Today was another busy day in GATE. I tend to over plan, and today was definitely one of those days. The brain work we do at the beginning of the day is always eye opening for me. Today's thinking questions were: words that begin with G and things that jump. Your children are very imaginative and come up with interesting ways to answer these problems. My favorite answer this week for the jump questions, was: Students who jump to conclusions. I LOVE it when students come up with such original answers. Sitting here now writing this, I want to say it was Mereya Riopedre who came up with this solution. If I'm wrong I apologize. Great job to all the children on their wonderful creative thinking.
Next, we got back into our PETS activities. Today, I introduced Evaluative Thinking which uses criterion based decision making to help students choose the best choice of solutions based on factual criteria. That is quite a mouthful I know, but the students seemed to understand it. You will know if they did with their homework this week. They are to work with you to come up with five criteria for purchasing a car. We did two examples in class, so should your child be having difficulty explaining the concept to you, please have them come see me and I'll go over it again.
Last, I gave the students a pre-test on the concepts of groups of three or three groups. They had to explain how these two statements are different. I am happy to report that a majority of the students were able to do this very clearly. Some gave wonderful examples. There were just two that weren't what I would want from a GATE student. I had one student who knew the difference but just wasn't able to put it into words correctly, but I could tell they understood. And I had just one student who wasn't able to explain at all. Through activities we'll be doing over the next few weeks, we'll explore, in more detail, the concepts of division and apply those to gradually more difficult problems. Often I think this unit is going to be too easy for students, but every year, my students seem to be challenged by the problems I pose, which is why I continue to offer this short but important unit.
Remember, book orders are due next Friday, Dec. 9. Drop me an email if you want your order to be a surprise. I will email you or call, whichever you prefer, when the books come in.
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