A Fabulous Week

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