Below is a word cloud of people’s thoughts from yesterday’s video provocation about how “Love has no Labels”.
Word Cloud from our Provocation
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Monthly Archives: September 2016
What do you think?
A few classes across the school have taken to sharing provocations. Questions, images and videos that beg for a reaction. Today we offer you this… Parents, students, please have a look and leave a comment with your thoughts. What do you think?
Sausages!
What a great cook out! Students were very excited to meet their buddies and get out into the woods. Luckily, the weather cooperated and both 5R and 2M got to connect for the first time while roasting sausages, and more than a few marshmallows, in the beautiful woods on our ZIS doorstep. We’re looking forward to many more adventures and learning with our second grade buddies throughout the year. Many thanks for your support! Enjoy all the photos of the day in this album.
Sausage Celebrations!
This morning we were chatting in 5R about how to make connections with our buddy class, Ms McCaughan’s second graders, and to celebrate our first five weeks together. One suggestion that got a lot of enthusiasm, was having a sausage campfire lunch!
Having discussed the idea with Ms McCaughan, here’s the plan…
This Thursday, September 22, we will not be having our normal lunch routine. At 11:30 we will meet our buddy class for the first time, and head out into the woods behind the school to a campfire site together. We will build a fire, cook our sausage lunch, share some desserts and other foods, and enjoy a couple hours in the woods together. We will return to class for 1:30.
Here’s what we need from you…
FOOD
- If your child gets pre-paid hot lunch from the cafeteria every day, the ZIS cafeteria staff have agreed to pack a few sausages and some bread rolls for them instead of the usual menu.
- Otherwise, please send a couple sausages from home (a good idea if your child has particular dietary requirements, they can be veggie, kosher etc.), they can be refrigerated from Thursday morning at school. Please send only as much as your child will eat.
If there is a problem with this please let me know as soon as possible and we will problem-solve together.
Additional foods, like marshmallows, other desserts, easy vegetables (like baby tomatoes, vegetable sticks etc.), bread rolls, potato chips, mustard, ketchup etc., as well as paper plates and utensils, would be welcome in small amounts, to share. The students suggested a sign-up sheet for this. There is no requirement that anyone bring additional foods, I’m sure we will have enough. If you would like, you can sign up here.
One last food note… Please don’t send anything other than sausages/hot dogs to cook over the fire. We won’t be able to do steak or chicken legs this time! 🙂
WEATHER
At the moment the weather looks good for Thursday. This may change however. If on Wednesday evening the forecast looks really wet for Thursday, we will cancel for this week and reschedule for an upcoming week. Please keep a look out for a blog post on Wednesday evening if we are cancelling. If we are not cancelling, there will be no update.
Of course, we will be in the woods for a few hours. Please ensure your child has appropriate clothing for this. Mosquito repellant may be smart, and clothes/shoes that can get dirty would be good.
As always, please ensure your child has a water bottle with them to take into the woods. A good-sized snack is a good idea as well.
KEY POINTS in this post:
- Plan for your child’s food for Thursday (either cafeteria if that is their norm, or packed sausages)
- Sign up for additional contributions if desired
- Keep an eye out for a possible rain cancellation post on Wednesday evening
- Water bottle and a snack on Friday
Thanks for your support! It’s going to be a great celebration!
5R Room Parent Update
Hi 5R,
We would like to thank all of you that joined us at our first 5R Coffee on Wednesday. It was so nice to get to know everyone;) If you were unable to attend, envelopes for class funds were sent home today with your child. Please make sure to check backpacks. We would like to plan a “Mom’s Night Out” soon….stay tuned!!!!
Have a great weekend!!!!
Katy and Mandy
5R Class Coffee Reminder
5R Parents,
Just a quick reminder about our class coffee this Wednesday, September 14th at Schnoegg (Wadenswil) 9am. We will begin collecting for our class fund (30 chf per student) at the coffee, if you are not able to attend please look for an envelope marked with your child’s name in their backpack this week;) Hope to see you Wednesday!
Katy and Mandy
“The Learning Myth: Why I’ll Never Tell My Son He’s Smart”
The title of this post seems to go against everything we’ve been led to believe about supporting our children and students to be the most successful they can be. We want them to believe in themselves. We want them to feel capable of taking on challenges, but a growing body of research tells us that we may be doing just the opposite with this kind of praise.
The title of this post was the title of an op-ed piece written by Salman Khan, creator of Khan Academy, published in the Huffington Post some time ago. In that piece Salman goes on to give an overview of a concept in education called the “Growth Mindset”. In short, having a “growth mindset” means believing that intelligence, and ability to learn, aren’t purely genetic, or fixed. That the brain is a muscle in many ways like all the others, something elastic, that when exercised can strengthen and grow.
Khan Academy, has been experimenting with this concept and attempting to apply this research through little experiments like placing growth mindset statements next to math problems. A statement might read: “When you learn a new kind of math problem you grow your math brain!”. According to Carol Dweck, the Stanford University researcher who’s published widely on the topic, “Students who saw these growth mindset statements solved more problems correctly, took more units and mastered them, and got more problems correct in subsequent units, even when they weren’t seeing the statements.”
Khan Academy recently launched their #YOUCANLEARNANYTHING campaign in support of cultivating growth mindsets in students. This video is a nice introduction:
The big question for us at ZIS, of course, is what are we doing with our students to promote this clearly powerfully important idea? Are we telling students they’re smart? That they’re not smart? Or celebrating their efforts, their struggles, and that they can learn anything…