The kids continued reading and researching their European explorers- I also showed them a few exemplars today of projects done in years past so that the kids know what I am expecting in a final product.
0 Comments
Today we had our first book club meetings.
Some of the students had some discussions with me around being prepared for meetings- making sure our reading is done and our notes are filled out- if we are not prepared they know (and were reminded again today) that they can always work on this during WIN (and the students today who were not prepared had not once worked on their reading during WIN). Overall today's meetings went really well and I was very pleased with the discussions the kids had! Today I started class by giving a lesson on critiquing sources when researching. The students all went to www.allaboutexplorers.com and we first looked at the homepage and talked about our first impressions of the site (professional, good graphics, no ads, search feature, etc). I took a poll of the class to see how many felt the site would be a valid site and a good choice to use for the project. I then had the kids each spend a couple of minutes reading about one of the explorers profiled on the site. Afterwards, I took the survey a second time....this time the vast majority of the kids no longer felt it was a valid source. We then took a closer look at one of the explorers and talked about how the author of the site mixed in factual information with completely bogus info. I explained to the kids that this was an extreme example of how websites sometimes appear like a good source, but it is important to read them with a critical eye and pay attention to anything that seems a little off...and then double check the facts by going to at least 2 more sources to confirm any information you found.
Students then spent the last 10 minutes or so of class beginning to research their explorers. Today we had a lesson on our final signpost: Again and Again. I used clips from the movie, The Lion King, to show how throughout the movie one thing that comes up over and over is the phrase: The Circle of Life. We then talked about how this signpost not only foreshadowed Mufasa's death, but also gave the viewers clues to the theme of the movie.
Tomorrow our first groups will have their book club meetings! Today all book clubs checked in with one another to see if everyone was on track in their books and notes for meetings next week.
Students were all assigned the explorer they will be researching next week and creating a trading card for. Then we went up to the library where Mrs. Kozaka gave the kids a lesson on research. On Monday I will go over the product descriptor with kids and we will get started on this mini-project. In LA the kids continued doing their work for their book clubs- I am so impressed with how focused the students are reading their books and taking notes as they go along!
In Social Studies we read about Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigating the world. We added to one of our essential questions (see below). Today we finished reading about Christopher Columbus and then took notes under our essential questions. Please see our updated notes below.
We officially kicked off book clubs today. Each group was given their assigned meeting day and our first book club meetings will start next week. Students then used the remainder of class (today they had about 30 minutes) to read the number of pages their group agreed to read in a class period and complete their book club prep work for those pages. We will do this every day in LA for the remainder of the week.
For the duration of this unit there will be no assigned reading homework - if students choose to continue reading a free choice book at home or during WIN that is fine, but I am not assigning it. I understand that for many kids it is challenging to keep multiple books/plots separate in their heads. Today in place of social studies we had the luxury of Erica Marcus from Wise Minds, Big Hearts come in and work with our class on mindfulness. The kids started by taking a survey about their stress levels and their ability to manage their emotions- at the end of the 12 weeks students will fill out the same survey to see the impact of this mindfulness work. Then Mrs. M took the group through what mindfulness is and when it can be helpful before leading us through a mindfulness exercise.
In Language Arts class today the kids all worked in their book club groups and created their norms for their book club meetings. Kids used the information that we got from last weeks video to help them come up with their list. Each group narrowed their norms down to 5 or 6 - we talked about how to combine like ideas into an overreaching norm (for instance, doing all your reading, coming to meeting with your notes and summary done all fall under "being prepared"). Each group then made a poster with their norms listed, came up with a group name, and then all group members signed off agreeing to follow them.
|
Archives
April 2020
|