Kiker's Strength-Based Learning Cohort

It's been a busy week wrapping up our Mars Rover 2020 work! We've found that learning about Mars and NASA's mission has led us to a better understanding of our own planet, too. Our next project has us revitalizing the keyhole gardens around campus, so we'll explore much closer to home. SBLC mathematicians are continuing to develop an understanding of multiplication and division. We've created arrays of all sizes and are becoming experts at representing these two operations with a variety of representations. We're also considering that counting by fives is a great strategy for a problem like 5 x 9, but that we also need strategies that work for bigger numbers. For the 9s, we like that we can "overshoot" the number and multiply by 10, then take away 5. We can represent this in a multistep equation as (5 x 10) - 5 = 45. Since 10 is such a compatible number, we also use it to help with the multiples of 5. You can ask your SBLC mathematician about multipl...

Happy Friday! Your child has their First Quarter report card in their Take Home section of their red folder. We wanted to touch base on a few points. First off, 3rd Grade has letter grades for the first time. It is an adjustment! The kids have really been working hard on developing and maintaining a growth mindset about themselves and their learning. They know it's a process...one that they are always getting better at, and that it takes time. We know grades are a type of marking, but they DO NOT define your child as a learner. Keep in mind the student reflections, their evidence of quality work, and the teacher/student report on where they are in the process of mastering the standards. We strive for the deep understanding where they know concepts so well that they can not just show, but explain, their learning and processes. Your child knows that their locus of control is their effort in ALL the parts of learning -- engagement, listening, accuracy, questioning, and repea...

We have really enjoyed with meeting with all of our family units this past week! 45 meetings is a lot, and it does take time, but we truly value both teachers getting that time to sit down with each of you. Thanks too, for your work last weekend going through the notebooks! Know that your child can bring them home to review with you anytime -- just make sure they return them the very next day. We work with the notebooks every day. Thursday night, your child brought home a permission slip to join NASA's Name the Rover Contest. We are endeavoring to write our first polished expository piece through this opportunity. If you don't give permission, no problem -- they will write the same piece, I just won't enter them in the contest. It's a perfect way to show them in an authentic, motivational way how to write to a prompt, choose a central idea, and explain with examples (in 150 words or less -- they'll have to be precise!). In reading, we are researching through n...

We have spent this week taking time to look back at all the learning, process, and growing we have done. The kids have looked through all of their notebooks and reviewed work products, work habits, and rubrics. Reading, writing, math, and word work notebooks all came home today. We talked to students about their responsibility in this. They need to set up or ask you for a specific time that works for you to review their work. Sit side by side and go through each notebook. They will be able to talk you through each activity and what it means. There is a reflection sheet -- one for math and one for ELA -- for you to fill out and return. As you go through, remember the questions/approach we talked about at Back to School Night. In addition, keep in mind that the kids definitely have a growth mindset and are already setting goals in areas they know are wanting to get better at. In reading, we definitely have a solid theory of Red's struggle. Now we are using each piece to make sens...

Our morning message today challenged us to think back over the past 7 weeks. We've been developing some new, positive habits, and we reflected on that. "I am completing my Learning Habits," "I'm taking mindful breaths before I act," "I'm not rushing and going back to check to make sure my work is complete," were just a few comments. SO exciting! In reading, our journey with Red has brought us to the point where we are able to identify the STRUGGLE Red has, and how each event, or problem, ties into it. MAN! Good stuff. It really helps bring the whole book together, especially now that we are moving into learning how to summarize text in our own words. We will find that we don't have to retell everything...it all fits together as a whole. We are expanding the depth of exploring specific quotes and seeing the power when we pause and think. In writing, we are beginning a new descriptive technique called "Come To..." which has us u...

We are curious! Curious, inquisitive, watchful, observant... We've been exploring words in our spelling and vocabulary study to expand our understanding of how curiosity drives our learning! In reading, we've dug deeper into the character and setting of Wishtree . We've discovered the importance of STOPPING, pausing, and noticing what we've read. Taking the time to think, theorize, and process is going to make the difference between a surface "it was a good book" to a passionate "WOW! There's so much I want to tell you about this book!" Our writing has taken a new, much improved, slant. We are working to make the focus of the piece not an event -- where writing becomes a list of things done -- to focus on the character. They are learning to show a change, a trait, or something significant about the PERSON. That's the real story. We are revising and editing along the way! We wrapped up our place value unit this week, although we continu...

This week things have been rolling along, and we are now getting into a natural rhythm with our schedule. Readers have been investing in their character Red, in Katherine Applegate's latest novel, Wishtree.  They have been learning about the power of really slowing down and looking at ALL parts of the beginnings of books -- the blurb, the dedication, pictures, poems -- all are crucial parts, and all is done ON PURPOSE by the author. Good readers pay attention to all of that. Red has deemed us trustworthy of an important story, and we are on pins and needles to find out what it is (plus we feel a high responsibility to pay attention and be worthy of this great honor 💓 ). In writing and word work, we have been exploring the power of how sentences are crafted. It's not just about having a capital at the beginning and a punctuation mark at the end. It's also having a subject, a predicate, and organizing all the words to have the impact we desire on the reader. We have work...