Today we started our study of the American Revolution. The big idea for students to grasp, after working through 17 units, is that disagreements about principles of government led colonists to seek independence from Great Britain. Students will be introduced to important battles, historical figures, and writings so they know what values were at the heart of the Revolution.
We packed a lot into our last week of school in 2016. We had our classroom holiday celebration, auction, white elephant book exchange, Polar Express presentation, beeswax candle making, and we even found time to watch a movie. All of the aforementioned did not get in the way of making sure we also learned a lot including more work with fractions, a careful study of theme and point of view, and a project based learning task in which students constructed their own Maker Space.
What we were able to accomplish in 2016 proved pretty amazing and I look forward to what we do in 2017.
Today students created holiday ornaments during their art lesson. Several different techniques were employed simultaneously and the final product looks great. Students will take these home next week to share.
Since returning from our Thanksgiving Break, we have taken a very close look at the personal narrative with an emphasis on point of view. Students can be pretty adept at identifying first person from third person point of view and even third person limited from third person omniscient. Understanding and analyzing how point of view impacts a story is an entirely different endeavor and this is why taking so much time with it.
Students are reading rich personal narratives and are also writing their own. They may have been asking about the history of their name and we will be turning what they learn into a graphic essay.
The students started sharing their Google Slides presentations on Friday and we will continue to do this throughout next week. The presentations look great and showcase how “digital natives” can fluidly blend a traditional book report with 21st Century tools.
Many students already emailed their reports to parents and in some cases, to their classroom peers.
After paying rent, we had our second auction of the school year. It continues to impress me that international companies are so generous with our community. Although they don’t know me, and in most cases have no ties to Reno, they see value in promoting financial literacy in our elementary school classrooms.
Students got to engage in Philosophical Chairs today. They had to position themselves on a “Philosophical Spectrum” to express if they agreed, disagreed or were neutral on the topic of whether having classroom pets was more positive than negative. Students then took the hot seat to share their claims and the evidence, from middle school texts, they had collected to support their claims. Throughout the experience, students were encouraged to move as their opinion changed based on what their peers were sharing.
The students proved quite adept at the technique and we will be doing this again while we are studying American history.
Room 360 