Where did you put your reminder cards?

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How are your goals going? Success or failure so far this week?

Brain Foods that will keep you going

Here is a video that gives some examples of healthy snacks and foods that can help keep you energized throughout the day.

Classroom Organization Agreements

Make a comment to answer these questions:

• Why is it important for classrooms to be neat, tidy and organized?
• What things do you think we all need to agree to do so that our classroom can stay neat, tidy and organized?
• What ideas do you have about the way our room could be organized?

Can meditation help organization?

We have been meditating every morning for a few days, and we will continue doing it for some time. We are experimenting to see if meditation helps us to be more calm, thoughtful people during the school day. It is also possible that meditation can help us to be more organized.

What information have you found about the connection between meditation and organization?

Week One of “Brainfood”

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We started off our “Brain Food Experiment” this week.

What did you think? Did it work for you? What effect did it have on your work and your levels of energy? What kind of food did you bring? What will you bring next week? What kind of food did you decide was not a good idea?

Session with Ms. Ashley: “Feelings and the ways we express them”

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Ms. Ashley came and did a session about feelings today. We talked about the different feelings that we experience and how we deal with them. We discussed how we express ourselves when we feel different emotions. We gave examples of negative ways we express our feelings, and then we discussed the positive ways we express our feelings.

What were the most important parts of the conversation for you?

6SS Addition Strategies

Today, the students used large grid paper in order to show how they work out addition problems. We used the concept of function to ask ourselves how it works. They created addition problems that match their level of ability at addition and then wrote detailed explanations of the strategies they use to work them out.

The next step will be to improve at addition, to able to solve more complicated addition problems and to be able to teach each other so that we can all progress as part of a team.

Infographics

Here is a really interesting video about making data visual. It is a video that has helped me rethink about how I use and think about “data”.

Mathletics

Within the next few weeks your child will either be introduced to, or reminded of Mathletics, an internationally renowned educational website. We have used this program for the last two years in the Elementary School with great success. Many parents and students already understand what a fantastic educational tool this is.

Mathletics is a web-based learning program which has the potential to integrate home and school learning via the internet. The Mathletics syllabus used by NIST allows students to work at different levels and is designed for students of different abilities from Year Three to Year Six.

Your child will have 24 hour access to Mathletics by using a unique and unchangeable username and password that will be supplied by the school within the next two weeks. We recommend that you encourage your child to record this information in a safe and easily accessible place.

Some of the Benefits of Mathletics are:

• Students enjoy using Mathletics and are engaged and motivated to learn.
• Students instantly know if they are on the right track and can work through the curriculum at their own pace.
• Animated support guides students through concepts at their own pace which is like having a personal tutor 24 hours a day.
• Live Mathletics fosters a stimulating and exciting online learning community worldwide.
• Mathletics is adaptive which means that it responds to the individual student’s strengths and weaknesses.

We’d like you to be mindful of the fact that Mathletics is just one part of the multifaceted mathematics program offered at NIST.  Some students will use the program at school and others may be required to use the program as part of their homework programme.

If you would like to know more about the programme, ask your child to show it to you. However, be aware that students may take some time to develop the skills required to independently use the program at home.

Yours Sincerely,

The Teachers of Years Three to Six

Homework: Will you become like him?

Today we watched a funny (but also very scary) video about a guy called James who is so disorganized that is home has become completely disgusting. Watch the video with your parents (when they have time) and then get them to help you answer the questions underneath.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Homework A – Make a comment to tell us your answers to these questions:

• How did James’ house get so bad?
• What kind of person is James? Describe him as well as you can.
• Tell us some interesting things that James says during the show.

Homework B – Make a comment to tell us your answers to these questions:

• Describe James after his house was cleaned, how did he change?
• How do you think his life will change in the future if he can keep his house clean?