Today we talked a good bit about taking notes!
We discussed that the purpose of taking notes is to help us engage with the material and think about our own learning, what we are learning, and whether we truly understand it or not.
Personally I am a fan of the Cornell method for taking notes. Essentially you break your paper into two columns. You take notes on one column on your paper. On the other column you come up with questions, that are answered by the notes you took. This let’s students explicitly think about what they are learning and what kinds of questions their new-found knowledge can answer.
Together we read the first half of a passage about microorganisms together, and took notes in this manner. This will serve as a good example to students and let them finish their homework tonight, which is to finish taking notes on the rest of the passage. They should do this in their science journal just as we started the notes. First they take notes on each section (in their own words, and focusing on just the ‘big ideas’) and then come up with questions in the left-hand column. There is also a summary row at the bottom but they should *not* fill this out.
We then spent some time talking about our new vocabulary list! The introduction of the list was met with many groans, boos, jeers, and general disdain. I may or may not have laughed in a decidedly evil manner. Tonight students should write a sentence using each word, and do their best to use each word correctly!
For the second half of the day I had a 5th grade meeting, and the students spent some time with a substitute teacher, Ms. Petite. Overall I got a pretty good report from Ms. Petite when I got back just now, so that was a good feeling 🙂
so, tl;dr
A lite night!
Take notes on the second half of our microbe passage (just as we did in class today) and come up with questions that go with your notes:
Write 10 sentences, one for each vocab word:
And as always, read! (we have had some issues with reading logs lately. I simply can’t emphasize just how important it is that students read daily)
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter