Today was election day for the Student Council. We had a brief flag salute assembly as a whole school, then went to class to take attendance and the lunch count before returning to the lower playground for the assembly.
I am proud to report that 8 of our very own students in Room 16 were in the running for President and Secretary. The results will be announced tomorrow prior to recess.
The weather was just right, if not a wee bit too warm, and all of our candidates did an outstanding job sharing their various reasons why we should consider them for office. Parents were in attendance for the festivities as well.
This will be the fourth year that I am on board as a Student Council Advisor. Joining me this year is Mrs. Utsumi. We conducted the assembly this morning taking turns introducing the candidates as they gave their speeches.
Once back in class everyone came to the back table which was converted into a voting booth with privacy screens to cast their votes. While this was happening, all students were completing their warm-ups and preparing to go over the math assignment on multiplication from last night.
Prior to our studying our new math chapter, I returned the Chapter 2 math test on decimals and invited all students who scored below 70% to consider retaking the test this Thursday before PE. We reviewed selected problems from the test and discussed how we can better prepare to do our best on future assessments.
We then focused on selected items from the workbook page PW15 that included mental math for multiplication. Problems such as 50 x 7 where the product can be found by using mental math strategies to multiply 5 x 7 and then adding the 0 to the answer to get the product, 350.
Volunteers came to the board in pairs after reviewing together a handful of problems from the assignment last night.
We discussed the results and then touched on our next lesson, estimation when multiplying. It involves the rounding rules and so for example, a problem such as 56 x 43 = 2,400 because 56 rounds to 60, and 43 rounds to 40, and 60 x 40 = 2,400.
At 10:30 the class was dismissed for recess and I went to the upper playground on yard duty.
Back in class, everyone turned to the story we made predictions for yesterday, Chang and the Bamboo Flute. The class split into Clock Partners and read through the story about the mute boy, Chang, and how he finds a way to help his family who lost their houseboat in a storm. He decides to sell his most prized possession: a bamboo flute, in order to cheer up his mom who lost her most prized possession, the family wok.
After completing the story, students worked in pairs to answer critical thinking questions about the story which included skills such as cause and effect, synthesis, and this week's focus skill in reading comprehension: character motives.
This led to a discussion about character motives and why Chang would make a decision to cheer up his mom by selling his bamboo flute. We discussed personal connections to this story from other stories we've read or experiences we've had where we have tried to cheer up others. It was a very thoughtful discussion that led right up to 11:55am.
We had just enough time to turn in the remaining homework assignments from last night on the water cycle and the vocabulary worksheet from the Practice Book. Students then recorded tonight's assignments in their binder reminders and were dismissed shortly after the bell rang at 12 noon.
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