Sunday, December 4, 2016

Learning with Purpose


It's always inspiring to see how learning expands beyond our classrooms at Dryden. We were thrilled to welcome fourth-grade students from Futabakai Japanese School this week. They spent the day with Mr. Noltner's class. It was great to see the children communicating, sharing and learning together. Here they worked in teams to see who could build the tallest tower out of pipe cleaners. 


District Technology Director Chris Fahnoe, School Resource Officer Rick Veenstra and Dryden Technology Facilitator Grace Frantz helped many parents learn about digital citizenship and Internet safety. It takes a combination of mentoring and monitoring children, actively learning and participating with them. It's important to be aware of the social-emotional impact their online interactions can have. By maintaining open communication and providing nurturing guidance, we can help our children experience the positive benefits of collaboration, creativity and problem-solving that can happen online. 



Our PTA was recently recognized by the Area Council of PTAs for outstanding membership and programming. We are grateful for the high level of parent involvement and enriching activities the PTA brings to our students and families. 


It's so exciting to see students in charge of their own learning! During this lesson, the teacher could have just quickly told the students the word and what it meant. However, the fact that the students had to work together to figure out the "mystery" word with hints that the teacher provided made it an exciting, fun, purposeful interactive problem-solving activity. 


 These fifth-grade students found a creative purpose for Tangrams. It was a treat to listen to them share their fiction stories and how their Tangram figures transformed as their stories progressed. 



Throughout all grades, our students are finding great purpose in their reading. Third-grade students share that reading inspires them to enjoy their imaginations and helps them calm their minds and learn new things. 


First-grade students have learned that sharing a book and taking turns reading the different parts of different characters can be really fun and make the book come alive! 



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