From the Desk of Ms. Stover

There were a lot of tears today in both 5th grade classes.  It breaks my heart as their teacher to see them so frustrated and upset with themselves.    Yes, folks, we are hitting the hard stuff.  Just as I told you on Curriculum Night back in September, our curriculum becomes increasingly more difficult as we move throughout the year, and for some reason or another, January is when a lot of kids start to hit the wall.  We talked today about how this is totally normal and it’s okay if students are struggling.  It happens every   year.  The important part is to keep working hard, keep asking questions, pay attention in class…it may take a little longer to grasp concepts, with more practice, but they’ll get it!  This can be frustrating for students who have usually done exceptionally well in math; 3′s and 4′s on all their homework assignments are oftentimes now getting 2′s and sometimes 1′s.  After last Friday’s quiz (with an average well below what it was September-December), I realized that we’ve gotten to that point in the year where kids start to struggle.

With that said, struggling can actually be a good thing.  I made it into a positive today in class, talking about the importance of learning from our mistakes; the key is to keep going…keep persevering!  Today in class, students made themselves a “cheat sheet”, a.k.a. their study guide.  These fraction-decimal equivalencies will need to be memorized by Friday so that we can stay on pace with this unit and our Math Expressions curriculum.  With a positive attitude and strong work ethic, I KNOW it can be done!   See below in case your child lost/missplaced his/her 4×6 index card.  Happy Studying!

Comments

[Master Alaina]

Math is my favorite subject, besides art.