making the invisible, visible
A quick glimpse as to what we’ve been up to over break. Thanks parents for sharing!
We maximized opportunities to work with a lot of content before tracking off for our spring break. We did a “Quiz-Quiz-Trade” around perimeter, read bout Juan Ponce de León and European exploration of North America, used Writable to refine our understanding of introductions, applied for new classroom jobs and introduced the prefix “anit-.” We also completed several Quizizz’s to refine a few skills. All-in-all, really impressive for a day that is traditionally hard to keep kids engaged.
For raising the most money during the Roy Gomm Jog-A-Thon, our students got to be “benchwarmers” during Saturday’s match between the Reno 1868 and the Austin Bold. Thank you Mirie for putting the prize together and to the students for raising so much money for Roy Gomm.
The class was quite fortunate in being selected for a visit by the Sierra Watercolor Society. This is a group that helps students understand watercolor technique and color theory before having the students compose their own watercolor piece. This was a nice experience and it was great that our classroom got to participate.
Thank you families for organizing our Valentines Celebration. It included a photo booth, several Minute to Win It games, and fun foods. After two consecutive days of indoor recess, I think taking the hour we did for a series of fun activities was clearly welcome.
Can too much screen time get in the way of friendships? Or does playing games and being online create friendships? This was the focus of our Philosophical Chairs Discussion (PCD).
We spent two days reading and annotating a text around the topic. We then used the PCD protocol. Specifically, students divided themselves into groups who believed screen time got in the way of friendships, students who disagreed with this, and classmates who were neutral. As students presented their arguments, they could move from one group to another based on how persuaded they were.
Students finished their Enchanted Lands following several days making careful observation of art by Albert Bierstadt, Erik Johansson, and Salvador Dali; learning about foreground, mid-ground, and background; studying setting and magical elements; and how to use paint and collage to build out their piece of art.
