The beginning of the month got away from me, but I want to update you on our month’s learning and activities.
Mākau ʻŌlelo (English Language Arts) – We are honing our reading comprehension skills and have been using the book, Save Me a Seat, as our text. The chapters are short and keep going back and forth between Ravi’s and Joe’s perspective, so it is an interesting book to use. Through the beginning chapters, we focused on details in a text and plot. We moved on to main idea and writing a summary. We are currently making inferences and drawing conclusions from the text and next week, we will be working on crafting higher level thinking questions for ourselves and an audience. Over Christmas break, the children will be asked to read Makoa and the Place of Refuge to prepare for discussions and activities when we return from break. Our collaborative research project with Papa Kūkalahale (grade 3) is going well and I will share details in the social studies section.
Makemakika (Math) – Multiplication of four-digit by one-digit and two-by-two digit numbers is on the agenda this month. Understanding the concept, practicing computation accuracy, and applying the learning to real world problems is what we are practicing. This skill is used to find perimeter and area. Many children still need to work on their basic multiplication facts through 12. Based on assessments and quizzes, they understand the concept and set up the equation and work correctly, but end up with the incorrect solution due to calculation errors (ex: 6 x 5 = 35). Please take the break to practice multiplication (and fact families).
Pilikanaka (Social Studies) – Cross grade level student teams are working together to research and create a presentation to share learning with the rest of the class. The project is called Ka ʻIkena a ka Hawaiʻi and it is an interdisciplinary unit (language arts and social studies). The focus question for research is: “How did Hawaiians live and think in early Hawaiʻi?” Stage one involved researching and determining important information from a text. Stage two is putting information from different researchers and sources together. Stage three is planning and creating a presentation to share learning to an audience, and stage four is sharing the presentation. The focus question for this part of the project is, “How do we create an informative, engaging, and accurate presentation to effectively communicate what we learned.” The students need to make relevant connections and explain how traditional early Hawaiian ways of living and thinking might be applied in our lives today. The presentations are scheduled to be shared on January 8, 2020. It has been a good learning experience to work with 3rd grade research partners.
It is a pleasure spending each day with your child and I want to wish your entire ʻohana a very Merry and blessed Christmas. I hope you will use the much-needed break to spend time together laughing, learning, loving each other, and having fun. Family is so important and I am grateful for the opportunity to have ʻohana time to rejuvenate, celebrate Jesus’ birthday, and welcome 2020! Mele Kalikimaka!!