Recommitting to our learning and getting ready for next year!

Returning from a long break can be a bit tough for all of us, getting back into the swing of school. So to help ourselves transition, we recommitted to our learning by working on a poster to help sort out ways to help us focus on the work to come. The reconnection to one another and to our work in class is important to refocus our mindsets back to our learning.

To go along with recommitting to our learning, we worked on how to use teacher comments and suggestions in our work to grow and learn from. This skill is very important as the children move on up to middle school. The students spent some time reviewing comments and suggestions I made in their Writing About Reading work, and we compared these comments and suggestions to a co-constructed rubric to better our writing about reading. Your children then made a quick list of the repeated comments on a sticky note, and they use this note to help edit their work now. What great work with extending their learning.

March 26th is Prince Kuhio Day here in Hawaii, so on Tuesday we spent time learning about who Prince Kuhio was, learning about his commitment to the Hawaiian people long after his passing, and why we celebrate a day in his honor. We explored how Prince Kuhio made a commitment to the Hawaiian people to help support them throughout their lives. Through learning about him, we made connections to how we can commit to supporting ourselves and to others in our classroom community. To teach each other about what we learned about Prince Kuhio, we made slideshows and posters, then presented what we found out.

Another side to our commitment to our own learning is learning a little bit about what we will be doing next year. To that end, we got to see the 6th graders present during their exploratory celebration! At the 6th grade level, students get to “try out” and explore other aspects of the school experience to learn whether it’s something interesting for them. They will experience theater, music, instruments, art, and other areas. Watching the sixth graders present their learning gave your students insight into what they will be doing next year at the end of each cycle of exploration. Ask them about what they saw.

A final way to recommit to our learning and get ready for next year was 6th grade Shadow Day! Your children got to spend time with their sixth grade buddies, going to a class with them, and then heading to Scudder dining hall to learn how lunch works in middle school. Your children got to purchase food from the cafeteria using their IDs, and boy, let me tell you just how much they enjoyed the offerings! We had so much fun together today, learning about next year!