Crew Update 11/27/2012

I hope everyone had a nice relaxing Thanksgiving break.  As amazing as it may seem, we are only four weeks away from winter break!  Here is what the Williams crew will be doing between now and winter break.

“Who am I?” Expedition:  Today I returned the students’ mentor essays.  In this essay, the students were focusing on explaining who their mentor is, and the organization of a five paragraph essay.  I posted an average of their grade online.  The students will make any corrections they would like to make and give their essay to their mentor the next time they see them. 

Today we also discussed the next assignment of the “Who am I?” Expedition:  Mentor Shadowing.  The shadowing needs to be done by January 22 when the students will be creating a PowerPoint presentation about their experience.  If you or your child’s mentor have any questions about this please let me know.

Cartographers and Commanders:  We are entering our final push to the celebration of learning.  On Monday, I will be handing out the description and rubric for the Explorers Board Game.  The students will be choosing a partner to complete this project with.  Next week, they will be researching about their explorers.  The following two weeks they will be creating all of the parts and pieces of a board game that resembles the board game “Life”.  Only, it will be modeled after an Age of Exploration explorer.  If you have the board game “Life” at home, and don’t mind loaning it to the crew for a couple weeks it would be helpful.

Tuesday December 4th, walking field work to the public library:  We will be walking to the public library to start our research about our explorers.  We will be leaving SELS at 12:00 and returning around 2:00.  If there are any parents available to walk with us to the library and help research please let me know.

Math:  Tomorrow the crew is taking a math test on Unit 3 “Comparing and Scaling”.  I have observed that most of the students feel comfortable comparing two ratios with variables.  Please check-in with your child about how comfortable they are with the math concepts.  If they are unsure about something they need to ask for help, I am more than happy to assist.  Our last unit before the break is called “Accentuate the Negative” and it focuses on integers.

Important Dates

Gratitude Dinner: December 7th at 6:00 pm (Notice should have come home today)

Celebration of Learning: December 20th at 6:00 pm

Winter Break: No School, December 24th – January 4th

As always if you have any questions please let me know.

Hope for snow!!!!!

Zach