Today’s ETC shoe building challenge was a blast! Check out the Google Slides presentation from class and ask your child to share more details about our teamwork rubric and blogging checklist.
Some skills practiced in class today:
adaptability
creativity
collaboration
prioritizing
interactive communication
and even more!!
We are loving watching your children grow in ETC and observing the carry over of skills into core content classes!
Gev. Kimmel, McAdams and Noorlander
As we entered the revision stage of the writing process this week, I had the privilege of conferring one-on-one with each of your children. I was impressed by how receptive each child was to receive feed-forward as we talked through his/her writing and referred back to the characteristics and expectations for personal narratives.
As we read together, I left annotations for your child to refer back to as he/she works through his/her revisions. We had important conversations about how important it is to leave those comments there so we can look back and see how much the narrative has grown and changed through the entire writing process. Not one child moaned or groaned. Not one student complained about having to go back and make changes. Rather, the kids showed excitement and eagerness to go back to drafting to grow their piece of writing.
I can say that in 11 years of teaching at MJDS this has not always been the case. I am SO proud of your children for embracing our “FAIL” mentality this year that has encouraged them to embrace risks and to always look for growth opportunities- even if it means multiple drafts and really hard work!
The next few class periods will focus on using punctuation around quotations, including showing not telling details, and paragraphing.
I encourage you to ask your child to share his/her writing with you. Remember, these pieces are a work in progress and that we often only choose one or two areas to revise before moving on to editing. I am never looking for perfection, only growth over time!
Early dismissal has been shortened to accommodate working families and allow for more teaching time, while still allowing families and staff members to prepare for Shabbat during shorter daylight hours. Starting today school ends at 2 p.m., every Friday through February 22. Please make child care arrangements.
MJDS student-led conferences (SLC) are on Tuesday, Nov. 6, and Wednesday, Nov. 7. School will be dismissed at noon on Tuesday, Nov. 6, and there will be no school on Wednesday, Nov. 7.
We ask that first through eighth grade students accompany their parents, as they will lead their conferences. To alleviate long wait times, sixth and eighth grade SLC’s will be held only on Tuesday, and fifth and seventh grade SLC’s will be held only on Wednesday.
We use Google Appointment Slots for parents to sign up for all grade levels. A Gmail account is required to use the program. If you do not have a gmail account and choose not to create one, you may use your child’s MJDS gmail account or contact your child’s teacher. Please use the following links while logged into your Google account:
Starting November 1, MJDS will be offering an after school study hall for grades 3-8. The study hall will be 3:30-4:40 every Tuesday and Thursday in the office conference room. This is a great opportunity for your child to catch up on homework in a quiet, structured environment. I encourage 5th graders to take advantage of this productive time after school.
I loved watching your children go through a peer revision process in class today. Using kind, specific and helpful feedforward (feedback that helps you move forward in your work) and an expectation checklist, students worked in pairs to read each other’s writing and offer suggestions on how to enhance the quality of his/her work. I was impressed by how seriously they took on this task, really utilizing their resources and thinking about the characteristics of personal narratives we have discussed. This was our first time trying out peer revision and it could not have gone more smoothly! The next step will be to revise with me and then move on to editing! Stay tuned for published work soon!
Today’s ETC class was all about growing our expectations for the quality of work we are producing on the blogs. Blog posts in ETC are an incredible way for students to document their process, learning, and thinking. The idea is that this type of thinking and learning will carry into their other classes.
While we do not expect your children to be perfect, we do expect them to put forth their best effort on all assignments and to show growth through feedback and experience. Today we passed out a variety of samples of student work. We asked the students to evaluate the work- was it meeting expectations, approaching or not yet? Not surprisingly, the students were spot on with their observations and feedback. They recognized the characteristics of work that was meeting expectations and just as important, they were able to recognize what was missing from the “not yet” work.
We shared a blog expectation checklist with the students that, moving forward, should be referenced by all students before publishing work. This checklist will eventually expand and possibly grow into a rubric. We explained that at this point we are looking for growth. We understand that the type of thinking we are asking them to do and document is new and complex. We will continue to provide feedback and also have opportunities for peer feedback. The expectation is that the quality of their work will slowly increase to meet fifth and sixth grade expectations.
As always, please feel free to leave comments and feedback on your child’s posts. We hope you’ll start to see a shift in the quality of their work as we move forward!
Gev. Kimmel, Gev. McAdams & Gev. Noorlander
Quick reminder- 5th Grade community service hours are due on November 12. Students are required to complete two hours each quarter. In addition, these hours need to be logged using this form. Thank you for your support in helping your child fulfill these hours! If you have any questions, please contact Gev. Honigman, jhonigman@mjds.org.
Teaching ETC has never been more fun! This week we continued focusing on creating and testing out our teamwork rubric. While we focused on communication last week, this week we shifted our focus on planning/organization and participation. Team challenges were designed for students to s-l-o-w down, create plans, design sketches and prototypes, and develop their communication and participation skills. We were so proud of your kiddos as we watched them work together smoothly, following the rubric they helped create and working in a way that aligned to our core values.
We had great discussions about how the paper chain and paper cup challenges allowed us to be a bit competitive and have fun while problem solving. The best part was that students recognized the real purpose- learning how to work with others when faced with a challenge.
Please take a look at student designed rubric and photos from our fun class sessions!
🙂 Gev. Kimmel, Gev. McAdams & Gev. Noorlander
The last couple of weeks have been all about setting up expectations for writer’s workshop- including starting our writer’s notebooks, reviewing the writing process, and thinking about ourselves as writers. This week we jumped full swing into personal narratives that we hope to publish around the time of conferences. We learned about choosing small moments- seed stories, over larger, watermelon stories. We read several mentor texts that demonstrated incredible writing and taught us about the characteristics of personal narratives. The class committed to subjects and started drafting today! I can’t wait to watch their writing expand and grow through this writing process, stay tuned!
As always, please ask your child to fill you in on more specific details from class. I’ve included pictures of our anchor charts below so you can see first hand the ideas/topics we’ve been discussing and practicing in class.
