Tag Archives: inquiry

My Future Self

With our eighth graders off in DC (#lreidc) exploring memorials and monuments and making connections to their humanities inquiry and the seventh graders in Williamsburg (#lreiwb) doing research for their Colonial Museum exhibits, our fifth and sixth graders have gotten to stretch their wings a bit in our middle school spaces. Our fifth grade civilization simulation is just getting under way and sixth graders are using insights gained from the religions they created to begin to explore the impact of religion on life in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages. Our fifth and sixth grade student reps have also been hard at work planning for the activities that they will run at this weekend’s Halloween Fair.

In Fifth Grade Adolescent Issues, we have started a project that asks students to envision their future selves that we’re doing with our friends at Inquiring Minds  (@InquiringMonica  and  @InquiringDK). We started this process by exploring some general thoughts and ideas about the future. We will then will take a trip back into the past as students research  people that they admire to tease out qualities and characteristics that they would like to cultivate in themselves. Students will then use these insights to design a possible future for themselves. Continue reading My Future Self

Focusing on the Math Big Picture

While Curriculum Night is an opportunity to look at the big picture, it is also an opportunity to balance these ideas and the school’s approach to learning against ones own educational experience. This can often be complicated work as the memories and habits connected with how you experienced school may have been very different. One area in which this tension often occurs is with our approach to mathematics and the development of mathematical thinkers. I include below some “big picture” thoughts on math instruction at LREI and its connection to each student’s development as a learner. Continue reading Focusing on the Math Big Picture