General News
We are entering into one of the most magical times of year – POP! We will spend next week finishing projects, collaborating on committees, and turning our room into an interactive space to show off what we’ve been learning for the past two quarters! Note that P&P will be optional next week so that kids can focus on project wrap-up at home in a stress-free way if they are still tying up loose ends for any POP projects.
Ms. Lorrie’s brother came to deliver our Nok sculptures this week and we can’t wait for you to see the finished product at POP. They are downright fabulous! (It’s pretty amazing that the kids accomplished this task in one 1.5 hour session!)
Reading/Writing Update
This week we spent most of our time working on a continuation of last week’s Onyeka scene paper doll projects! We finished drawing and collaging this week and moved on to creating our write-ups about the scene. Write-ups must include context for the scene, what is going on in the scene, why they chose it, and how it is important to the context of the story. We read a new chapter on Monday, reviewed our work, and answered response questions to spark discussion. We looked for simile and metaphor in the reading and discussed character changes throughout the book. Much to everyone’s delight, Ms. Ansley gave gammas permission to *read ahead* this week! They can even finish the book if they are so compelled. They will still have response questions and vocabulary work to do next week, which might require some rereading, but the book is just too exciting to make them all stop right now!
Math Update
We have way more project possibilities than days left to execute, so we are just trying our best to prioritize squeezing out as much enjoyment as possible these last few weeks. Both groups spent the week with choice board activities focused on getting kids ready/confident for end-of-year math “check-ins.” In between review sessions, both groups had the option to make some paper robots (making each piece of the robot according to a set perimeter or area!) We took our end-of-year check-ins a week early in order to let the creativity/brainstorming sessions of next week not interfere with math focus. Both groups have shown such excellent stamina and sportsmanship in math class this week–and it’s feeling a wee sad that the year is wrapping up! Next week, we’ll explore a really fun activity called “The End of the World Puzzle” (also called the Tower of Hanoi puzzle) where kids will stack golden disks (aka Home Depot washers) on diamond towers (aka straightened paper clips) to see if they can solve the puzzle before the world ends. It’s a great hands-on example of exponential growth!
Theme Update
Theme this week was projects, projects, projects! We worked our way through a project planning document to make sure we’d tied up any and all loose ends on old projects. We also took some time to make some headway on new and on-going projects. Sorting hats, mariana trench creatures, rock displays, and so much more were made! We also took a quick survey to divide into POP planning committees to start to get the room ready for our big showcase! On Thursday Gammas found out what committee they will be working in and they got together as a team to brainstorm ideas and make supply lists for how we will turn the classroom into a shopping center! You can’t believe the amount of amazing collaboration that happened seamlessly this week–it was a beautiful sight to behold!
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