Kiker's Strength-Based Learning Cohort

As another busy week comes to a close, we've got to give credit to our SBLC Shooting Stars...your effort has been out of this world! In project, we've had a variety of things going - a great visit from the new counselor, Ms. Ward, we shared our fabulous and different ways we completed monthly homework, and enjoyed another cozy Breakfast and the Paper! We began exploring a wonderful book about becoming a problem solver --  Two  by Kathryn Otoshi. In reading and language arts, we've been closely examining the structure of fiction. Third Grade is getting to know Catherine, a thoughtful yet frustrated girl...we are creating theories about her struggles and watching our signposts for ways to hone our predictions and revise our thoughts about her struggle. Like Third, Fourth Grade is using signposts with their character, Valli.We are delving deep with her, learning not only about her personal struggle, but also about the plight of any in villages of India. ...

Wow! We just completed our first nine weeks. Looking back to our first few moments together feels like just yesterday...we've been traveling at light speed! In science, we completed our properties of matter unit with some fun review prior to our assessment. To deepen our understanding, we created tables to classify properties specific to the three main states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. We also applied what we knew about matter to develop our own games! We created Matter Mad Libs, Matter Matching Card Games, and a Matter "I Spy".  In reading and language arts, we have been delving deep into analysis and synthesis! We have had such high level discussion of poetry from Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea . It's caused us to think and use inference to see that there are surface understandings which are more literal, but also an underlying understanding that makes BIG statements on the world. We are now prepared to start Mountai...

Second: Third: Fourth:

Here's a great opportunity for us to practice some situations where we need to make empathetic decisions: coolschoolgame.com Take some time to explore and leave a comment!

We've been hard at work wrapping up our eighth week! Second Grade has been hard at work with Summarizing, Main Idea, and Inference. We read some wonderful books on acceptance called Yoko  and The Invisible Boy.  We are learning to use the text to give us clues for not only envisioning what is happening, but to also help us figure out meanings of unknown words and inferential ideas. We completed Love That Dog in Third Grade -- a wonderful journey watching the character, Jack, unfold as a writer. We have been using annotations -- AKA margin notes -- to show our thinking, questions, and deepen our understanding of the author's purpose. Fourth Grade also finished Hate That Cat (which Third Grade is clamoring to read next),, and completed a thorough analysis from both the perspective of a reader and a writer. In writing, we are building our drafts and learning about revision, specifically how revising takes work and the help of others. We will be forming writing groups soon, ...

Please explore the sites below to further your understanding of matter! http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/Graduate/TI/pages/LEWIS/matterweb.htm http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/science/materials/material_properties/play/ Interested in the fourth and fifth state of matter? Check this out: http://www.chem4kids.com/files/matter_intro.html

This sixth week has flown by just as quickly as the previous five. October is here and we're in full swing!  We culminated our Mars Rover Project by building and sharing our models with our homeroom classmates. These projects definitely generated excitement and provided some excellent opportunities to practice our 21st century skills: Communication and collaboration, creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving... flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills... productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility, and media/technology literacy. We also had an opportunity to reflect (a common occurrence in the SBLC, as you may have noticed) about what worked well, what challenged us, and how we can apply it to future experiences. Did we mention it was fun?!? :) We deepened our understanding of patriotism in social studies. By anal...