ARMS for Revision

Have you ever heard of using ARMS for revision? Today we talked about the next step in our writing process journey, revision.  We used the acronym ARMS to help guide peer feedback as we revised our first drafts.
Image result for arms for revision I started class by reading one of my daughter’s favorite books, Pout Pout Fish. At first, the class questioned why I was reading them a book that I also read to my almost 2 year old. They quickly realized that the author did an amazing job of including vivid language and colorful details. Instead of describing the main character as a blue fish with a frown, the author called the fish a kaleidoscope of mope with an ever present pout. She went on to use words like scowl, grimace, impolite, and sulking. The kids were impressed by the author’s ability to take boring ideas and words and turn them into colorful, interesting phrases and ideas.

Image result for pout pout fish

 

We discussed the idea of revising- the act of adding, removing, moving or substituting words, ideas and thoughts to improve our writing or make it more interesting to readers. The kids were eager to dive into their own writing and start revising. Everyone broke out highlighters and pencils and immediately got to work! I was most impressed by the questioning I heard between partners and the empathy shown when making/receiving suggestions. Many students embraced the fact that their first draft was just that- a first attempt and they were excited to make changes and get more feed-forward.

The next step is to type their second drafts before revising again next week. I can’t wait to see and share how their writing evolves over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Please Sign up for Conferences!

As a reminder….

You may now sign up for MJDS conferences at https://www.ptcfast.com/schools/Milwaukee_Jewish_Day_School. A code is not required to enter this year. NEW THIS YEAR, first through eighth grade students are required to attend their conference with their parents. School is dismissed at 2 p.m., on Tuesday, Nov. 7., and conferences will begin at 5 p.m. There is no school on Wednesday, Nov. 8, and conferences begin at 3 p.m. CHANGE: Junior kindergarten through fourth grade conferences are held in classrooms, while fifth through eighth grade conferences, with all specialty and Hebrew/Jewish studies conference, are held in the Zilber Field House. For more information, contact Michaela Peck, mpeck@mjds.org.

Many of you have already signed up, thank you!

MJDS EdTalk- Please Join Us!

MJDS ED Talk: Helping Children & Families Navigate a World of Complex Information

 Presented by Alan November

JOIN US!

Wednesday, Oct. 25

7-8:30 p.m.

@MJDS

Parents and educators will discover the importance of children acquiring 21st century skills. Attendees will walk away understanding how to:

  • Distinguish fact from fiction
  • Implement sophisticated search strategies to get the best results
  • Navigate new tools to support digital learning at home
  • Interpret breakthrough ideas in teaching and learning

ABOUT ALAN

Alan November is an international leader in education technology. Alan was named one of the nation’s fifteen most influential thinkers of the decade by Tech & Learningmagazine. His writing includes numerous articles and best-selling books. Alan’s most recent book Who Owns the Learning? is on the New York Times education best sellers list for 2013. Alan was co-founder of the Stanford Institute for Educational Leadership Through Technology and is most proud of being selected as one of the original five national Christa McAuliffe Educators.

Each summer Alan leads the Building Learning Communities summer conference with world-class presenters and educators from more than 25 countries.

Quiz on Monday

Good Morning! Your children completed study guides in class this week to help them study for their first social studies quiz of the year. We spent the week reviewing basic map skills and different types of maps. In addition to the study guide, it may be helpful to look back at our previous work to prepare for the quiz. This was discussed in class and the kids wrote reminders in their assignment notebooks to study. They also need to complete rough drafts of their personal timelines for Monday. 

Next week we will move onto timelines and the concept of elapsed time before diving into Ancient Egypt. 

As always, please let me know if you have any questions and/or concerns! 

Sarah Chudnow- Second Visit

We had another successful trip to Sarah Chudnow! I wanted to share an e-mail from the director, who provided us with some feedback from the trip:

I thought the program went quite well. Your students  definitely brought  smiles to our seniors’ faces. The feedback from the residents was very positive. I asked them to describe their experience in 3 words. They responded with fun, happiness, love, wonderful, interesting and makes me young. Their comments about the children included that they were respectful and well-behaved. Residents said they would not change anything.

Let me know if there is anything you will need for the next visit. I will remind staff to put the wastebasket close to the area where we do the activity.

Thank you again!


This trip the kids prepared interview questions to ask the residents with the hope of getting to know them and their stories. They also brought along board games to play with the residents. We were happily surprised to have about 15 residents join us!

 

  


We have started planning for our third trip which we hope will include a tour of the facility as well as an opportunity to learn more from the people who work with the residents. In addition, I asked the students to reflect on our 2nd visit by answering two questions in the comment section of this blog post: 

1: What went well?

2: Was there something you would have changed? Why? 


We will visit Sarah Chudnow again on October 30th! 

 

Reading Responses and Reader’s Notebook Expectations

Today we continued to learn routine, procedure and expectations for Reader’s Workshop. The work we did today is crucial to our continued success as we move forward in our units of study. We focused on our notebook expectations and examined the grading rubric that we will use in class.

 

 

Throughout the year I will ask your child to self-assess using the rubric to monitor his/her growth in class. I explained that the most important component of the rubric is the section on reading response. In addition to conferring with your children during independent and guided reading, reading responses allow me to see what reading comprehension strategies your child s using on his/her own. Over the course of the year we will learn about different ways to respond to reading–writing, pictures, graphs, diagrams, etc.. Today we focused on a three step procedure that will allow students to ease into writing deep, thoughtful responses.

For homework, I have asked your children to do 10-15 minutes of reading at home and respond to this blog post using our three step system.  They can check our Google Classroom portal to see the handout provided in class.

 I am looking forward to reading their responses!

 

Chag Sameach!

Chag Sameach! I hope you have a meaningful few days with your families. I am looking forward to seeing your kiddos next week for a full week of school!!

Enjoy these pictures from our fun activity today–making edible sukkahs! I hope they shared their tasty creations!

 

Writer’s Workshop Update

Dear Parents,

I am very excited to begin our work in writing workshop this year! This will be a time when students take part in writing lessons and, most importantly, write independently. I will provide explicit instruction on the various stages of the writing process. At each stage we will be looking at great models of writing by authors who will serve as mentors. Students will be encouraged to take risks as they develop their own individual writing styles and become part of a writing community that shares ideas and learns from one another.

Today we launched another exciting component of writer’s workshop–our very own writer’s notebooks! This is where we will generate our ideas, draft, edit and revise. Final work will be published with the assistance of our chrome books! We spent time in class going over class expectations and decorating our notebook covers to inspire our writing. Writer’s notebooks may travel home from time to time, but it is crucial that they come back to school each day. We will be doing a lot of peer editing throughout the entire writing process and at times, I may ask you to read through your child’s drafts.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you for your help with what is sure to be an exciting writing adventure!

What Is a Writer’s Notebook_ – Appendix-1k4xc41 Writing Workshop Expectations – Appendix-1dtutww

First Visit to Sarah Chudnow

Today we took the first of four visits to Sarah Chudnow. These visits are in connection to our first quarter ETC class. Each of the upper school grades were asked to focus on Tikkun Olam throughout the first quarter in ETC. Seventh grade has been diligently working on building the MJDS Sukkah. Eighth grade has been planning and collaborating with kindergarten to coordinate the most perfect Kabbalat Torah program. The 5th and 6th graders took on a special project–to focus on Tikkun Olam with an emphasis on senior citizens.

The last few weeks have been full of intense planning. The kids ended up deciding to break into four small groups. Each group focused on a different activity for our 1st visit. One group planned a holiday bingo game, another practiced holiday songs, the third group mastered magic tricks and the last group made holiday cards and sukkah decorations.

Our hard work paid off as each of the residents had a giant grin plastered across his/her face. We made a difference and had fun while doing it!

We have 3 more visits planned for October 16, October 30 and November 2. They are eager and ready for us to return!

 

 

82BCFB64-C087-4F32-B5E2-548813C46459-1i23h (video of singing)