3/4-F News for September 6, 2007

The Manoa Mountains were well represented at the Open House with fifteen sets of parents or individual parents in attendance.  We had an informative evening about the daily life of a student in this class.  Project presentations were described. The first one is set for Monday, September 10, beginning at 10:00 AM.  These book reports will require a two-minute memorized speech and a creative visual aid to meet the project requirements.

The daily work continues with great effort from the students, and high quality work is being produced in all areas of the curriculum.  We have begun our vocabulary studies and are working with fifteen new words each week.  The students look up the definitions of the words, write original sentences with therm to show that they understand the word meanings, and draw pictures to show what the words mean.

In math class we are working on the Investigations activities and enjoying the challenge of problem-solving and playing games for fun.  A few students have taken their game pieces home to share their games with their families.  We have put finished work in binders and will select work samples for our portfolios from these binders.

Writer's Workshop stories and poems are being completed this week, and most of the Manoa Mountains have written several personal narratives, poems, or creative stories.  We will begin editing and revising the work next week as we strive to improve the content of our writing.

Our Reading Log entries have been detailed and interesting.  Most have selected responses that they enjoyed doing and will be able to complete the set of twenty-six different responses soon.  Then they can begin the choices all over again.

Our Hawaiian studies work has involved discussing Hawaiian culture and listing the questions to help us find out what we want to know.  Working in groups, the Manoa Mountains have generated over 250 questions to guide their inquiry research.  The data gathering will begin next week.

There is a lot of excitement about learning to play the ukuleles.  Students may borrow an instrument to practice at home.  However, it needs to be returned the following morning before school begins because they are used in the music classes every day.  The students have been informed about the rules for use of the ukuleles.

I have been reading aloud some Hawaiian legends every afternoon to familiarize the Manoa Mountains with the gods and goddesses of Hawaiian mythology and their relationships and struggles to keep peace.

I look forward to some creative book reports on Monday morning and invite you to come and join us for the presentations.

Posted on September 6, 2007 7:22 AM | Permalink