CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

COMPLIMENT PARTY
With 10 unsolicited compliments in the record book, we will conduct our first Compliment Party tomorrow, November 6. Students may bring their favorite cereal and bowl for a morning feast. Each student team will also spend some time participating in a game of Monopoly. Congratulations, class, on receiving so many compliments so early in the school year.

WRITERS CELEBRATION
Tomorrow will feature a time of celebration for our writers. Each student will share the piece they recently selected to "publish" during our first Writers Celebration. Each writer will have a chance to "step up to the microphone" and read their selection. All writing project "stacks" are due tomorrow.

STUDENTS TRICK-OR-TREAT FOR UNICEF
Students recently collected donations for UNICEF on Halloween. UNICEF was created with this purpose in mind – to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path...believing that we can, together, advance the cause of humanity. Special thanks to Drew Strainer, Nathaniel Hentschel, Ana Saenz, Gaige Hurst, Rubbee Maloley, Lluvia Arevalo, and Elizabeth Tibbe for their efforts coordinated by former Lake Hills' student, Jordan Chusid.

JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT BEGINS
Mr. David Brockmyer, our Junior Achievement consultant, will be meeting with us for five Thursday lessons. Mr. Brockmyer is an businessman with iCap Realty Advisors in Grand Rapids. The purpose of JA is to educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, business, and economics to improve the quality of their lives. Our focus in fifth grade is on the three forms of business: sole proprietorship, partnerships, and corporations.

GEOMETRY COMING SOON
We just completed our second unit in math and students performed very well with a class average of nearly 90% achievement. We will examine properties of basic plane figures and use tools such as compasses, rulers, and protractors. Our lessons will focus on facts concerning the angles and the elements of triangles, quadrangles, and polygons in general.

FOLKTALES ABOUND
We continue to read various folktales in our Junior Great Books studies. We will begin reading "The Devoted Friend," a folktale by Oscar Wilde. Junior Great Books helps students' reading comprehension in the context of thinking about genuine problems of meaning. Students prepare for a shared inquiry through a "directed notes" activity allowing them to explore the many initerpretive issues in each selection.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
So, what really is success? A friend of mine recently shared with me that he admired my "risk to learn" and my approach to continuous improvement. I have to admit that maintaining a learner's attitude has not always been easy; but the payoff is well worth the additional effort. The powerful concept of renewal--personal, professional, spiritual--wasn't something I picked up at Grand Valley State University, however. Maybe it was simply knowing the unappealing alternative to renewal that convinced me that seeking continuous improvement (the Japanese call is Kaizen) is a practical means to successful living.