Friday, September 16, 2011

This morning we continued in our usual pattern of reading quietly.  I will start having the students fill in a reading response form, from time to time, after we complete our reading.  This will serve to add to their understanding of the material they are reading.

The students began to work on their Coat of Arms exercise.  It is an artistic opportunity for them to express themselves and some of the things that are important to them.  Here are two photos of students working on them.

They will be on display on Curriculum Night (Thursday, September 22).

The students then had Music with Mr. Chung and then returned to work on completing their Art activity.

The afternoon usually begins with me reading, but I am alternating this with having the class listen to an audiobook on The Giver.   So far we have been keeping track of key points from the novel.  I have alternated having the students write journal responses or answers to the listening they are doing, but I am moving more in the direction of engaging the students in discussing some of the themes emerging in the novel.  Here is a list of the chart we have created in class:

The last portion of the day was used to complete work on the "Island" activity from last Friday.  The groups did some final touches on their island (artistic as well as the ideas about how the island's society functions) before they presented it to their peers.  Here are some photos of students from our class working:

The last image is that of a leftover plate of fruit (peaches and strawberries) which were shared with the class.  It was intended as a reward for those students who had at least 4/5 days of signatures in the agenda for the week.  This indicated that they were taking the agendas home and sharing information about their day with their parents or guardians.
I hope you enjoyed your weekend: