Camp Champions

This crazy crew is headed to camp!  View the slide show of our homeroom adventures below.  

Habit 1: Being Proactive

We are participating in a district-wide program entitled The Leader in Me. We began exploring the first habit, Be Proactive, more in depth.  We discussed how each of us "controls our own weather" and can control our outcomes by being proactive rather than reactive.  

In regard to this habit, Covey writes "I am a responsible person. I take initiative. I choose my actions, attitudes, and moods. I do not blame others for my wrong actions. I do the right thing without being asked, even when no one is looking."

As a class, we brainstormed challenging situations that kids face every day. The students came up with some very timely situations. Some of these included:

• A friend at school is being mean to you.
• Your mother makes you go grocery shopping with her.
• You have a big project for school due in a week.
• Your parents embarrass you in public.
• You have a hard time waking up for school.
• You are late for school more than once a month.

Students broke into pairs to identify a proactive way to approach their selected situation and a reactive way to approach this situation.  They used Puppet Pals, an iPad app, to share their thinking.  Below is an example of one of the videos student groups created.  

You can learn more about The Leader in Me here.

Digital Citizenship PBL Presentation Day

Today we presented our learning from our Digital Citizenship PBL to Mrs. Hollis and Mrs. Bernero today.  You can view our presentations here.

Mrs. Bernero Visits our Class

Mrs. Bernero, our principal, visited our class today and read the story Three Questions to our class. In this story the main character has three questions:

• When is the best time to do each thing?

• Who are the most important people to work with?

• What is the most important thing to do at all times?

A wise turtle helps him reflect on his adventures throughout the day to discover:

• The most important time is now. The present is the only time over which we have power.

• The most important person is whoever you are with.

• The most important thing is to do good to the person you are with.

Throughout the story, the students made very strong connections and inferences using textual evidence.  We also found several examples of figurative language.  We absolutely enjoyed her visit and hope she comes back to read with us again soon!

Literature Circles

Over the past several weeks, we have been learning about accountable talk and the discourse of an effective learning environment.  To help us, we have created several speech bubbles/talk stems to help us communicate effectively through active listening, building on the ideas of others, learning how to disagree respectfully, elaborating and clarifying ideas, and supporting our thinking with evidence.  

Over the next two days, we will be having literature circle discussions as we analyze two poems.  We will be using the fishbowl protocol.  Half of the class will be discussing our first poem while the second class observes and then provides feedback.  The next day the roles will be reversed.  

I will be using the Harkness discussion method to collect data that I can share with the students.  During their discussion, I will be listening in.  I am not an active participant but will jump in to address misconceptions or to guide the discussion if absolutely needed.  I am so excited to listen in to the students as they continue analyzing poems.  

Figurative Language

We have been learning about Figurative Language over the past two weeks.  We have had a great time exploring what each device is, identifying where authors and poets have utilized them to create images for their readers, and analyzing the impact these images have on the written word.  We have been collecting our observations on a Thinking Map.  

Digital Citizenship PBL

Students have been collaborating on the Digital Citizenship PBL (Project Based Learning.)  After our launch day, we broke into teams and brainstormed apps students have used on our campus.  Each team selected an app that they wanted to explore further.  

One thing the students felt that they needed to understand is what the rules are for each app.  We discussed what terms of service were and then students formulated research terms to help us locate more information for each app.  

We also have explored several presentation apps that they might use to share their knowledge.  

Many groups have moved on to storyboard their presentations.  

Special thank to Mrs. Hollis who has been collaborating with our Minecraft group as they complete their project.  

We will be presenting to Mrs. Bernero and Mrs. Hollis to share our learning soon.