Science
Congratulations to every seventh grade student on an amazing job on the Green Home Project! We loved the commitment of each student to the project. Every student surpassed our expectations of what Mrs. VonCanon and I envisioned when we created this project during the summer months. The dedication and hard work were evident in the cumulative projects and the presentations your children created. We hope you were as WOWED by your children as we were!
Laurie Dennis of the Davidson News attended our Green Home Expo, please read below what her impressions were of your children.
Your students were wonderful – polite, informative, knowledgeable. Wow! I learned something from every student I talked to. Now I need to build a whole new house, with bamboo flooring, triple-paned windows, mini wind turbines, etc! I will write an item about this in Wednesday’s school notes. Thank you again for the invitation!
-laurie
http://www.davidsonnews.net/
The Amazing Egg Drop began our new unit of Force and Motion. We created three parachutes of different sizes. The three parachutes were attached to an egg and dropped from a 10 foot ladder. Your children had a wonderful time! I heard many times that this was the best experiment yet!! This made my heart smile! The purpose of this activity was not to have mass destruction of the incredible edible egg, but to become exposed to gravity and air resistance. I want your children to become so excited about why the egg did or did not break that they are curious. If your children are curious, they will learn all the necessary vocabulary and apply Newton's Laws of Motion with ease! Cool experiments and concrete science concepts will be forthcoming!
Math
This week was all about reflection and assessment. Although the external busyness of the classroom activities settled a bit, the internal and intellectual busyness of high order thinking continued. Marilee Sprenger, renowned teacher and researcher of brain-based learning, states, “Reflection is not a luxury; it is a necessity.” Too often, we become so entrenched in looking ahead to ‘
What’s next?’ that we forget to take the time to look back and ask ourselves, ‘What just happened?’ and more importantly, ‘Why?’. The whole point of project-based learning is for students to grow not just in knowledge of content matter, but to grow personally, socially, and emotionally as well. Reflection time is crucial for students to put together all the pieces of this complex puzzle. So on Monday, the students took some quiet time to reflect on the following:
Teamwork/Process:
1. What do you consider to be your strength? (leadership, explaining ideas without conflict, listening to others’ ideas, accepting, compromising, looking for the best in other people,)
2. What is your weakness? (not listening, not compromising, finding fault with others, arguing, being off-task, )
3. What is one challenge you had with teamwork, and how did you resolve it?
4. What would your teammates say about you to others?
5. “You always have to bring something to the table.” (Dr. Randy Pausch) What does this quotation mean to you?
6. How does working collaboratively help you to achieve your goals more effectively?
Product/Presentation:
1. Why were you proud of your Green Home? (effort, research, aesthetics, scientific and mathematic concepts learned)
2. What would you have done differently? (time management, materials, size, etc)
3. What was one positive aspect of your oral presentation? What is something you would like to improve?
Following the writing activity (which can be found in the students’ Problem-Solving and Reflection Daybooks), we held a round table discussion where students offered comments about what they learned about themselves as a result of this project. As much as we’d love to take time to conference with each individual student on his/her thoughts, that’s just not possible. However, Mrs. Smith and I encourage you to have these discussions with your child at home. We like to think that we are teaching your child so much more than math and science, and we would love for you to stimulate your child’s growth by engaging him/her in a conversation based on the questions above. As Albert Einstein said, “The important thing is to not stop questioning.”
This week your child also took a cumulative assessment based on all of the learning objectives contained in the Green Home Design Unit. These assessments will be returned to the students this week with specific feedback for further growth and development. Details to come via email in the near future…..
Congratulations to every seventh grade student on an amazing job on the Green Home Project! We loved the commitment of each student to the project. Every student surpassed our expectations of what Mrs. VonCanon and I envisioned when we created this project during the summer months. The dedication and hard work were evident in the cumulative projects and the presentations your children created. We hope you were as WOWED by your children as we were!
Laurie Dennis of the Davidson News attended our Green Home Expo, please read below what her impressions were of your children.
Your students were wonderful – polite, informative, knowledgeable. Wow! I learned something from every student I talked to. Now I need to build a whole new house, with bamboo flooring, triple-paned windows, mini wind turbines, etc! I will write an item about this in Wednesday’s school notes. Thank you again for the invitation!
-laurie
http://www.davidsonnews.net/
The Amazing Egg Drop began our new unit of Force and Motion. We created three parachutes of different sizes. The three parachutes were attached to an egg and dropped from a 10 foot ladder. Your children had a wonderful time! I heard many times that this was the best experiment yet!! This made my heart smile! The purpose of this activity was not to have mass destruction of the incredible edible egg, but to become exposed to gravity and air resistance. I want your children to become so excited about why the egg did or did not break that they are curious. If your children are curious, they will learn all the necessary vocabulary and apply Newton's Laws of Motion with ease! Cool experiments and concrete science concepts will be forthcoming!
Math
This week was all about reflection and assessment. Although the external busyness of the classroom activities settled a bit, the internal and intellectual busyness of high order thinking continued. Marilee Sprenger, renowned teacher and researcher of brain-based learning, states, “Reflection is not a luxury; it is a necessity.” Too often, we become so entrenched in looking ahead to ‘
What’s next?’ that we forget to take the time to look back and ask ourselves, ‘What just happened?’ and more importantly, ‘Why?’. The whole point of project-based learning is for students to grow not just in knowledge of content matter, but to grow personally, socially, and emotionally as well. Reflection time is crucial for students to put together all the pieces of this complex puzzle. So on Monday, the students took some quiet time to reflect on the following:Teamwork/Process:
1. What do you consider to be your strength? (leadership, explaining ideas without conflict, listening to others’ ideas, accepting, compromising, looking for the best in other people,)
2. What is your weakness? (not listening, not compromising, finding fault with others, arguing, being off-task, )
3. What is one challenge you had with teamwork, and how did you resolve it?
4. What would your teammates say about you to others?
5. “You always have to bring something to the table.” (Dr. Randy Pausch) What does this quotation mean to you?
6. How does working collaboratively help you to achieve your goals more effectively?
Product/Presentation:
1. Why were you proud of your Green Home? (effort, research, aesthetics, scientific and mathematic concepts learned)
2. What would you have done differently? (time management, materials, size, etc)
3. What was one positive aspect of your oral presentation? What is something you would like to improve?
Following the writing activity (which can be found in the students’ Problem-Solving and Reflection Daybooks), we held a round table discussion where students offered comments about what they learned about themselves as a result of this project. As much as we’d love to take time to conference with each individual student on his/her thoughts, that’s just not possible. However, Mrs. Smith and I encourage you to have these discussions with your child at home. We like to think that we are teaching your child so much more than math and science, and we would love for you to stimulate your child’s growth by engaging him/her in a conversation based on the questions above. As Albert Einstein said, “The important thing is to not stop questioning.”
This week your child also took a cumulative assessment based on all of the learning objectives contained in the Green Home Design Unit. These assessments will be returned to the students this week with specific feedback for further growth and development. Details to come via email in the near future…..
