Tag Archives: conferences

Parents playing Students

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Last Wednesday and Saturday we had our parent conferences, without students, due to Covid regulations. It is always fun for me to chat with the parents, I really enjoy it. I love sharing news of their child and the books they love, as well as recommending books to parents. On Saturday I thought it would be fun to have the parents participate in our estimating competition that we’ve been running all of March. Parents were impressed with the improvement they saw in children’s estimating skills and so I convinced them to have a go too. I knew the students would get a kick out of seeing their parents having a turn at something so many of them have been doing every day. We’ve been doing this for all of March and as the kids have enjoyed it so much, we will continue through April

Well done to 2FJ Jamie’s mum for guessing the closest number without going over it. I hope you like the prize Jamie chose for you.

Additionally, thank you to the parents who volunteered to help us shelve the books on Wednesday and Saturday, and sorry Saturday folks, I was too busy supervising Edward’s Dad Allen with the painting to take photos of your hard work.

We had our last virtual visit with Who Would Win author Jerry Pallotta this week. Monday’s hour with 5th grade meant that Jerry has spoken with all of our Elementary students. While there is nothing like meeting someone in person, we did the next best thing and now have a relationship with Jerry where we can chat back and forth and he is always happy to answer students questions and see the wonderful books and book covers the students continue to create.

Thursday Update

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It was wonderful to catch up with nine families this afternoon. Thank You for making the effort to come in and talk about your child; I really want their last year of Elementary School to be one they remember; together, we can make it one they remember in a positive way.

If you are coming in tomorrow, don’t forget there are plenty of great books for sale at the school entrance; you can never have too many books! I look forward to seeing you in the afternoon.

Math
We have begun our new math unit on division and I have told the students that this is the start of them being smarter and stronger than ever, a chance for them to do better on Unit 4 than on Unit 3, so I hope to see many of them revising at home as division is important, and as the unit is short, I aim to have the test during the week of November 14th-18th.

Writing and Reading
In our Writer’s Workshop, we’ve had a bit of a break this week as we’ve gotten stuck into our Social Issues Book Clubs in a big way. However, we are still on track to finish our Second Narrative in time for a Writer’s Celebration next Friday November 11th. For Reader’s Workshop, the students are learning the importance of group dynamics and good communication skills as they negotiate with each other, discussing the books they are reading.

Book Clubs for Social Issues

Social Studies

Our Migration Unit is well under way, check out your child’s blog, I know they would love you to comment on their migration trail, and there may just be something else there for you to read as well…

In closing, I hope some of you can make it to the idance presentation as you will recognize many faces of students throughout the school.

Screen shot 2011-11-03 at 6.26.13 PM

October… Looking Back…Looking Forward

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We started the month sharing stories about our October Break to get us primed for our second personal narrative.
Then we discovered who our new classmates were going to be…Pumas? Falcons? Bears? Dolphins?
We wondered why Mr. Neill was wearing that silly hat…
We were United on United Nations Day
and Spooky for Halloween!

Thanks to all the effort put in by parents and families last month. Thank You for coming out and supporting us during many of our events, most recently to Lisa (Mia’s Mom) and Edna (Josh’s Mum) for their help running stations yesterday and for Regina for the organization involved in our Halloween Party.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=109615

Looking forward, we have a great opportunity to talk about your child’s start to the year this Thursday and Friday. Your child is welcome to attend if that is what you wish, it is not essential, it’s your choice. THERE WILL BE NO PRESENTATION that morning, I was feeling overly ambitious! We’ll do something later in the year together but for now, no Writer’s Celebration this week.

Below are the times I have parents down for so far.

Please e mail me back to confirm if I have not heard from you, most times are the same as you were given, but ten minutes later. Please also let me know immediately if you cannot actually attend; I have two conferences scheduled for alternate days and am happy to oblige if necessary. I’m sorry about some of the changes, but I didn’t hear back from many of you and so felt free to move you a little.

Thursday November 3, 2011

11.40-12.00-Bevan
12.00-12.20-Alex Zhang-confirmed
12:20 – 12:40- Max Siu confirmed
12:40 – 1:00-Eric Shen
1:00 – 1:20-Michelle Bai confirmed
1:20 – 1:40-Sheung Yee confirmed
1:40 – 2:00- Aavia confirmed
2:00 – 2:20-Erika Chan confirmed
2:20 – 2:40-Taeyun Lee confirmed
2.40-3.00
3:00 – 3:20-Mimi Power confirmed

Friday November 4, 2011

11.40-12.00 Alex Liu confirmed
12.00-12.20-Yoon Jin confirmed
12:20 – 12:40-
12:40 – 1:00-Mia confirmed
1:00 – 1:20-Pepo confirmed
1:20 – 1:40-Joon Soo
1:40 – 2:00-
2:00 – 2:20-
2:20 – 2:40-Claire Yu confirmed
2:40 – 3:00-
3:00 – 3:20

Shanghai Book Traders will be selling books on Thursday and Friday so feel free to do some shopping in between conferences.

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As we are working on our Migration Unit in Social Studies, I thought you might enjoy this National Geographic Clip.

November already? Surely not…

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Alas, it is true…we can now officially start speaking of the Winter/Christmas break as being next month, and in between then we just have conferences, report cards, Thanksgiving, more narrative writing, some essay writing, lots of blogging, a couple of math tests, our cultural studies unit and have I forgotten anything???

Here are the conference times I have you booked for. I look forward to meeting with you all this Thursday and Friday. Please try and be there for the start of the conference as you can see the schedule is tight.

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Here are some great photos from last Friday’s Halloween Festivities. The kids had a really great day and I was proud of their behavior and attitude.

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

In other news…

Calling All Cute Pets – Photo Competition!

Do you have a cute puppy?  Does your cat pose for the camera like a bright-eyed model?  Then this contest is for you!

Pudong’s HS Animal Rescue Club is creating a calendar of animals to be sold just in time for 2011.  Submit your favorite photos of your pets and we will choose the best to be included as the months of the calendar.  But don’t worry – everyone’s photos will also be put in thumbnail size at the back of the calendar!

You can only submit two photos per family so make sure to pick your best shots!  And if you have a picture that fits a season or month, that is extra great.  Submit via email to marney.rosen@saschina.org by November 15th at noon at the latest.  Don’t forget to include names (yours and your pet’s!)

All proceeds from calendar sales go to Jaiya’s Animal Rescue.

Today we were so fortunate to have two special presentations at our school. The children met Canadian Chinese author Trevor Lai during their LLB block today and before recess they were treated to an amazing performance by Gumboot Dancers from the Kliptown Youth Center in  Johannesburg, South Africa. Here is a great example of their work you can check out if 1. you live outside of China or 2. you have a vpn!

What great additions to our cultural studies unit! Speaking of that, our amazing 5KP students raised so much money for Uganda that I was blown away. Special mentions to Calen, Maddie and Roxy who contributed over 1,000 rmb each through sponsors and a huge pat on the back to Carl Z who not only raised over 2,500 rmb, but contributed a large part of that himself! Our class raised close to the 13,000 rmb that we hoped for. I am so proud of your efforts.

You are all very special kids. x

News of the Moment in 5KP

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Thanks to our room mom Liane Moldenhauer for taking this photo of the 16 5KP students who attended the field trip to the Science and Technology Museum on Friday. The kids had a really good day outside of the classroom and despite a few hitches due to it being our first field trip there as a grade level, the day turned out o.k. Thank you to the parents of Ada, Michael, Sonny and Jordan for showing around our students, you were more than helpful and we greatly appreciate your assistance .

Don’t forget this Thursday and Friday are half days for all of the students and they will be leaving on buses at 11.30 a.m.If you need any transport from Jinqiao there are shuttles leaving from the Starbucks at 11, 1 and 3 on both days and also returning there several times during the afternoon, e mail me for details.

I am meeting with the parents of Cody, Kieran, Michael, Samantha, Ada, Tiffany, Jordan, James, Byron, Jin Woo and Keaton on Thursday and all others on Friday. Please e mail me if you have forgotten your timeslot.

Post Conference News

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Thanks to all of you for meeting with me last week. It was a pleasure to put faces to the names of the people my students talk about all the time. I am happy that overall, we seem to share similar philosophies when it comes to teaching and raising children. I was pleased to hear that although some parents thought their child could apply themselves more to the homework they were given, no one said “my child needs a lot more homework.”Everyone agreed that their child’s happiness is what is most important and having them engaged, challenged and socially active were also high on the priority list; I agree.

This week we are spending our last week working on the unit ‘Space’ in class. The children have really enjoyed this and their knowledge of Space and questions about Space have been fascinating.  Next week our class will begin one of the big 5th grade projects for the year, our Global Natives Project which Mr Hossack is fine tuning as we speak. This project will take the class right through to the end of the second quarter and will involve them working hard to manage their time. There will be strict guidelines for research and presentations throughout the project and it is important they use their time well or they may fall behind.

In Math we are about to do our unit 4 test on Division. The students seem ok at dividing in their own style but some have had trouble using the partial quotients method. Overall I think they will do fine on this test if they revise over their work at home.

In Language Arts we are having a great time exploring ways to get the most out of our writing. We have been asking lots of questions about what makes a good story and we have been looking at a lot of examples of good writing. The class have been amazing at pondering ‘small seed ideas’ and we have been using the Ralph Fletcher book ‘A Writer’s Notebook‘ about ‘Unlocking the Writer Within You’.

A reminder  that this Thursday is treat day, send in 5 rmb for you child to buy a treat if you wish.

Gifts are starting to come in for the Giving Tree. Please see this post for details and your child should have written about who they are buying for in their diary also.

Book Fair is on next week

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If your child is a book-worm like mine, then you will be happy to know that you may be able to purchase some new books for them next week at our SAS Pudong Book Fair.
It is being held in what we refer to as the ‘Orange Grove Room’ (between the 5th grade cafeteria and the middle/high school library) and our class are going over as a group to look at and buy books between 9.00 and 9.30 on Tuesday the 4th.

You can also buy books yourself anytime during the week and they will still be on sale when you come in for conferences on Thursday and Friday.  I am sending home e mails today with your conference times listed so I look forward to seeing you next week.