everyone is moving forward together, success takes care of itself. - Henry Ford

8. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke

9. It is difficult to give away kindness. It keeps coming back to you. - Unknown

10. Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. - James R. Cook (1728-1778)

11. A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you have some free time? We use Sqworl, a cloud-based website to organize links around a theme. For example, we organize our class writing tools all on one Sqworl site. It's free. You might try it for things you do on your job or at home. If you have time, check out the cool tools Sqworl themselves have organized on one of their pages. There may be something you can use. Let us know if you find something beneficial!

Finally, Youtube has filtered the appropriate content to present. You can now go to youtube for education. They say it will be safe for students to use, especially when looking for research resources. Yay. Bookmark it.

Students - work with your friends, all typing at the same time [you can upload pictures or video, too!] using Piratepad! It is very cool and easy to use, too!

I've assembled some writing tools using a very powerful, online tool. Check it out! We'll use it this year. It's called SQWORL!...as in squirrel! It's like a digital nest in a tree where squirrels hide all sorts of delicious nuts...except the nuts in this case are tools to use during a long winter of writing!

Do all your internet searches using Twurdy and it will find the sites that are easiest to read if you are not a university professor! Bookmark it!

"Cloud" computing is a term that refers to a space we can go to on the internet to do work, whether personal or collaborative. It is usually free and includes all kinds of tools that we can access without buying any software. Google is doing lots of work to provide a cloud of services for people. Check this great link out for a list of powerful tools.

How about a website that helps you "Jam" for tests? This might be more useful for your older sister or brother, but check it out...there may be something for Grade 6, too!

Have you checked out Watchknow, yet? It's kind of a kid-friendly, safe Youtube-type site that is very valuable if students are looking for resources to include with assignments they are doing online. Please bookmark it. It will be useful for middle school, too.

Another site...Have you tried the Math Playground site? Also, use your Math agility and be the first to climb a tower by solving little problems inside windows on your way up! Misterteacher has some interactive, engaging activities online.

Check this out:If you enjoy building fun contraptions to see if they work, try this site; Math games and this is a site to do safe internet searches [you might want to make it your home page!]

Here's a fun link to play some CIA games. Can you "Crack the Code"?

Parents! Here is a free web browser for elementary children. You can download it at home! Just click on the pix!

Here's a site that children who enjoy comics can use to create and publish their own. Also, I haven't heard of anyone trying it, but still hope a parent/student will ...Lemur Bay... a safe site for kids, just started up right here in the Okanagan. They use avatars, a fascinating advantage to make it fun for kids, and seem to charge very little subscription.

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I always voice this caution to parents regarding computers and internet: Some things we've learned:

Research is showing an alarming number of parents allow their children to have internet or a television in their bedrooms instead of a public part of the house.

In a discussion with 2 classes, we learned that about 90 percent of our children have been on chat sites. Of these, about 75 percent have had a stranger say hello online. Of these, about 65 percent of our children made the mistake of answering. This was an informal poll while going through internet safety with our students last year. Now...not all strangers are bad people, but we encourage children to:

1. not join any chat service without parental permission

2. never go on the chat service without a parent present

3. always have the computer in an open area of the home...not a bedroom

4. always tell a parent right away if someone tries to say hello, asks for personal information or tries to meet with them.

I am always concerned about social networks that are open to children. I noticed an interesting article you might want to read from eNews, an online publication for educators. It's a caution that if you do allow your child to use social networks, [which is discouraged until at least 13!], you most likely assume they are privately maintained between friends. The problem is there is no way to be certain that their communication is private, protected and responsible! We offer Thinkquest as a safe alternative. Children can use it at home, too. At the most "public" level, only contact with other Thinkquest students in the world is possible...never the www at large...and every communication is monitored by the teacher as well as other teachers, administrators and students within Thinkquest. Even within this level of security, we encourage parents to keep the computer in a public area of the home and to approve photos that are uploaded as well as other communication within Thinkquest. Thank you for your support to help your child learn in a safe and happy environment.