Earning and Learning

How would you like to "earn" while you "learn?"

Andrew really enjoys his paid position at Teal's Grocery. It has been an opportunity to earn a wage while learning a job. He's an important part of the staff there, along with several other Tiospa Zina Tribal School students.

He receives his paycheck every two weeks through a program called "Project Skills." This project provides funds so that students can "earn and learn" in real jobs for real money.

Andrew is really good at "facing shelves" (putting items in the correct places, lining them up carefully) and rotating stock (so that newer products go behind older ones on the shelves). He is very careful to check product codes to make sure the right product is being placed in the correct location.

Sale days are extra busy, since products move quickly and shelves need continual attention. Wednesdays are also very busy, because it is "Senior Day" and elders get special discounts.

Andrew also provides customers with "carry out" service. Teal's likes its customers to have help when they have to carry their groceries out to their vehicle. So, when he hears "Andrew- Register 1," he knows he needs to hustle over there and help pack bags and bring them out to the customer's car. 

Although it's not required, sometimes customers even offer a tip!

Help for Your Amygdala ....

Swirl!!

Uh oh! Your amygdala is reacting!! What should you do?

Swirl!

We made some wonderful tools for mindfulness.

Mindfulness is when you put your thinking in the present. Not in the past. Not in the future. Just now.

Heather Robbins came to our class as a guest speaker. She talked about stress and anger and how they make the amygdala get excited. That is the little part of your brain that does "fight, flight, freeze." It cannot think. It just reacts. And then, tons of cortisol and other "stress chemicals" race around your entire body.

ARGH!! 

That is where mindfulness helps.

Heather said that if you can calm down your amygdala, then the parts of your brain for thinking and deciding can start to work. Also, you feel better when you are not so upset!

We could add a selection
of colored glitter.

We made jars with water and glitter in them. We put in a lot of glitter in different colors. Then she glued on the lid with Crazy Glue. 

To use this tool, you swirl it and the glitter moves around. Then you just watch it as it slows down and settles down.

A simple, powerful tool for mindfulness.

When you focus on that, your brain starts to get calmer. You stop feeling upset at the past. You stop feeling anxious about the future. The stress chemicals stop going to your body. You can think better and make decisions.

We tried it and it really does work!

Heather Robbins, Guest Speaker

We really enjoyed making these jars and learning from Heather. 

We are grateful she came. We decided to also live our value of wausida (kindness in Dakota) so we made one for our classmates who were absent. We gave one to Jen, too.

Mastery is the Goal

Jaden working at the board.

Are you good at math? Do you actually understand what you're doing when you do it?

Sister Patrice is big on "understand what is really happening" and "then learn the algorithm." (The algorithm (al-gore-rhythm) means what you write down to figure things out.)

The pink arrow shows our "Fraction of the Day" display

So, we started with pizza and candy bars, then sets of objects, then fraction bars, then number lines, then drawing shapes, then drawing arrays. We did "Fraction of the Day" for twelve days. We kept adding new things every day. Almost all of this was brand new for us. We really worked hard. And now, every single one of us gets it pretty well. 

• Fractions from arrays and fractional parts
• Fractions on number lines
• Comparing fractions
• Proper fractions
• Improper fractions 
• Mixed numbers (making and unmaking them)
• Reducing fractions to lowest terms
• Adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike denominators
• Multiplying fractions times a whole number, times another fraction
• Finding a fractional part of a number (What is 1/3 of 30?)
• Going from a fraction to a decimal to a percent, and back
• Story problems (featuring us) that use fractions to solve

Some of us got mastery! That means we got 90% or higher on doing it without any help. Don't worry. If you got 80% it is still good. You just need more practice. If you get less than 80% it just means you are still learning it. For example, three right out of four = 3/4= .75= 75% means you are still learning it. Keep going. 

Hoksina figuring out decimals and percents
from a fraction.

If you get smaller than 75%, it just means Sister Patrice has to find a different way to teach it. 

Sometimes she says "Stop." So then we have to learn something else before we get to it. Like with division of fractions. We waited on dividing fractions because we had to take a detour to review division. Some of us never got division before. But, 1/4 of us already have mastery of division. 1/4 is 25% of us, by the way!

But tomorrow we will learn "reciprocals" and then we will learn how to divide fractions, too.

Here is one of the story problems we had to solve with fractions. Do you know how to get the answer? Or is his horse going to starve?