Bully-Proofing

Today and for the next three Mondays, our school counselor, Beth Schille, will be coming into my classroom to teach our EdVenture Team students the Bully-Proofing lessons for our school. If you have any questions about the curriculum, the lessons, or things that you have heard about it from your students, please do not hesitate to contact Beth [link] and ask directly.

Mr. Knickrehm and I believe these lessons are so important for the culture of Whatcom Middle School. At this time in students' lives, they need to know how to navigate not just interpersonal relationships, but how to advocate for others who don't advocate for themselves or who don't have a peer group to advocate for them. This curriculum and the discussions around it help students to think about their role in bullying situations they may be a part of or that they may merely be witnessing.

Thank you for supporting your child's self-reflection on bullying in schools.

Peace.

Quiz this Friday: 10/21/2011

We have our first quiz this Friday, 10/21/2011.

Here is a link to some practice problems. The practice problems come from two segments of Investigation 2 in our curriculum.

Investigation 2 Quiz Practice Problems

Some students are still finishing up their Investigation 2 work this week, but they should be done by Thursday.

30 minutes of math homework... EVERY night.

I just wanted to update families on homework for math. I have heard from several parents over the last week that their child claims s/he has no math homework because it was finished in school. This is incorrect. Students should spend 30 minutes every night working on math (Monday through Thursday).

What can they do during those 30 minutes?

1. Review the day's Math Review.
2. Practice any Math Review questions that were incorrect.
3. Work on the next Problem, the next ACE set, or the next Target Practice on the road map.
4. Practice those multiplication and division facts!

So any time your child claims that s/he finished her/his homework at school, you can confidently say, "you may have finished your ACE questions, but you have way more you could work on."

Thanks for all you do to support your child!

Mr. Mac

The Structure of a Math Period... and Homework

Structures...
I wanted to take a moment to describe for families the general structure of a math period with me. Usually we have about 70 to 80 minutes of time for math. During that time we'll go through these activities:

• Math Review
• On Mondays and Wednesdays we take 10 minutes to do four review math problems. Then we take about 10 minutes to go over the answers and to share strategies.
• On Mondays and Wednesdays they also take a new math review home to do as homework. 
• On Tuesdays and Thursdays we start the day by going over answers to these math reviews. 
• As we are going over answers, students are responsible for recording what they get right and what they get wrong and for recording strategies that they didn't use or writing notes about what they got wrong and how to fix it. 
• On Fridays we have a four question quiz covering problems similar to the ones that were on that week's math reviews.
• Check-in Time
• I check in to see what students are working on right now.
• Math Workshop
• This is self-paced time. Students work on the assignments on their roadmaps, they self-correct using answer keys, they should go back and correctly solve anything incorrect, they work on mini quizzes.
• Students may work with a partner on any problems and/or ACE questions. But each student must write down his or her own work.
• "Target Practice" assignments and "Flash Feedbacks" (the mini quizzes) must be done individually.
• Check-up Time
• Students tell me what they're working on right now and what they will do as homework that night.

30 Minutes of Math Each Night!

Homework is a little different in this kind of structure. 6th grade students are expected to have 60 minutes of homework a night. I expect 30 minutes to be spent on math.

• Every Monday and Wednesday night:
• Students should review that day's math review at home. Anything they got incorrect they should try again at home. This might mean practicing calculations, memorizing vocabulary, or reworking story problems.
• Students will have a new 4-question math review. They need to do all four problems.
• Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights:
• During Check-up time, students tell me what they will work on that night for homework. Essentially, they must spend time getting farther on their current roadmap. 
• Occasionally students will be at a point where there is nothing to work on (these are called Flash Feedbacks and they are done only in class). In that case, they should look for "ACE" questions in the book that they haven't done yet and should choose some to work on. 
• Fridays
• Fridays are usually homework-free days. But sometimes there will be an exception.