This week’s post is illustrated by our class photographers, Katie and Max.

Thank you again to families for speaking with your children about choices and behavior. Thank you for helping your child to do his or her best and encouraging best effort right through our last day. We are so happy to have the sun with us at the end of the week. That changes everything. We can have recess and the opportunity to be loud. Those opportunities help 3E meet with success. But also, thank goodness for cool rain that helped us focus on school rather than longing for summer.

Portfolio Building

This week much of our time has been spent organizing saved work and building our portfolios. We’ve been exploring our accomplishments and looking at where we we’ve been. In the past we’ve used EdCube to create digital portfolios. This year, that software could no longer support the requirements (written by someone who know just a little about bandwidth, platforms and compatibility) for uploading quality images and video. We are back to binders, pencils and paper – that doesn’t fit every learner, and yet as they kids sort through their work they are making some great discoveries.

With each new section we’ve spent some time discussing and listing the habits needed to meet with success in each area. I love how they word things like “notice one little thing and improve that” or “make sure it’s mostly smooth, but with a few bumps” or “if you don’t have to stop and look up, it’s too easy.” It is great that as a class they are willing to look for a challenge.

There is a real sense of pride as they stop to realize how they have grown and changed. They have grown as readers, writers, mathematician and researchers. They’ve explored science and social studies. They are aware of choices and habits that lead to success for both themselves and others. It has been interesting to see which children are able to independently follow directions to complete the task and which children need step-by-step guidance. It is also interesting to see which children meet the minimum and which children are looking to capture and share more of their year.

We’ve done a lot.

Continuing to Explore Fractions

We’ve continued to explore fractions, solve a variety of problems and play games that help up practice basic facts. Math in the middle of the day has a calming effect on our class. Most seem to like the challenge of completing many different problems. We’ve been working through an end-of-year assessment for a few weeks that will be passed to the 4^th grade teachers. It is very interesting to see how the children work through such a wide variety of problems. They know its okay to skip what we’ve note been able to fit into our year, but most of the kids are willing to give those challenges a try. They’ve had fun working to build graphs and read tables and charts. They’ve seen them as puzzles to manipulate and work through. What great learning habits to have.

Bits and Pieces – 

• We’re nearly finished with Maxi’s Secret, and will certainly finish it next week. It is a story that captures our imagination and our hearts.
• Fable Falls by 3E is finally ready for publication!
• And our “Kindness Rocks!”project is nearly completed as well.

We are looking forward to seeing you next week for our Student-Led conferences.