…I’m back!
It was less than a week ago that our family flew back into Shanghai after an action packed three week trip to Australia. After a whirl-wind week of getting back into the swing of things; I feel a little more ready for a blog post! I do hope you all had a restful/exciting/rejuvenating holiday with your loved ones and that 2011 is a healthy and happy year for your family.
A very warm welcome goes out to Vanessa, our wonderful new student who has settled in beautifully to complete our class this week and take it to the very even number of 20; 10 girls and 10 boys!
Now students, what you’ve been waiting for… News on our Book in a ? Project.
Title: Book in a (you decide depending on the theme of your book and what it is best suited for as well as where your skills lie; you could present in the form of a podcast, keynote, poster, A4 packet or present your work on a cereal box, shoe or flower…)
Due: The first 5 presentations will be on Monday January 24th, which another 5 for each day ’til Thursday and any make-ups needed on the Friday before Chinese New Year vacation. (Due dates are according to your reader’s notebook dates.)
Goal: To share with the class information about a book you have started and finished in 2011 and have some fun as you prepare to share.
Requirements: Your presentation must include approximately 200 words on each of the following areas:
*Characters
*Plot
*Recommendations
We will clarify the above aspects of a book report again during class time but we will not have time to work on the project during class.
Students are expected to present their work to the class during their allotted time and orally tell us a few things about the book; I don’t expect them to read their report out loud, rather just to tell us why they liked the book (or didn’t) and answer any questions people might have about the book as well as go through the slides/poster/report with us.
Students, be creative, have fun and manage your time well this week. You have at least 7 days from now to work on this and I know some of you started work as early as Wednesday. PLAN how you will get your task completed and don’t leave it until the last minute!
In other news…
Before the Chinese New Year Holiday we will complete our Nutrition Unit in Health, our Unit 6 Math test (and consequently our first math journal) and our Essay Unit which I am loving working on with the kids. We have a busy and brief time to do this and I am flexible in that if some things seem beyond us; we will use the three school days after school resumes on February 9th, but the point is, even though there is a short amount of time between Winter Vacation and Chinese New Year; we will be making the most of it.
Parents (AND STUDENTS) please bake for our 5th grade treat day this Thursday Jan 20th!
Speaking of treats, we will be discussing this article in class during our nutrition lessons this week students. It would be very mature of you, very scholarly and very intelligent of you to read it first, see if you understand it, and have an opinion on it or questions about it before coming to class. I will give you until Thursday (which just happens to also be treat day), let’s see how ready for middle school you really are with your independent learning. In accordance with the complexity of the article, I will be rewarding some of the best questions/understandings about the article with a chocolate!
the barefoot librarian 