Portfolios, Conference Preparation, and Visualization.

Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, but please remember to record the date, the title of what you read, and how many pages you read on your Reading Journal entry form. Please turn in your entry forms on Friday, so that I can review how your reading is going. I will return them to you on Monday. I would encourage you to keep up with your reading over the weekend.

The 6th graders are all spending time getting their portfolios together for their conferences on Thursday and Friday. They are choosing works they are proud of as well as works that were challenging for them. They are then, with prompts from Sima and I, reflecting on their sense of what these works say about their learning. Self-reflection is always a challenging process, even for the most introspective adult, so for these students this work serves as the beginning of what will hopefully be a lifelong habit.

Today in language arts, learning specialist, MaryBeth Ventura was a guest teacher. She gave the students a presentation on visualization.  MaryBeth gave the students an exercise that encouraged them to use specific language to describe a picture that they could see, but she could not. She prompted them to help her create a clear sense of the picture even though it was on the board behind her. The students realized that they could not be vague in their descriptions. They had to really pay attention to what they were seeing, and the language they were using to describe it.  This was the first of a series of presentations that MaryBeth will offer the 6th grade class on strategies to help express their learning.