Hi All:
Just like that, fifth grade is nearly over. Thank you for all of your support and encouragement this year; it has been an amazing ride. Though Stacy has covered almost everything in her last few emails, I have a few additional pieces of information that may be of use. Final Projects Please have your students fill you in on the final projects we've been working on during the last month, in the time we've had. Students closed out their climate change projects and have most recently been working on writing screenplays for books of their choosing that they read this year (independently). Taking the screenplays they wrote, the kids divided themselves into three groups and each group chose a screenplay to perform. Groups are working on finalizing their scenes this week, and next week they will perform them for a few primary classes as a last hoorah. With the help of our poster consultant (Drew), the groups also made posters for their productions. See above. No School For Fifth Graders on Friday, May 31st While many of you may already be aware of this, the last day for fifth graders is Thursday, May 30th. If your student absolutely must come on Friday, they may, until 1:00, but students are advised not to. We may have tasks for a couple of kids, but a group larger than that will have very little to do. i-Ready Diagnostic Reports I will be sending home final i-Ready Diagnostic reports this week or next (as soon as we get more ink for our printer, which has been down for a few weeks). Our class did incredibly well again this year, and registered, once again, the highest growth in reading in the school. The median reading growth in our class this year was 343% of the nationally normed expectation, demonstrating growth -- and not just performance -- which was well beyond virtually all other classes across the country. All students in our class met their standard growth targets this year (100%), and all but one met their stretch growth targets (95%). Our class was highest in the school in both of these categories as well, by 19% and 27% respectively. Ten kids from our class are ending the year in the eighth grade band (three levels above); four in the seventh grade band (two levels above); two in the sixth grade band (one level above); and five in the fifth grade band (on level). Compare that to where our class was entering fourth grade: two entered fourth grade in the sixth grade band (two levels above); three in the fifth grade band (one level above); twelve in the fourth grade band (on level); and four in the third grade band (one level below). Our class has made astonishing growth, and it cannot be overstated. Results were similar in math, though slightly less overwhelming. The median math growth in our class this year was 171% of the nationally normed expectation, demonstrating significant growth that far exceeded national growth norms. While the numbers are a bit harder to pin down in math due to the level of student movement in our building, students in our class achieved their standard and stretch growth goals at the highest rates in the building (100% and 81% respectively). If you have any questions about your student's final diagnostic report when you receive it, please reach out to me. Report Cards Final report cards will go home the last day of school. Please let me know if you have any questions when you receive them. Please let me know if you have any questions for me as we close out our last year together. I am happy to meet and chat about anything. Thanks again, for everything. All the very best, Parker
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Hi All:
Welcome back from spring break! If you can believe it, we only have nine weeks left of fifth grade. Based on how our schedule looks at this point, I believe those weeks will prove to be very busy. To wit, here are the most important dates to calendar: Important Dates to Remember
It's Not Easy Being Green: Our Project Based Learning Unit (Involving Science, Some Social Studies, and English Language Arts) Two weeks ago, as part of our project on climate change, our class participated in the global youth climate strike. Students made signs and then picketed for about 90 minutes in front of Southmoor, on Monaco, where they received a great deal of support from people driving by. It was a lot of fun, and exciting for the kids in our class to see the power of their work beyond the classroom. We are almost done with our unit on climate change, and students are working in their groups to finalize their group reports, some components of which they completed individually. For the final piece, which we will work on this week and on our days off of CMAS, kids will be writing individual letters to congresspeople in order to highlight and spread the word about the most important elements of their findings. Coming Up: Human Body Systems As soon as we are done with CMAS, we are going to be moving into our last and most involved science unit of the year: human body systems. We are going to be covering most human body systems throughout this unit, and we also will continue our trend of integrating research and writing with the science content. Our human body systems unit will end with Family Life towards the end of the year, about which more information will be forthcoming The Know Brainer Event On April 27, our class, or most of our class, is going to participate in a Know Brainer academic trivia event at Hamilton Middle School. This event has been organized by the optimist club which also helps us with our BUG awards. We will field three teams of five to seven kids, at a cost of $25 per team, and hold several practice sessions over the next month. We currently have raised $40 to pay for our three teams, and we need another $35. Eight students have paid $5, so if seven more bring in that same amount, we will be good to go! Math After this week, which will be an on off week, we will resume a normal math schedule. In both of our math sections, we will be moving onto next-level content for the remainder of the year. My section has one more geometry unit in our Investigations curriculum, and after that we will be using sixth and seventh grade curricula from EngageNY and i-Ready. New material will involve computations similar to those we have covered this year with more complex numbers, operations, and algebraic functions. As always, please reach out to me if you have any questions! Thank you for all you do! Hi All:
Thank you for all of your support over the past few weeks, as they have been challenging, to say the least. I for one am looking forward to getting back into a normal schedule. One week from today, we will be holding student-led conferences and a PBL showcase night at Southmoor. Using this link, you can sign up for a 15-minute slot for a student-led conference. If no available slot works for you, send me an email -- we will be able to fit you in somewhere. These conferences will be similar to those we held last year. Between 7:00-7:30, then, we will be holding a PBL showcase which will work to explain what we have been doing for our class' projects on climate change. You are welcome to attend that if you don't get your fill during your student's conference! Other than that, here are a few important dates to keep in mind: Important Dates to Remember (or Pencil In)
It's Not Easy Being Green: Our Project Based Learning Unit (Involving Science, Some Social Studies, and English Language Arts) Students have been hard at work on their climate change projects. After our class' seven groups worked collaboratively as groups on their first reports, each individual is now working on a second report that fits in within his or her group's topic. Please ask your student(s) about his or her progress and learning! Ideally, I wanted to complete our second round of reports by the end of this week, but plans changed. As such, I am going to be checking in with groups tomorrow to reevaluate where students are and when we should set our next deadline. It will be moved to the end of next week or beginning of the following week. From there, students will work in their groups to put together their comprehensive reports, and then they will again work as individuals on writing letters to officials of their choosing. I will send out more information as to that after we finish this phase of our projects, but please talk with your student(s) if you wish to stay up-to-date. The Know Brainer Event On April 27, our class, or most of our class, is going to participate in a Know Brainer academic trivia event at Hamilton Middle School. This event has been organized by the optimist club which also helps us with our BUG awards. We will field three teams of five to seven kids, at a cost of $25 per team, and hold several practice sessions over the next few months. The kids are very excited about this, so please stay tuned for more updates and information. Please reach out to me if you would like to help round up money and iron out details. Math Though we did complete our fifth unit since my last update here, not much has changed in math. Look for an update in the next week or two as to new content and objectives. Looking Forward After all of us settle back into a normal schedule, we will be following up our current projects with a choice literature project relating to the books of choice students have been reading throughout the year, and we will also be moving into another science unit on the human body. At some point, probably after CMAS testing, I want to circle back around to our work on U.S.-American history and also build onto the poetry work we did last year. Thinking back to our trip to Balarat, our AmeriTowne unit and trip, our U.S.-American history research projects, and all of the other academic work we have done so far this year, it has been fun-filled and action-packed. I am looking forward to building on that foundation and creating more great experiences throughout the half we have left. Thanks again for all of your support. Parker Hi All:
I hope you all had a fun and relaxing break! Thank you very much, to all of you, for sending me off with plenty of Starbucks gift cards, nice notes, and other goodies. I always appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity. Also, thank you so very much for the support you provided your students on their science fair projects. Every single student turned in a science project on time, and they are quite beautiful! It was fun hearing in-class presentations and seeing how students' projects came to life. As we settle in to our second semester, there are several items of which I want you to be aware. Important Dates to Remember (or Pencil In)
i-Ready Diagnostic Assessment Overall, our class did extremely well on their mid-year diagnostic assessments. In reading, surpassing even the high growth our class made last year, students in our class, on average, made 185% of the growth they were expected to make by the end of the year based on i-Ready's nationally normed growth trajectories, which are incredibly accurate. This is a tremendous accomplishment that simply can't be overstated. The expectation, based on national norms created with data from hundreds of thousands of students across the country, is that students at this point should be 50-60% of the way towards their year-long growth targets, which are in fact rigorous. Our students are 185% of the way there, meaning they surpassed their targets to an extent that some may find bewildering. Ninety percent of the students in our class surpassed their year-long growth target at the halfway point. Our class' growth in reading was far and away the highest in the school, again, and likely is some of the very highest in the nation. In addition, our students' performance was amazing too: this time around, five students tested at the very highest i-Ready level, Grade 8; five tested at Grade 7; three tested at Grade 6; and six tested at Grade 5. In math, too, students in our class, on average, made 114% of the growth they were expected to make by the end of the year, signaling another overall crushing of growth expectations. I will send home individual i-Ready reports either this week or next! It's Not Easy Being Green: Our Project Based Learning Unit (Involving Science, Some Social Studies, and English Language Arts) Our largest and most extensive project of the second semester is going to be a project we started this week on climate change. We've named it It's Not Easy Being Green. Our driving question is How can we, as members of US society, take actions to reduce or reverse the impacts and progression of climate change? In the month or so before break, we worked on understanding the basics of climate change, the greenhouse effect, global warming, and a number of the major factors that interact with climate change globally. We watch a movie, Before the Flood, about how climate change is impacting the Earth, and we also spent a lot of time creating a class mind map of our discoveries. At this point, students have divided into seven groups according to seven big topics we identified, and they are set to begin researching and writing about their topics. In the end, each student is going to write a letter to the United States Congress, or perhaps the United Nations, which will outline findings and make suggestions for action. Also, I would like for students to be able to make their own videos, in their groups, explaining the work they've done. If you have a camera and/or any expertise with video editing, we would love your help! The Know Brainer Event On April 27, our class, or most of our class, is going to participate in a Know Brainer academic trivia event at Hamilton Middle School. This event has been organized by the optimist club which also helps us with our BUG awards. We will field three teams of five to seven kids, at a cost of $25 per team, and hold several practice sessions over the next few months. The kids are very excited about this, so please stay tuned for more updates and information. Math We are about halfway through our year-long math curriculum, and students in my class will be taking their fourth unit test either today or tomorrow. We have been doing a lot of long division, multiplication, and pre-algebra with single variables and exponents. For our fifth unit, we are going to switch gears and begin working with analyzing patterns and rules, which will intersect nicely with our science work. We will then return to more advanced division before closing out the curriculum with geometry. If we finish our curriculum early this year, like we did last year, and we most definitely will, we are going to move into sixth grade standards (instead of a capstone) so that students can get a head start on middle school and leave Southmoor feeling confident in their mathematical abilities! Thanks for all you do. Parker Hi All:
With project completions, AmeriTowne, Halloween, a couple of snow storms, and Thanksgiving (coming around the corner), we've had a crazy few weeks. Sorry for neglecting this blog. First of all, thank you all for your various cards and well-wishes on my birthday. I always appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity! Also, thank you to those many volunteers who were able to accompany us to Young AmeriTowne on that day. We had a blast. Below are some updates pertaining to what we've been up to and also what to expect for the next month or so. Important Dates to Remember (or Pencil In)
Report Cards Report cards are going home today in Thursday Folders. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Note again that students did not receive grades in science for the first trimester. This is because the foci of our two big projects this trimester were on social studies (in addition to ELA), and the science we did was too limited to produce grades. You can however expect to see grades for science on report cards for the second and third trimesters (more on this below). English Language Arts & Social Studies We are wrapping up our long-running U.S.-American History projects, and most students will be presenting their projects when we return from Thanksgiving break during the week of November 26. I have encouraged all students to share their presentations with family and friends during the Thanksgiving break as a way for them to (1) share what they've learned and (2) practice for their presentations which they'll soon deliver to their class. If you need any help with the logistics of this, please let me know, but all students should be able to access their Google Slides presentations at home -- they know how to do this. Math This week we finished our third unit in math, on fractions, and students did very well on their unit test as a whole. We'll be revisiting this topic later in the year. When we return from break, we will begin with our fourth unit on refining division strategies. During our fourth unit, we'll be working on advanced computation strategies with larger numbers (up to six digits). Now that students have been well exposed to "long" division (also known as the U.S. standard algorithm), the focus during our fourth unit this year will be on improving speed and accuracy. It will be a relatively quick unit, but it will help students as we circle back around to fractions and decimals as the year progresses. Science To start the second trimester, we are going to be working on science fair projects. Students have received their science fair informational packets, which they'll be taking home tomorrow. In conjunction with the start of the science fair season, we are reviewing iterations of the scientific process, and after Thanksgiving break students will have time to research topics and construct their plans. This will be done in class, but can also be done at home. In most cases, the bulk of science fair projects will be done at home leading up to and during winter break, but I am happy to help facilitate any portions that can be done at school, and if students construct projects that can be done at school, it is okay with me if they do some work in the classroom. (They will have some time at school, but probably not enough for everything.) In addition to the science fair, and in anticipation of our December trip to Balarat, we also are going to be working on portions of this year's Earth Systems Science curriculum as they relate to what we might see at Balarat, and also the Balarat curriculum which covers ecosystems, lifeforms, weather, and landforms (physical science). There is a fair amount of overlap between the two curricula. Balarat Our trip to Balarat is coming up in just three short weeks. If you weren't able to attend our Balarat informational meeting and/or having any lingering questions, please let me know. Also, if you have yet to turn in permission slips and fees, please do so! Thanks for all you do! Parker Hi All:
It was great to see so many of you at the Moose is Loose carnival this weekend! I got the opportunity to talk with many of you, and I always enjoy our conversations. Importantly, conferences are coming up next week! To sign up for a 20-minute slot, please click here. If none of the slots work for you, please send me an email. Also, if we have already met in the past few weeks and you do not feel the need for another conference at this time, you do not need to sign up for a conference! Important Dates to Remember (or Pencil In)
AmeriTowne Thank you to all of the parents who helped us conduct interviews for AmeriTowne. The class worked very hard on their resumés, cover letters, and interviewing skills, and the results were very good. We are going to train students on their jobs on Thursday this week, and our field trip day is quickly approaching. Ian, Suzy, Erika, and John are currently signed up to attend with us. Let me know if you'd like to go; we likely could make room for one more. English Language Arts & Social Studies Students currently are still working on their U.S.-American history writing projects. We've had to put them aside several times for AmeriTowne work, but all are making progress. We've moved into the essay writing portion of the project, and students have divided their topics into sections and are now working on writing essays for the different sections of their topics. Because they are working on informational writing and newly relying on citations to informational sources, there have been a few speed bumps along the way. Nevertheless, students are persevering through the new learning and I am excited to see their final products, which should be very cool. At the end, students will present their projects to the class in chronological order and become teachers of their content, though it will be a few more weeks before we get to that point. As far as I can tell, all students are making appropriate progress on their independent reading, and our next ELA project will be a shorter one on books that they've read. Math We've moved onto our second unit on volume, and now we are focusing on volume of rectangular prisms. On the whole, students seem to intuitively understand the content at this point, though there are a few conceptual understandings we're working on that involve attention to detail and also the ability to visualize shapes in their entirety by mentally manipulating 2D representations of 3D prisms. I anticipate that we may move rather quickly through this second unit because of the ease with which students are grasping concepts at this point. Balarat Balarat has tentatively allotted us December 6-7 for our trip this year. That's all I know at this point. Please stay tuned for more information and notifications about upcoming meetings regarding our trip. That's all I have for now! Please do not forget to sign up for a conference if you would like one, and keep in mind that I'm happy to meet with you at another time the following week if none of the slots fit your schedule(s). All the very best, Parker Hi All:
We are (finally) settled into the school year and have started working on the more substantial aspects of our first round of projects. Below are some updates. Important Dates to Remember (or Pencil In)
Student Council I am very proud of the 12 members of our class who ran for officer positions on Southmoor's student council. All of them ran good, honest campaigns and represented their class and school well. Congratulations to Owen Robbins (Vice President) and Joe Poole (Treasurer) who both won their elections. Our classroom representative for this year will be Elias Dean. Congrats, Elias! AmeriTowne Our AmeriTowne interview day is coming up, and Suzy, Alice, Stacy, and becca are currently signed up to help us conduct interviews. Interviews will run from 12:30 to 3:00, or whenever we get done. Students have (for the most part) completed their resumés and cover letters, and they all look very good. I'll have them take those home next week so you can see them! At this point, we are most of the way through the personal banking component of the AmeriTowne curriculum and will be moving into governance, money management, ethics, philanthropy, and job preparation beginning next week. English Language Arts & Social Studies For their U.S.-American history projects, most students at this point have compiled around 20 sources. In addition, most have written their abstracts for their projects and organized their information into five subcategories. As we move into next week, students will be working on writing properly cited essays for each of their subtopics. They have a lot of work left to do, but I am confident they will do it well! This project has been an intentionally slow process so far, as we've painstakingly covered the various details that students will need to have in place for their final products. They've all learned a lot about research and citation, and we've also spent a lot of time reviewing some concepts from last year (namely theses) and looking over examples. My feeling is that they are all now well situated for the next step of the project, which will focus on the work of writing. At the end, in roughly three-four weeks, students will have lengthy and detailed reports on their subjects, and they will then begin presenting their learning, as teachers, to the class. All students are still where they should be with respect to their projects. Students may work on their projects at home if they choose to, but doing so is not necessary. Math Students took their first unit test this week, and -- as the first test usually does -- it provided us all opportunities for learning about the rewards of effort and the consequences of the lack thereof. I.e., some students did very well and can use their first test as an affirmation of the work they've been putting in, while others did not do very well and will use their first test as an opportunity to recalibrate. For the first test, I allowed students to decide whether or not they wanted to take their tests home to show their families. From here on out, I'll send other unit tests home in Thursday folders. Starting today, we are moving into our second unit, which is on three dimensional geometry. Throughout the year, we'll continue to fold in concepts from our first unit which pertain to advanced multiplication and division. There are still some holes related to those concepts that we need to address. In Mrs. Larson's section, "Students have completed the Ratios and Proportional Relationships unit, including understandings of unit rates, equivalent ratios, and solving problems with unit rates and percentages. The next unit will be a unit on the Number System. In this unit, students will focus on concepts including division with fractions, decimals, common factors and multiples, positive and negative numbers, absolute value, ordering numbers, and the coordinate plane." Science There are often questions about science curricula at the beginning of any year. This year, like many in the past, I am not going to start with any science units until we finish our AmeriTowne unit. Immediately after we go to AmeriTowne, we will begin with our first science unit. Though Mr. Coursey has already started with science this year, I find that there simply is not enough time in each day for our class to add that to the schedule until we are done with AmeriTowne. This may mean that students will not receive a science grade on their report cards for the first trimester, and that's okay. Parent Meetings Again, if you want to meet with me about anything, please reach out! My schedule's open, and I would like to meet with as many individuals as possible. Thank you to those of you who've already met with me or scheduled meetings. All the very best, Parker Hi All:
If you look closely in the first photo above, you'll see the glorious pages of some 1,500 books we heisted as a class from the old trailer, in the dark (because we struggled to find all the lights), and yes we did set off the burglary alarm that none of us knew about. Sorry for missing Week 3. I had a post ready to go, and then lost it because I didn't save it, but felt that Curriculum Night perhaps made up for that post's absence. Thank you to all of you who were able to make it to Curriculum Night. At the very least, I hope it provided some context for the big pieces on which I'll be updating you throughout the year. This week's updates: Important Dates to Remember (or Pencil In)
AmeriTowne If you are available to help us conduct interviews on Monday, October 1, between 12:30 and 3:00, please let me know. And, if you would like to accompany our field trip on October 25, please let me know that, too! I started this week with the Econ 101 section of the AmeriTowne curriculum, and I am giving the class extra time to work through the curriculum leading up to our field trip, mainly because the kids in our class *love* to ask questions. Seriously, we spent a whole hour on the definition of economics, and that was not my fault. This week and next, we're learning about economics, free enterprise systems, and the flows of limited resources. In the following weeks we are going to get into civics, and then the combination of both, and the kids are going to start working on constructing resumes, job applications, and interview-type question responses. (It's a lot of fun.) English Language Arts & Social Studies In ELA & SS, we are continuing on with students' projects on topics of U.S.-American history. After learning how to create Chicago MS citations for sources, use footnotes, and write sentences with footnote citations to fact sources, we are now moving deeper towards the heart of students' projects. This week, students worked on writing abstracts for their projects which will serve as overviews of the work to come, and they are quickly becoming of army of citation machines (which I could have used last year, just saying). I am very impressed with the effort and enthusiasm that they are putting into their projects. From here, they are going to begin constructing theses (plural) for subtopics of their projects, and from there they are going to create research papers that cover multiple facets of their various topics. As far as other reading goes, I have been tracking students' additions to their book lists, and they all seem to be on track with respect to early tracking expectations. Planners & Homework Some kids are doing a great job of using their planners, and others are not. When it comes right down to it, I have never used a planner in my life, and so I understand those who share my aversion. However, as I have mentioned via multiple modalities, these past couple weeks have been about understanding what it is that kids do after school. On the whole, I feel I've strengthened my sense of that. I am going to introduce some baseline expectations next week, and I'll update you on those in next week's post, or you can ask your kid(s) about them Monday afternoon. As always, if you'd like to talk to me about homework or anything else, please let me know! Snacks Snacks are going well so far. Thank you to those of you who've participated and to those of you who're signed up. Also, thank you to Stacy and Erika for reminding us, via email, of some allergies that exist in our classroom. Please check Stacy's room parent emails if you haven't caught them, and remind us all if your kid has an allergy of which we should be aware! Parent Meetings I would really love for all of us to strengthen our relationships and objectives by getting together more frequently to talk about kids and life. I have had the pleasure of holding meetings with the parents of four students so far this year, and my goal is to meet with all parents at least once before we get to parent-teacher conferences. Please volunteer yourself (and your spouse) to meet with me! If you don't . . . I am going to track you down. There're always a hundred other things I could say, but I think that's enough, for now. Thank you all, for all you do. Parker Hi All, again:
Given the events involving Jamel Myles and the Shoemaker Elementary School community last week, I want to take the time to tell you, unequivocally, that I take these events and their implications very, very seriously. As I am sure you all do, I still need some time to process what happened. That said, though, we don't always have the time we need, and I am first and foremost committed to a number of measures intentionally designed to tend to the social-emotional needs of our diverse and yet distinct group of students at Southmoor. As such, it is clear to me that this discussion needs its own space here, apart from the day-to-day-type updates of my last post. First, I am committed -- above all -- to the social-emotional and mental health of each and every one of my students, many of whom I've known for the better half of a decade. I care more about their mental health, in fact, than about anything they'll ever accomplish academically. Second, I am committed to my students' abilities to know and love themselves, and each other, for the rest of their lives. That they must have these abilities is more important to me, as their teacher, than anything else. I started the first day of the school year with a short lesson about trees. I shared with the class one of my favorite songs by Ben Howard, Depth Over Distance. The opening verse begins: Depth over distance every time, my dear And this tree of ours may grow tall in the woods But it's the roots that will bind us here To the ground Of course, I threw in a few questions about metaphors and language, but the crux of the lesson was focused on deciphering the roots of life as a means of understanding how we, as people, can grow stronger trunks and branches, and healthier leaves, full of life. If a tree's roots are not strong and deep, it cannot grow above ground to be strong and tall. And if a tree's roots are not strong and deep, it is much more susceptible to dangers that exist outside of its control. As people, like trees, our roots are our foundations for building. And also like trees, our roots themselves can be susceptible to external conditions. If there are rocks, or drought, or digging, a tree's roots may struggle to spread and grow, much like ours. Roots need space, and they need time, and they need nourishment. I asked the class to brainstorm a list of words that could label the compositions of human root systems. The list they came up with included:
If these roots can be made strong, it goes, then so can the trunks, branches, stems, and leaves that flow from them. The "above-ground" stuff -- goal achievement, academic performance, athletic performance, work quality, competency, test scores, etc. -- can only be made strong by the health of a person's roots. On the second day of school, to build on that foundation, I started with a different question, which I posed to my students: What do you need to be happy? At first, when each person composed his or her own list, students came up with a list of 166 things they need to be happy. None of the original 166 entries were wrong, per se, but some of them weren't quite right, perhaps ignoring the element of necessity that my question included. One of my favorite entries, which was entered by only one student, was "a doctor who can help me with a bunch of stuff." Another entry, which also was entered by only one student, was, "Answers to my questions: What is death like? Why do humans exist?" I had all students pick their ten top entries from the list of 166, and I assigned point values to their ordered lists. The first entry on each list earned ten points, the second earned nine, and so on. That got us down to 64 things. Then, I did that again, with the top 15 entries from the list of 64. After another round of ordering and assigning points, the class' top-ten list included the following, in order from first to tenth:
We are fortunate in the Southmoor community, most of the time, to not have to worry about our continued access to food, water, and shelter, and pets we often personify as representations of both our roots and our needs. As for all the others, the roots and the needs, those are what we are going to work on this year in my classroom, above all. The rest of the stuff will come; we can be all but assured of that. It is the roots we need to tend to and protect. Thousands of people from the LGBTQIA community, for which I am a staunch advocate, have come forward in the last week to offer for Jamel, and others like him, what he did not have in life: a network of deep roots proven to stand up against the threats that seek to take LGBTQIA lives. Jamel's roots, as with most children his age, were not fully developed yet, and they needed love and protection to grow and survive and thrive, and for that, clearly, he cannot be blamed. Adults' roots need protection and nourishment, too, but kids' need it most of all. At Southmoor, our kids are lucky to be surrounded by a large community of adult trees with thick, deep roots and flowing leaves. Kids can find good protection in them. But more importantly, in my opinion, kids must be helped to develop their roots themselves, too, so they can become the strong, thick trees that they seek to become. For kids' roots to grow, they must learn to nourish themselves; they must learn to find nourishment in others; and they must learn to provide nourishment to others. They must share water when it is needed, and sunlight, and air. My hope is not only that my kids' roots will be strong, but that they'll be so strong that one day, when they're adults, their roots will span so far and wide that young trees like Jamel's will be supported before they fall. I am going to be working closely with Jackie Person this year to design and implement curricula to nourish our kids' roots, and outside of those curricula it will be a focus of mine each and every day. In the next few weeks, in particular, Jackie and I are going to be focusing on the power of words, and how to use them kindly, and also on options for seeking individual social-emotional help if and when it is needed. Though we will not be discussing Jamel's story in class without further thought and, at the very least, parental permission, it is important for all of you to note that we are only three miles away from Shoemaker and that there is some crossover between our two schools. If you or your child need any help processing Jamel's story or dealing with any problem at home or at school, big or small, please reach out to me immediately. If I cannot offer the help you need, I have resources that can. Thank you for all you do, and for the loving support with which you provide me and your kids. It does not go unnoticed. All the very best, Parker Hi All:
We have had a great second week of school so far, and we are working ourselves back into our routines. The first few weeks of a new school year are always exhausting, for everyone, and I know all of us are feeling the exhaustion now. That said, I appreciate the work you all are doing after hours to help with the transition. I am going to try to keep this post short, but I have a few updates for you that I will list here in order of importance. Important Dates to Remember (or Pencil In)
Our New Room Parent: Stacy Kitchens! Stacy Kitchens has volunteered to be our room parent for the 2018-19 school year, and she is already off to a great start. Please look out for her emails, as they will always contain important calendar information and updates from the Southmoor PTO. Thank you for your volunteerism, Stacy! Thursday Folders Thursday folders went home for the first time today, and I realized today that there are a number of kids who kept their folders from last year and did not return them to school. If you or your kid(s) have or find a purple Thursday folder at home, can you please send it back so we can use it this year? Some of them are assuredly lost, I know, but will use all we can find. Planners We are going to start using our new planners next week. If you have not yet sent in $5 for a planner, please do so. The money for planners is fronted by the fifth grade budget which we will use to purchase necessary supplies throughout the year. The $5 you send in for planners is greatly appreciated, as that money frees up budget space so that the fifth grade team can buy other things as needed. English Language Arts & Social Studies We have begun working on narratives this year, and that work, like last year, will continue throughout the year. I love starting the year with narratives and a bit of foundational work to allow for students to build up some stamina after the summer months, and throughout the year students can and do continue the work as time allows. I encourage students to share their narratives with family members, and if you need any help with the sharing process, please let me know. In addition, this year we are going to be moving early into evidence-based writing and research, and we started the foundational work for that at the end of last week. For our first unit, students are going to be working on individual research projects on topics of their choice that relate to U.S.-American history of the last 400 years. As I mentioned last week, much of our English language arts instruction this year will tie in with social studies content, nonfiction texts, and, specifically, U.S.-American history. Last week we worked together to construct a timeline of major events between 1492 and 2018, and this week students selected their research topics and began preliminary research. To aid the process along and support the work we will soon be doing as a class, I began teaching citation methods this week. Though there are simpler methods of citation that are often used in the elementary grades, I decided to go all-in and began teaching the basics of the 17th Edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, which is one of the most widely useful methodologies of citation. Students began practicing basic CMS methods this week, and they will soon be using those methods to cite evidence in their written work. The process is going to take some practice, but I am confident that they'll pick it up. Students are going to be working on their history projects for the next 4-6 weeks, and I'll post more information about the specifics of those projects in the next week or two. For now, all students are right where they should be. Math For the first two weeks of math, we have begun with what has largely been a review of last year's content and methodologies. From here, we will begin building upon students' mathematical understanding with new themes and methods for solving complex problems (not, so much, computations). For the first few weeks, we have heavily focused on expectations for problem solving, paying attention to details, and relying on competencies when solving unforeseen problem presentations. We've reviewed multi-digit multiplication and methods for solving such problems; the order of operations; and mathematical language. Starting next week, we'll begin delving into pre-algebra, fractions and ratios, and the explanation of reasoning. Mrs. Larson (the sixth grade math teacher) and I are going to be using similar teaching methods this year, and we will hold similar expectations. Mrs. Larson will be present at my Curriculum Night presentation(s), for those of you who are interested in hearing from and meeting her, and she will also be providing me with unit-driven updates that I will post here. Homework With the introduction of planners next week, I will begin holding students accountable for tracking their after school activities. I will review options for homework with the class, and I am happy to speak with any of you about homework options so that we can align ourselves in our approaches and expectations. Please, please reach out to me if you would like to talk homework. I am not tied to any one approach in particular, and I would like to work with students and families to find options that can work for all. Snacks Thank you to those of you who have signed up for a snack week! The kids appreciate the extra calories (and break) during the afternoon hours, and I appreciate your generosity in helping us to ensure that all of our brains are fully functioning, especially in the August heat. As always, please reach out to me if you have any questions or if you would like to talk. My door is always open to you! (Sometimes it's locked, I guess, but if you knock, I'll open it.) All my very best, Parker |
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April 2019
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