Sunday Morning Edition: March 12, 2017

Howdy Folks!

Our biggest focus this past week was to start practicing more on our research-to-write skills which combines the skills of informational writing and persuasive writing! We're starting out with a whole-class topic to research on (Bees), and eventually once we practice our research skills enough we'll move on to independently research on our own topic! What's going to be the final product(s), you ask? Multiple guidebooks both handwritten and typed for your reading pleasure (and hopefully by the time Open House rolls around!)

We're starting a new unit in math and here's what we're going to be focusing on:

Here's the Build-Up Strategy we're going to employ for our 6s during this unit:

And here's the Build-Down Strategy we used to practice our 9s:

And just in case you (or your child) forgot, here's the Use-Ten Strategy for 5s (I want students to rely less on skip counting, as it takes longer, especially when multiplying bigger numbers)

Using these strategies will help your child be more fluent in their multiplication facts,  but these strategies can also be extended and applied to bigger numbers (What's 5x26? Well, 10x26 is 260, and half of that is 130, so 5x26 must be 130. Booyah!). Rote learning wont help as much with the multiplication of bigger numbers.

I would appreciate it if you folks practice these strategies with your child at home. And use arrays to show these strategies, as it will make the learning more concrete! It's challenging to solve 6x8 when you can't visually comprehend 5 rows of 8 in order to build-up to 6th row!

I think that about does it for now! Cheers and have an excellent Sunday folks!

Future sneaker aficionado!

Sunday Morning Post!

Howdy Folks!

What an awesome first week back! We've been practicing on a bunch of skills and learning new concepts in good ol' E-8! What you may ask? How about utilizing information from research in our persuasive/opinion pieces, and citing sources in our writing? Yep, we're getting down with that sort of thing in 3rd grade nowadays! Since, citing sources is something new for E-8 students, a sentence frame might be helpful:

In the __(article, journal, book, etc)    ,      (title)    , it says                                                  .

Ask your kid, whether translocation of endangered elephants is a good or bad idea. What's their thesis on this? Yep, we're teaching and using all of these domain-specific words in E-8. I remember hearing the term thesis for the first time when I was in high school! My oh my, the times have changed:)

We've also been talking a lot about certain Math Practices this week:

At the beginning of the week we focused on MP7 and MP8; we discussed how we can take a multiplication equation structure and turn it into an division equation when fact families are concerned! We also looked at various patterns and utilized strategies within multiplication to solve for division!

Near the end of the week, we had a discussion on MP1, as we began to deal with math word problems:

Productive disposition refers to the tendency to see sense in mathematics, to perceive it as both useful and worthwhile, to believe that steady effort in learning mathematics pays off, and to see oneself as an effective learner and doer of mathematics (info via the National Research Council).

We discussed how positive self belief as well as how productive disposition can not only be applied when tackling math word problems, but also in all aspects of math, and to a further extent in your daily life as well!


Learned helplessness...that's a tough one to quell, especially when years of conditioning, and  perceived "failures" have forced certain individuals into a state of powerlessness. That's why I tell my students that assessments, are just that: to assess what you know and what you need additional support in. It's to gauge how much the teacher needs to support his/her students on an individual\ level, for any subject. It's not to have students form some sort of complex because they're chomping at the bit to find out whether] they have a passing or failing grade. Apologies, I was ranting there for a bit:)

I hope you folks can discuss MP1 at home with your tykes, because, like I said, positive self belief and productive disposition can be applied to LIFE.

I think that about does it! Cheers, and have a good one!

Happy Monday!

Howdy Folks!

Hope you all had an awesome holiday break! Here's what I did over the holidays:

Spent Time with Family

The holidays can be stressful, but with a fairly chill family, it ain't so bad!

Maisie and Great-Grandma

That's me, my mom, Mols, Maisie, my twin sisters, and my gramps!

Maisie, chillin' with more fam!

The second generation of Dinhs taking a photo op with grandpa!

Went to a Museum

Growing up, I though museums were SUPER boring, but as I have gotten "older" and "wiser," I have a new-found appreciation for museums, especially art museums ('cause those were the most boring from the eyes of an 8-year-old Mr. Dinh!) Over the break I got a chance to chill with Molly's grandma, Ruthie Newman, at SF MOMA; she's been to a gillion museums and was very knowledgeable on the art pieces we were looking at. It was quite the experience staying at the MOMA from open 'til close, and I would highly suggest you bait and persuade your kids to check it out with you!

Walk and Run

Molly and I have been doing epic walks around the Willow Glen neighborhood with Maisie, and I started to go on runs again! Gotta train for the Santa Cruz Half in April (you folks should check it out! It's a beautiful race!)

Molly giving it a go with Maisie on her back!

Other Stuff


I've also been keeping busy with...

• A healthy dose of Pokemon Go, because you can never have enough holiday Pikachus!

  

• Listening to music; check out Chance the Rapper's album Coloring Book--it's been on constant rotation at my apartment, to the point where Molly is starting to get tired of listening to it over and over and over again! I have an affinity towards this album because the flow of lyrics/rhymes is great, there's NOT MUCH auto-tune, and to me, many of the songs have a gospel sound to it, which is super-fresh! Oh, and any songs that incorporates horns a major plus for me! Give it go folks! Another album that I've been listening to is Childish Gambino's, a.k.a Danny Glover's, Awaken, My Love! If you enjoy 70's funk music, you'll definitely enjoy this album! And I always appreciate artists that step outside of the box and out of their comfort zone! Gambino could've made another rap album, but NOPE! He decided to make one that was inspired by the music his dad would play when Gambino was growing up! It's sort of like me making music inspired by New Wave (my parents, uncles, and aunts were really into that when I was growing up), only I don't have any musical talent!

 

• Binge Watching! Since making it to a movie theater is more challenging nowadays for me and Molly, we focused or cinema-viewing energies towards Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO, and Amazon! I really enjoyed CNN's The Eighties because I enjoy time-capsule-y documentaries like that. And I'm always intrigued with culture from the decade that I was born! Good Girls Revolt on Amazon is another good series that I watched over the break; it's about women journalists in the late 60s fighting for equal rights in the newsroom! It's really good and I hope Amazon picks it up for another season! If you want a weird, indie, sci-fi series, check out The OA on Netflix. It's about this woman whose had several near death experiences, and wants to know what's on the other side. Like I said, it's a weird one, but I was captivated enough to see it through 'til the end. Oh, and if you haven't seen Westworld on HBO yet, do yourself a favor: Check it out when the kids have gone to bed!!! It's waaaaay better than the original film that the show took inspiration from! If you want to learn about the history of rap and hip-hop, check out Hip-Hop Evolution on Netflix. The first season takes you to the Bronx in the late 70s where hip-hop was born, and finishes off with West Coast gangsta rap of the mid-late 80s!

That about does it! Oh, if you want to get a daily dose of Maise Jo Dinh to brighten up your day, add me on Facebook; Molly and I set up a photo album that's updated on the daily! Cheers, y'all!