Math Mania

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With only 98 hours to go the excitement is certainly mounting at SAS in regard to World Maths Day which begins for us on March 2nd at 7 pm (midnight of the 3rd in New Zealand) and ends 48 hours later… who can tell me the last place to see the 23rd of March arrive???

The class had a great deal of fun today and we ended up with SAS in 7th place overall and Nick Ni in 6th place out of all the students playing at the time…how exciting if something similar were to happen next week. You never know until you give it a go so parents, this weekend, you may have some excited kids on your hands trying to practice and clocking up some points getting ready for the official competition to start.

http://portal.saschina.org/video/flv_player/Main.swf

Perhaps the extra practice will help them to prepare for their math test on Monday too, don’t forget to do some study over the weekend 5KP and stay focused…oh, and get some sleep!

Enjoy the Lantern Festival

Welcome Back to School

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Well, are you feeling refreshed, revived, tired or jetlagged? I am a little of everything having flown to Australia on Saturday morning for a wedding on Saturday night and a plane ride home all day Sunday… I haven’t survived on this little amount of sleep since I was a teenager I am sure.

We are missing 4 students today due to vacations, tiredness and illness so the classroom feels a little quieter than usual but it is really great to see the kids again; they make the career I have chosen very satisfying and I am enjoying catching up with them about their holidays and how they are feeling with 4 months left til they leave their elementary days behind them…that is right parents, in 4 months it will be summer vacation and you will have a 6th grader on your hands!

This week in class…

We will work to finish our unit 7 in Math for a test next Monday. On the test the students need to know how to:

*understand and apply scientific notation
*understand and apply powers of 10
*understand and apply order of operations to evaluate expressions and solve number sentences
*add and subtract integers
*understand and apply exponential notation
*determine whether number sentences are true or false
*understand the function and placement of parentheses in number stories
*compare and order integers

If they follow this Revision Guide it should help them get prepared

Unit 7 Assessment Review
Part A

1-9                       Order and Compare positive and negative numbers
7-10; 18-26        Add and Subtract positive and negative numbers
10                        Identify number sentences and tell whether they are true or false
11-17                   Understand and apply order of operations to evaluate expressions and solve number sentences
11-17                   Understand and apply the use of parentheses in number sentences

Part B

27-33                Add and Subtract positive and negative numbers
34                      Understand and apply scientific notation, powers of 10, and exponential notation
35, 36                Create and use line graphs

Practice Problems
Pg. 72 1-6; pg. 4 1-14; pg. 76 1-10; pg. 77 1-14; pg. 79 1-6

We will continue to draft and revise our essays to submit them this Friday and celebrate our achievements.

In Reading we will be looking at biographies and memoirs

In Social Studies we will finish off our Migration Unit and start looking at Current Affairs

With only 4 weeks til our Spring Break, there is a lot to get done over this short period and so the students will need to remain focused and organized to meet goals and deadlines.

Thanks again for entrusting me with your child.

Xin Nian Kuai Le

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Have a safe, festive and happy holiday 5KP and families and I look forward to seeing you back here on February 22nd. Thanks for your best wishes and treats and for being such lovely people to work with everyday. Keep up the reading, writing and blogging over the break if it gives you pleasure and helps make those brain cells buzz… Read and Write for the pleasure of it! Try and bring me back a postcard or two for the classroom if you remember.

http://photopeach.com/public/swf/story.swf

Failure…

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Well guys, sorry to disappoint you but I will be bowing out early again on the 9th of March… surely for the last but not least time!

It has given me a lot of empathy for people who fail things. Luckily as an adult this has not happened for me so often, I feel very fortunate as the feeling of failing is certainly not as exciting as succeeding that is for sure…so thank you so much for all of support and good wishes, I really thought I had it this time!

Now for some breaking news for parents from Nurse Pantoja’s office…

An individual in your our school has Shingles. Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes Chickenpox and occurs in people who have had chicken pox in the past. Anyone who has not had Chickenpox, may get Chickenpox from someone with Shingles. Children who already had chickenpox are not considered to be at risk.

The virus can be passed on by direct contact with fluid from shingles blisters, until they dry up and crust over. After exposure, symptoms occur after 10-21 days. Occasionally children who have had the chickenpox vaccine will still develop a mild case of chickenpox. They usually recover much quicker and only have a few pox. Please monitor your child closely for any signs of chickenpox.

Symptoms: (All may or may not be present)
• Itching,
• Fever,
• Headache,
• Malaise
• Rash – first appears as small flat red blotches, develop into fluid filled spots, then dry and crust over. Spots continue to appear for one to five days, and subside over a week.
The chickenpox rash may be generalized in severe cases, but usually appears on face, scalp, and trunk first then spreads to other parts of the body. New lesions usually cease to appear on or about the 5th day after onset.
Action: See doctor to confirm diagnosis
Treatment:
• Use Tylenol for fever and pain relief.
• Control the itching. Oral antihistamines such as Benadryl or topical lotions may be used. Oatmeal baths in lukewarm water may also help.
• Cut fingernails short to prevent scratching and secondary infection.

If your child contracts chickenpox, they are to be kept home from school until all lesions/spots have scabbed over or at least 6 days after the rash initially appeared.
They will need to see the school nurse upon their return to class.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your child’s school nurse. If your child has never had chickenpox, please consider having them vaccinated.

Thank you,
Pudong Elementary School Nurse Sharon.Pantoja@saschina.org 6221-1445 x3309

World Math Day Coming Up…

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The World Math Day Challenge involves students from all over the world playing against each other in real time battles of mental arithmetic using the World Math Day game engine. Each game lasts for 60 seconds. Students can play as many games as they want to but the maximum they can score points for is 500 games. There are even prizes awarded including student prizes, and school prizes for highest achievers.

All of the class have been registered by me under 5KP and have their own password for the World Math Day Site. They go into the site and sign in when they want to practice. On March 3rd (actually March 2nd at 7 pm) we officially start World Math Day 2010.

Here is more information about the origins and organization involved in World Math Day. The kids are really excited to be involved and I would appreciate you giving them appropriate time to play these educational games to improve their fast mental arithmetic skills.

Homework…

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Today in class I discussed in detail a homework task for students to work on between now and Friday.

Students are to go to Mr. Denton’s student page on his blog and choose a student from the tab at the top. They then read the essay that student has recently written and leave a comment there for them with positive feedback. They copy the comment and paste it to their blog where they are starting a post called Mr. Denton’s class essays. Repeat the process for at least two other students joining the comments together and adding any other constructive feedback they came up with after reading a variety of 4th grade essays. This should be of help to them as they go about crafting their own essays. We will be working on this in class intensively between now and Chinese New Year.

Math Opportunity
On another note Mr Power has just told me about an opportunity for some extra brain exercise and fun for those students who are competitive and love math…

World Math Day is March 3. To celebrate World Math Day, the Mathletics team has set up a site for some friendly and free competition. Here is the description from their site:

Students play at home and at school against other students around the world in live games of mental arithmetic. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play up to 500 games, earning points for each correct answer. The students who answer the most questions appear in the Hall of Fame. Students cannot select their level but will move up as they progress.

This site is set up for students from ages 5 – 18 and also for parents and teachers. Registering your class is easy. Just go to the World Math Day web site, click on the red register button, and follow the steps. Your students can start participating immediately.

For more information, visit the site:

Enjoy the rest of your week everyone and make sure to check out your child’s blog at least once a week, they are currently putting in a lot of time and thought for their migration unit. While you are at it, go to our 5th grade migration wiki that Mr. Power has been working on for weeks. Thanks Mr. Power.

Students…Don’t forget to wear Red this Friday…and if you can incorporate your house shirts at the same time that is all the better… Our class raised over 2000 rmb last week, I wonder if it is possible to beat that?

News of the Moment

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Welcome to February Parents and Students
The month will fly by due to 1. Time flying when we’re having fun and 2. The Chinese New Year Holiday we starts next week.

This morning we welcomed Samantha Li and Dennis Lee to our class. We are very happy to have our full class of 20 rearing to go on the 100th day of school…
In class right now we started our Unit 7 in Math which begins our second and final math journal for the year. The students will have a math study link to complete 4 nights a week as well as completing journal pages from class and revising new content.

L.A. – We are currently working on the unit Breathing Life into Essays by Lucy Calkins in Writer’s Workshop. Students have really started to generate more essay entries and are learning about pushing their thinking. Students understand the differences between narrative and non-narrative writing and are enjoying recording their thoughts and realizations about topics that are important to them. In Reader’s Workshop we are focussing our responses on non-fiction texts.

Unit Study – We are currently working through our social studies unit focussed on Migration. Students are learning about the push and pull factors why people migrate and the are also writing a narrative about their own migration story.
Although most of these dates also get posted to my calendar, here they are below for you as well.

February & March Dates:
Feb. 4 PTSA General Meeting & Treat Day
Feb. 5 Wear red for Charity Day
Feb. 8 CNY Dress Rehearsal
Feb. 9 CNY Performance for Parents
Feb. 11 Half Day
Feb. 12 CNY Holiday
Feb. 23 Board Meeting
Mar.11 ES PTSA Meeting, Counselor’s Cafe, Treat Day
Mar.12 SPC Committee
Mar.13 Quiz Night
Mar.15 Sarah Holbrook
Mar.15 Start of Trimester 3
Mar.17 Poetry Slam (TBD)
Mar.19 Trimester Report Cards Home
Mar.22 Spring Holiday

Parents a final note…I need your help! As part of my yearly performance evaluation I would like some feedback from YOU! The survey results will help me grow and learn as a teacher. Starting Feb 1 and ending Feb 28 the online parent feedback survey will be open to our parent community. Parents will be invited to log into the Powerschool parent portal to access the survey.

“You are invited to provide feedback concerning the professional performance of your child’s teacher. This is an integral part of SAS’s vision to engage and support faculty in a unique professional learning community that provides opportunities to grow, develop and learn together. These surveys have been specifically designed to elicit information based on your first-hand experience with the teacher, and are connected to SAS’s Standards of Professional Practice.

The information you offer will be confidential. The feedback will go to the teacher and will be shared with the supervisor.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete this survey. Your thoughtful responses are appreciated, and are a constructive way of contributing to SAS’s learning community.”

Enjoy February

The end of an exciting week…

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Looking back on the past week, I can’t believe how busy it was. It was Alan Katz week so we heard poems from him every day, we had Mr. Denton come and visit our class, I failed my driving test…again… and the last two days have been full of basketball games and team building exercises for our student leaders. Throw in a math test, a birthday party and a successful Haiti fund-raising pajama day and you can see why I am disappointed Mimi woke up at 5.30 this morning.. I am tired! Well done to our class for raising over 2200 rmb for Haiti.

Thanks 5KP for making the learning fun and flexible. With our two new students, Samantha and Dennis joining us Monday, expect to settle down to some serious classroom activity as we start our second math journal, work on our completing our migration wiki and plays and get ready to write our first essay for writer’s workshop.

It was wonderful having the Western Academy of Beijing basketball team visit our classroom. They answered many questions about not only basketball but also academics, travel and their thoughts on the future. Thanks for the Tigers you gave us W.A.B. and it was fantastic watching you play.

ale

class 2