Room 28

ヨーロッパ旅行のルート

Mon, 25 May 2015 09:25:28 +0900

去年、妹からヨーロッパ旅行を誘ってくれた。

すぐ航空券を買って、

and started planning for our trip.

冬休みの時、
we spent 2 days at the library,
trying to map out our trip.

The planning was LONG~~~
but it was fun...
especially when you have a バカsister with you (^-^).

There are so many places that we wanted to visit,
but we only have a month.
So needed to cross out some of those places.

やっと１ヶ月ヨーロッパ旅行のルートを決めました~!

SF⇒London
⇒Paris
⇒Amsterdam
⇒Berlin
⇒Prague
⇒Vienna ⇔ Salzburg
⇒Venice
⇒Florence
⇒Nice ⇔ Monaco
⇒Barcelona
⇒SF

So looking forward to it! Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ

にほんブログ村

にほんブログ村

Open House

Thu, 21 May 2015 21:46:13 +0900

Open house is over! \(^-^)/
I tried many new projects with my class this year,
and I am very proud of all my students' hard work.

I am also grateful to have such a supportive group of parents,
had a pretty good turnout tonight (^-^).
Tonight's open house was completely student led.
It was great to just sit back, relaxed,
and watched each family celebrated their child's success.

Students were sharing with their parents the government and laws of their newly formed community.

Students were reading a piece of their writing from their writing notebook to their parents.

A student was sharing with her mom how she created her robot when given a specific perimeter.

Students were sharing their Ohlone slideshow with their parents.

A student was sharing with her mom some of the functions of crayfish structures.

10 more days until summer vacation!!!

"Ms. Mak, regrouping is FUN!"

Fri, 14 Nov 2014 11:17:57 +0900

Subtraction with regrouping has always been
a challenging concept for me to teach
and for my students to understand.
This year, it is no difference.

Students were able to model regrouping
with tens rods and ones cubes.
However, once the manipulatives were taken away,
they had difficulty recording their work
using the standard algorithm.
So I decided to write out with numbers and words
to show what actually happens when we regroup.
We spent more time on each problem with all those writing,
but it was totally worth it!
This was a great SUCCESS!
Now most of my class are able to regroup successfully
AND explain why/how they regroup.
Many of my students wrote out the step
"10 ones + 3 ones = 13 ones" like my example
when they do their regrouping,
so they know what they are doing.
I am so glad that the students are making sense of the math,
and not just memorizing the regrouping steps.

A student, who couldn't regroup correctly yesterday,
told me in class today,
"Ms. Mak, this is fun! I like regrouping!"
He probably had no idea how thrilled I was
when I heard his comment.

These little moments are my motivation for
getting up early to go to work every day.

Literacy Stations

Mon, 10 Nov 2014 20:18:53 +0900

We began rotating for our literacy stations last week.
I was not that the teacher station yet,
was circulating around the room.
But it seemed like all students know their job at the stations.
Hopefully it won't get too crazy this week,
when I will actually be at the teacher station.

Writing Station

Buddy Readers Station

Word Work Station

Computer Station

Teacher Station

Starry Night Pumpkin Patch

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 22:16:30 +0900

As a student, art had never been my strength,
so I have not imagined myself teaching it.
However, in reality,
elementary teachers just need to know a bit of everything.
After reading/taking ideas from several teacher's blogs,
I taught a 2-day art lesson to my class.
It was a great success! (phew!)
All the students were engaged, and
their paintings turned out FANTASTIC!

We are learning about energy in Science;
therefore, we studied Van Gogh's "Starry Night"
to learn how he showed light and movement in his painting.
We also talked about how to show depth/distance
with the different sizes of pumpkins.

The students are so proud of their artwork, and
I am very proud of them!
Here are a couple of their paintings (^-^)

Science Unit Begins～

Wed, 08 Oct 2014 18:07:07 +0900

Just started our first Science unit today.
Time management was challenging,
because some groups finished earlier than others.
Need to think of something for my
early finishers to do next time.
Also, it was soooooo long!
Surprisingly, the students were able to
stay focus for the entire time.
At the end, everyone showed me a
double thumb-up for the lesson!
I am glad my students liked the lesson.
I enjoyed it a lot too!

Kinder Buddy

Sat, 20 Sep 2014 17:41:09 +0900

My class had our 1st kinder buddy time yesterday.
It was amazing watching 40 little bodies
all engaged in activities the entire time! (^-^)

I am so glad our TK teacher invited my class this year.
Out of all the upper grade classes,
I think my class is probably the class that needed to learn
how to be big brothers/sisters the most.
Everyone who observed my class
commented on how "young" my class looks like.
I totally agree,
the classroom behaviors look more like a 1st grade classroom
than a 3rd grade classroom.
Hopefully having kinder buddy time
will help my students to become more mature.

1st Week of School

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 22:39:52 +0900

This was probably one of the longest week I've ever had! Didn't remember it to be this exhausting~ Obvious, I am still not back to my working mode yet.

Met my new 3rd grade class on Monday, had an EXTREMELY rough 1st day~!!! Even though I expected a challenging group this year and have 6 less students than last year, it felt like 40 students in the classroom on day 1. But can't really blame them, because this is really only their "2nd year" of school.

I found out that my class response to music very well, so I am doing a lot of singing in my classroom this year. I got one for getting their attention and one for lining up, but still looking for a transition song. Primary teachers, any recommendations?

My week got a lot better after I introduced ClassDojo (Thank you, ClassDojo!). My students love looking at their points and their little monsters. I took my class to the computer lab to create their student account, and they were so excited that they got to change their little monsters! (It was chaotic at the lab though, still working on that).

By Friday, the class has already mastered the morning routine. They even reminded me (2 times!) when I forgot to say the pledge before our morning meeting on the rug. I was so impressed of what they have accomplished in the 1st week!

ハワイ Day 5 - Diamond Head

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 22:03:31 +0900

Phyllis and I went hiking at Diamond Head.
Not so lucky with parking today (-_-)
The parking lot was full,
so we parked our car at the very bottom,
and then walked up the hill to the main entrance.

I was pretty worried at the beginning
because Phyllis hasn't been feeling 100% since she arrived Hawaii.
So glad that she was able to complete the hike with me! ＼(^-^)／

The hike wasn't too bad,
not a lot of shady area though,
and there were A LOT of people! (@_@)
But you won't complain once you see the amazing view of Waikiki & the coast (*^-^*)

ハワイ Day 4 Surfing @ Waikiki

Thu, 17 Jul 2014 22:07:06 +0900

We were very lucky that day,
found all-day free parking on Monsarrat Street!! (^-^)v

This was our 2nd time surfing.
Without the wetsuit and the worry of falling into freezing cold water like in Cape Town,
surfing in Waikiki was more enjoyable (^^)

We were in the water for about an hour for our surf lesson,
It felt a lot longer though(*_*)
This time, balancing on the surf board was no problem at all,
but paddling back out to our instructor, Seth, was a challenge!
With my short little arms and close-to-zero upper body strength,
it required lots of effort.
It was a good and fun morning workout! (^-^)

The surf school also had a photographer on shore to take pictures of all the people in the lesson.
Seth kept on telling us remember to smile after you stand up on your board,
but it wasn't as easy when you were trying to catch a wave. (*^^*)