"PEEK at PEAK"
MONDAY PEAK--- September 16, 2013
Conference Sign up
PEAK NEWS
Technology: Today we learned a new technology tool --DROP BOX. We loaded it on to our school computers, practiced uploading a document, changing a document, and checking to see if it saved "live". We also practiced sharing documents between friends. I am hoping DROP BOX will be easier for the students to use than logging into H drives from home. All students completed a tutorial. Please see the homework note.
PGD: Short Term Goals
- Each day, students write a daily goal and then write an evaluation whether the goal was met. Students also rate their individual progress on a scale of 1- 5 in four areas: math, topic study, theme study, and science. The areas rated are: persistence, on-task behavior and good thinking. We will share these goal sheets at conferences. I meet with each student at the end of the day to look over their goal sheet and provide feedback. Today student’s wrote goals and we met to keep ourselves accountable.
- Our picture drawing contest is closed --we have 3 entries. We will vote next week!
- We had a few minutes to work on our S'more posters on "What Object Am I?" Click on this link: What Object Am I? to see the class posters!
Critical Thinking:
- We were introduced to the word –precision! We watched an precision video and used the word throughout the day! I tried my hand at new technology! Click on the word: PRECISION to see the video.
Elements of Reasoning Skills: Purpose & State the Question:
- Purpose (review): All thinking should start with a purpose, a goal, or an end in sight. We discussed how to define our purpose in all subject areas. We will continue to use this element of reasoning throughout the year.
- State the question (review): This will lay out the problem we are examining and guide our thinking/ Questions to ask ourselves: What question am I trying to answer?/ Is the question clear? We applied this level of thinking in topic study as students hone in on an essential question to research.
Enrichment Centers:
- Topic Study: Today we continued to use our new technology tool---- Padlet. This tool will help the students take notes in topic study. Today we worked on writing an essential question for our topic study. Students need to log into their email and access the topic study GOOGLE DOC and update my topic study spreadsheet. This will be an ongoing checklist for me to measure where students are in the note taking and project producing process. Please ask your child to show you the Google Doc.
- Math: We had a successful day of math problem solving! The math problem this week is very difficult ---ask your child to tell you about it!
- Science: Today we averaged our science experiment trials and learned how to complete a group write up about the experiment on Google Docs. We also learned how to Graph using the create a graph tool on my "PEAK PAD" (click the here). We will finish our science write up next week. There is a lot to learn!
Theme Study:
- Students explored a variety of books and websites --- we are trying to discover brain topics of interest to us. Students took notes on possible brain topics. Please discuss possible topics at home.
- We took a note taking quiz --- if your child did not get 5 out of 5, I will offer another quiz next week! Ask your child if he/she still needs to take the quiz.
- We reviewed databases, kid friendly search engines, how to narrow search strings (using the advance research feature in the Google gear icon). Ask your child if he /she remembers our analogy (hint - water).
- We also discussed the perils of the world wide web and questions to ask ourselves to determine accuracy and precision. Our purpose: To search for Truth on the Internet.
HOMEWORK:
HOMEWORK:
- Finish the brain lobe essay and email to me!
- I am also sending a link to Drop Box. Please have your child load this on to your home computer --- this is a virtual box. Your child will be able to put work from school into the Drop Box and then work on it at home! WE worked on this at school today --- we loaded Drop Box on to the school computers --- students saved one item to the Drop Box. Now he /she is going to experiment with opening it at home and making a change to the document - the change should be made in the drop box folder and then it will save live to the cloud! Drop Box has tutorials but the kids can learn through trial and error as well! I am testing Drop Box to see if it will be easier to work on documents from school than using the H drive on the LPS site. We are learning together!
- Your child should open his/her email and fill out the topic study Google Doc chart. --- this requires typing answers onto the spreadsheet ---EASY!
New Apps are where it's at ---
We have learned the following new Technology Applications:
- Symbaloo - "PEAK PAD"
- Drop Box
- S'more poster
- Padlet
- Google Docs
- Create a Graph
- Live Binders --- for Topic Study
Up next ----
Edmodo (review)
Thinglink
Kid's Blog
Evernote