Good Afternoon Dynamic Team!
Upcoming Events: Incoming Hixson Parent Orientation – February 5th, 7 – 9 p.m.
Explo Two and Term Four ends February 14th
PD Day, No Student Attendance – February 15th
Presidents’ Day – No School – February 18th
Important Information:
English –
February 1, 2013
This week Dynamic students began a thematic unit that will weave reading and writing of fiction, non-fiction and prose. The theme of the unit is Perseverance. We began the unit with listening and reading along with a short story by Mildred Taylor, “Song of the Trees.”
Before the second reading of the story, students watched a presentation that introduced the Cornell note taking system. Next, students worked with a partner for a second reading of the story and discuss what information to include in the notes. A template for the Cornell note taking system is available on The Dynamic English group on Edmodo (group code mtic65) as well as the presentation students watched and additional YouTube videos explaining the system.
Singing, laughter, dancing and cardio! Each English class begins with 1-3 minutes of dance aerobics or stretch. The students and I are enjoying this new routine, and it is building and strengthening our community.
According to an interview in TIME Magazine, Dr. Robert Murray, a pediatrician and professor of human nutrition at the Ohio State University, says, "Children need to have downtime between complex cognitive challenges... They tend to be less able to process information the longer they are held to a task. It's not enough to just switch from math to English. You actually have to take a break."
Overall, I’m seeing a calmer more positive classroom environment as a result of this change in our routine. Students are enthusiastic and some have even shared with me how much they appreciate this time.
For daily updates, classroom resources and enrichment, join us on Edmodo.
Susan Artkras – artkras.susan@wgmail.org
Math –
Wilma Slaughter – slaughter.wilma@wgmail.org
This week we finished the assessments on the (Stretching & Shrinking) unit. Next week we will start the new unit (Comparing and Scaling) that is about Percents, Proportion, and Ratios. I’m so pleased with the progress Dynamic’s students have made this year. For the next two months, students will be assigned a little more homework so they will be prepared for the MAP test (in April). Thank you so much for your support.
Science –
In Dynamic Science this week the students completed for the third time the Weather Unit formative quiz. This is a Quia online quiz (www.quia.com/web) which covers the concepts of the entire weather unit. They will take the quiz in class about once a week so they can see how they are doing with their understanding of the concepts. Please ask your student how they improved on the QUIA quiz today. The students may log in anytime they want to take the quiz as often as they want to check themselves.
This week the students explored global convection currents of the oceans and atmosphere, humidity, and dew point. Recording and graphing the daily temperature and barometric pressure is very positive experience to help the students understand the relationship.
The links for the course websites are listed below.
Course Websites:
If you have any questions or comments please let me know
314-918-4603
Social Studies –
Students have been focused on the Golden Age of Athens and the contributions of ancient Greece to Western Civilization. We explored the many ways in which we as a civilization have been affected by the Greeks. We spent some quality time with Aristotle’s Politics (looking at the advantages of checks and balances in governments), Plato’s world of Forms, Hippocrates, and Archimedes. Students received a vocabulary activity which was due Friday. On Friday we looked at Amazon Women, which is another in our series of “How do we know what we know?” activities. Next week, students will have a very brief test on Greek art on Tuesday and we will begin to wrap up Greece. Then it is on to Rome.
I am available for after school help every Thursday until 4:00 p.m.
The links for the course websites are listed below.
Course Websites:
314-918-4602
| Please visit the following links for more information: Hixson home page - http://schools.webster.k12.mo.us/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectionid=7 Dr. Heisserer's blog - http://hixsonprincipal.wordpress.com/ |
No comments:
Post a Comment