Dear Parents,
First, here's to hoping that you enjoy a fantastic Mother's Day weekend! I'm taking my wife and daughter to the beach for the weekend -- which will be our first vacation in a long, long while. We're obviously looking forward to it.
Second, here's what's happening in class:
(1). We spent the early part of this week working on a metaphorical thinking activity. This is something that we've done in class several times this year. Your students connect a concept from our unit on energy to a random object from our curiosity box. When we were finished, students completed a self-assessment and gave their peers feedback about the quality of their final analogies. All in all, it was a productive and successful activity. (2). We've been doing a TON of self assessment work in class lately. One of the things that our school is trying to do is teach students to be able to look at their own work and evaluate it for strengths and weaknesses. As logical as that seems -- accomplished learners are constantly evaluating the quality of their own work -- it's a behavior that kids need to practice in order to be successful. Ask your kids about the experience. For the most part, I think they really enjoyed it. And I was impressed by the fact that the VAST majority of our students were able to spot the strengths and weaknesses in their own work. (3). We've started to work through our unit on ecosystems. Specifically, we started the week by looking at the lesson on page D9 of the textbook that introduces the notion of biotic and abiotic factors in an environment. The key point that kids were to learn is that the abiotic factors of a habitat often influence the biotic factors of an environment. We also started talking about natural selection -- the idea that the animals that are the best suited for a habitat will survive and thrive and the animals that are poorly suited for a habitat will die off -- and the impact that invasive species have on habitat. Specifically, we've been looking at the following weblinks, which introduce animals with unique adaptations and animals that are destroying habitats:http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8552000/8552157.stm
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=5796372These topics are always interesting to students simply because they are fascinated by quirky animals.
You can help support learning at home this weekend by looking around at nature. Check out individual plants and animals with your children. Look at their physical traits and determine what it is about those physical traits that would help the plant or animal to survive and survive here in North Carolina.
See a goose? Think with your children about how a long neck and wide body is perfect for hunting in ponds. See a snake? Wonder with your children how having no arms and no legs could EVER be a positive adaptation. See an earthworm? Brainstorm with your children why eyes -- and heavy skeletons -- would be a disadvantage if you spent your life in the soil.
Simple conversations -- but conversations that can be a TON of fun.
And more importantly, conversations that will get you outside in nature with one another.
Hope this helps,
Bill Ferriter
