What No Pictures???

Let me start by thanking you for attending our Fall Open House last night.  We had a great turn out and everyone seemed to enjoy and celebrate the students' efforts and work.

I'm not quite sure how we missed this today, but our class camera never came out of my bag...  So this will have to be my short and sweet, text-only blog post.  The exciting digital media will have to wait for another week.  

We spent most of our morning working at individual Exploratory centers.  This allowed for flexibility as some of the students were arriving late to allow for Cognitive Abilities (CogAT) testing.  Ask your child what they learned at their center today?  Most students have begun the Comprehension Level task at this point.  A few are already working on a project of their choosing at Application, Analysis, Synthesis or Evaluation Level.

In the afternoon, the students were introduced to our latest Problem Solver strategy; Use or Make a Table.  We completed one together as a class and then they had an opportunity to try the strategy on a problem, on their own.  Next, they continued their individual work in the TOPS Math program.

In our Basic Research Skills unit today we discussed how researchers need to ask questions.  The more challenging the question, the more you learn.  We talked about “thick” and “thin” questions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, we showed the students a picture and asked them to write one "Thin Question" and one "Thick Question" about it.  When we become better at asking "Thick Questions," we improve the quality of our research.  (There! I found a graphic to use!  LOL)

Have a great week!