The Verdict is in.....
This week in reading we
looked more closely at the chapter book that we are reading as a whole class, The Hundred Dresses. One
of the major themes in this book is bullying and making good choices even
though it might be difficult.
Early on in the week, the students were asked to
describe one of the main characters in the story, Maddie. This character
seems as though she cares about Wanda, the girl that is getting bullied because
she doesn't actually participate in the bullying that is going on. Maddie also
seems to "care" about Wanda because she wants to get her friend to
stop bullying Wanda and eventually wants to speak up to the bully, but is too
scared. The majority of the class felt as though Maddie was a caring
character.
The class then read a Scholastic News
article about bullies and bystanders. After reading this article the
students were again asked to judge Maddie as a character now that they had
learned more about bullies and bystanders from another text. Many still
felt she was caring.
Since our class was split on this issue of
Maddie as a character, we held a People's Court debate about the topic.
Students got together in pairs with a person who felt the same as they
did about Maddie and then those partnerships got together with the rest of the
kids that felt the same way and created a speech to support their thinking.
They had to use evidence from the text and/or article to support their
thinking throughout this entire process.
On Friday we held our first official People's Court to debate the
issue of Maddie as a character. Students were reminded that at the end of
hearing each side on this debate they would have to decide on their final
verdict. Was Maddie caring or not caring? Ask your
child what their verdict was!
I was so proud of
the kids for listening to both sides so that they could make a decision about
Maddie based on the evidence. It was fun and powerful learning for both
the students and myself.
I am creating an iMovie out of our debate.
I am hoping to post it at some point next week after we have our own
"viewing" party in the classroom.
Hard-working Authors!
In writing this week the kids decided on a story
that they were going to “commit to” and write using newly learned strategies.
They had to think closely about their main character. They also
started to plan out their story by using a story arc. A story arc is a
way to make sure that their story follows the pattern that most fiction stories
follow. In this plan, the characters are usually introduced, a problem
occurs, and then problem tends to get worse and worse for the characters.
In the middle of the story, there is usually a turning point or the part
of the story where the characters change or learn a lesson. After that
there is usually some sort of resolution. This type of plan really allows
the students to think very clearly about how they envision their story to play
out.
Working with Area and Perimeter
In
math we started our new math unit on multiplication and division. This
unit starts off with having students think about what they learned in third
grade about area and perimeter and apply it to real world situations.
There was some hands on work to go along with this as students needed to
create diagrams with certain dimensions.
I hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend!
~Mrs. Lewis
