Creativity, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking

As I imagine all teachers are very familiar with, each semester in the field is different, and each presents unique challenges and learning opportunities. I have been teaching Visual Arts at Walton since 2008, and am very aware that nearly 6 years still keeps me in novice territory. I love my job. I love that each semester is a new beginning, but that the experience I have gathered so far in the previous years is intrinsic to the new directions I take. The previous semesters continue to infuse the current one with an ever-evolving strength. As I guide my students to create, collaborate, and think critically about the material I present to them, there is a cross-collaboration occurring within my own development as an educator. I teach them, and in turn, they teach me.

Snow Day!

    The students were filled with chatter today about the upcoming snow storm and were all excited about the possibility of a few days off, even if that means missing the Valentine’s Day dance. I have to admit I was excited about the snow coming too and am glad it provided me with time to be able to write this blog about what’s happening in 6^th grade math.

    Candy inequalities, playing battleship, reading picture books… 6^th grade math students have had quite the difficult start to 3^rd quarter. J  In standard math classes, 6^th graders used lifesavers, mints, and licorice to graph inequalities on a number line. The candy kept the students engaged and helped them practice when to use an open circle vs. a closed circle and which way to shade based on the inequality symbol. The next week the students used candy again when they identified the coordinates of smarties on a coordinate plane. Then to further practice using the coordinate plane the students played a math version of Battleship, competing to sink each other’s ships. Some games were so intense the students wouldn’t stop when time was up. Currently the students are covering a unit on measurement and are learning ballpark comparisons between the metric and customary systems. Have your child help you when you need help converting from one unit to another! When they return back to school, they need to tell me how many centimeters of snow we got (not inches). 

   In honors math the students are learning about ratios and proportions. We read a picture book called “If You Hopped Like a Frog..” and discovered that if we could hop like a frog we could jump from home plate to first base in one leap, and if we had the strength of an ant we could lift a car. The students are creating their own proportions to make a “If you could” book of their own. I’m excited to see some of the discoveries they make! Also, the next time you go shopping have your child help you figure out the “better buy.” Students used unit rates to compare the unit prices of items from different stores to compare which store had the better deal. Ask your child what store they discovered has the better deals.

So far it has been a great start to 3^rd quarter in 6^th grade math with lots of breaks because of the weather, now if only I can figure out a way to get students to turn their weekly spiral reviews in on time.

Enjoy the snow, be safe, and stay warm!

~ Mrs. Deering

From the Horses' Mouths (Or more accurately, from the Wildcats' mouths)

To capture what’s been going on in 8th grade Language Arts lately, I decided to go straight to a few of my students to hear what their semester has been like so far.  I’m happy to share their reflections with you.

In language arts, we’ve recently been working on persuasive essays. We were asked to pick a topic that strong opinions could be formed about and that could be easily argued. I chose to do mine on if homework is beneficial or not. We then researched our topic (and learned how to make a bibliography for it in the process.) If you didn’t pick a high-profile, clear-cut topic, then you had a hard time finding things. I had a little trouble because my topic is so quiet and there is little to look at for it. Then came the hard part: planning and writing the essay. We first did a funnel format for our introductory paragraph(s) before filling out an outline. After that, we took our outline and made the draft of our essays. We just recently had partners to revise each others’ essays. There have been a few issues but overall it was a good exercise that showed me about defending my views in my writing, and about how to research things and plan a paper before writing it.

-Austin

I always look forward to Mrs.Cruthirds’ class because it always challenges me with new experiences. Lately in class we’ve been doing a lot of new activities, and projects. A lot of the new activities involve the style we do our word study, the format of our writing prompts, and a Bingo activity. Every time we get a new set of word study words we go over the definition of a few prefixes and suffixes as well as our root word for that set. It’s very helpful to know those definitions because then we can figure out words we don’t know. We also do some other challenging activities with our word study words that involve using those definitions.

Recently we started a long research and persuasive essay project. Since we had to choose our own topic it’s been a little difficult because I have  had a hard time coming up with good and strong arguments. It’s also been nice too because we got to pick a topic that really interests us which gives us more motivation to get all our work done.

Lastly we’ve been doing a new Bingo activity. During this activity we have to read a lot of different genres of books we may not normally read. At times this activity can be a little frustrating because some genres I’m really not interested in reading. I understand that it’s important though because we can gather more vocabulary and it’s important to read out of your comfort zone because you learn a lot more. Over all I enjoy being challenged everyday with something new and really enjoy this class.    

-Sarah

Since the beginning of the third quarter of school, our language arts class has been putting together persuasive essays. We started off by picking a topic. Mrs. Cruthirds took us to the library and Mrs. Proffit showed us how to find good sources and facts. After that, we worked independently on finding good sources and facts to put in our essays. Once we finished finding resources, we worked on a thesis statement and a draft. Mrs. Cruthirds then paired us up with a classmate and we gave feedback on one an others essays. We are still working on revising our essays. Work on the essays has been challenging at times but for the most part, easy. I know for some topics including mine, it was hard to find three good ideas to argue and to find good facts to back it up. Once I found good facts, the actual writing part has been really easy. Getting to hear about everyone’s topics is fun too. I can’t wait to read some of the essays.

-Kevin

This year with Mrs. Cruthirds, we have focused a lot on both writing and reading. Her way of enriching our experience of writing is to pick a topic and write an essay on the topic. For example, right now we are working on a Persuasive Essay. The whole class picks a topic that is controversial and shows both sides of the argument and then states facts and so forth about both sides.

On the Language Arts portion of the class, we are learning about some of the more sophisticated roots in words. For example, she will give us a 3x3 square of prefixes and suffixes. In the middle of the square, the root that we should use to create words is in the middle square. It really helps me with knowing how to work with words, either easy or hard.

-Steven

8th Grade Science

February 5, 2014

With the change of the semester, 8^th grade students switched from civics to science and vice versa.  The new semester has science students honing their measurement skills.  While studying the metric system, students are expected to compare and convert between units such as meters, liters and grams.  Students have been busy practicing measuring length, mass, volume and density.  In lab this week, students were given a real-life scenario regarding a fictitious crime that had been committed.  In this lab they had to measure and calculate the densities of 9 various substances and observe the reactions of 3 substances with acetic acid.  Students had to select the suspect they believed most likely committed the crime based on the evidence that was left at the crime scene as well as  analysis of their data (calculations).

 

 

After the conclusion of this unit students will begin studying experimental design.  In the experimental design unit, they will be challenged to think critically about how experiments are designed and how new knowledge is acquired.  That will lead to the study of chemistry, specifically the study of matter, the atom, the Periodic Table and chemical equations.

~Heather Kepple