We spent quite a bit of time on these two subjects this week. We covered the first four references in their Shurley folders. All four added up to one idea: Being successful begins with organization. Here are the 4 topics:
1. Study skills- get organized, listen, plan your time, and do your homework
2. Beginning set-up plan for school: A plan to keep things in order.
3. Study plan for school: Check this plan every day!
4. Study plan for home: Stick to this plan every evening!
We worked in cooperative groups to study all 4 sections. Each group was assigned a section to read and become the experts. They were then given the task of "teaching" their section to the rest of the class. They were required to make a visual with chart paper, but then they had to decide as a group as to how they would present the information to the class in a 5-7 minute time frame.
I learned so much about them through this process. Who are the leaders, team players, creative students, thinkers, poets, time managers, confident presenters, and artists (I'll post some of their visuals soon)? I also noticed the weaknesses, which we won't mention or dwell upon.
On Friday, they were asked to set three personal goals for themselves. In one paragraph, they were to write which goals they chose and why. Some have not finished this, but will on Monday at the beginning of class.
At home: Please ask your child what his/her goals are and how you can support him/her. They need to know that their goals are important to you, and that YOU are willing to help. If I can get them to feel successful, then they may start setting little goals along the way and build some powerful intrinsic motivation.
Lastly, we went to the lab to take the pre-test on Friday. This 100 question quiz was given on the Internet in a program called Quia. Now I have some powerful data that will tell me exactly what I need to focus on for the rest of the year. For example, I know they need instruction on adverbs, adjectives, compound sentences, and categorizing pronouns. Their strengths include Homonyms, verbs tenses, and punctuation. For you mathematically inclined parents, here are more stats:
Overall Summary for 109 students:
Points Possible 100
Low Score 7
High Score 81
Mean 45.138
Median 45
I'm constantly assessing and reassessing their strengths and weaknesses. The fact that they came to 6th grade knowing 45% of what I was planning to teach, tells me I'm going to have to up my game this year! 5th grade teachers have prepared them well.
Speaking of setting goals, I think I'll go do that now.
Sneak peak at next week:
Jingles: sentence, noun, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
End mark flow
Classifying sentences
