With this wonderful day to just reflect on the world, I ended up reflecting on all of the great projects happening in my classroom this week, so why not share it.
In science, we continue with our crayfish studies, however, the kids decided that it would be more fun to create a crayfish documentary rather than just a research paper. So we are busy researching the questions they have come up with, then writing scripts and finally filming the scenes. I cannot wait to see the end result!
In social studies, we will finally get to work on our Early Explorers of Wisconsin Fake Facebook Pages. Thank you to all of those who submitted templates to me. Students have only been told the backstory of exploration in Wisconsin but have no clue what project they will work on yet. They are so excited that they begged to do social studies on Friday, we didn’t have time though.
In reading, students are working on their chosen author studies. I am doing my own alongside them on Neil Gaiman, so I have to decide how to present my information. It has been great to see the varied approaches to how to do this project and once again, students are showing their excitement by continuously asking whether we will be doing the project or not.
Writing is exciting this week as students finish their Why Tales (excellent writing here) and we start on our next project. The kids have been really into “whodunit’s” lately, so I am toying with the idea of turning our picture book project into a “whodunit” instead. The main goal is transition words and voice, which can be accomplished through many methods. I think in the end, I will let the students decide.
Math is a mixed bag of assessments. We have weird pile of tests we need to get through such as the mid-year assessment, but after speaking to my students about it they didn’t seem too worried. They told me that they knew what the purpose of these were; “To help them learn better.” We also discussed that they could do the tests in whichever order they choose, they can jump around between tests, and I will bring in lots of bubblegum. Plenty of math game breaks will be provided for those who want them and we will get through it as we usually do.
There will be plenty of little extra’s added in, such as music/poetry Tuesday where we will be discussing the great song “Pride in The Name of Love” by U2. Op.Ed. Friday’s topic has not been chosen yet, and we have a geography bee to go to on Thursday. School is a magical place indeed.
Pernille Ripp 