Twenty-Five Percent
The title of the post today is the percentage of the school year that is over. I really can't believe it! I've been having so much fun, the time has flown by. The old adage holds true.
While I've definitely been enjoying my three-day weekend, spending some much needed rest time with my five-month old puppy, Mowgli (which if you could see right now, is asleep next to me with his paw resting on my hand, making it just slightly difficult to type :) ), I wanted to take some time to show what we've been up to during Enrichment.
Kindergarten is learning about position words, During our first group, students played with position words by dancing to a song (with Lakewood's new mascot - which is super cute, by the way) and playing Simon Says. Below, they are showing the bulldog far away and on their face. I can't wait to share all the fun things Kindergarten will be doing to stretch their brains and use their critical and creative thinking skills.
First graders started reading the story, The Sun is My Favorite Star, which ties to their science curriculum where they are studying the cause of day and night. After reading, we engaged in a discussion about shadows and what causes them. Then, we experimented with shadows using shadow puppets. Students were able to understand how different shapes make different kinds of shadows and how holes in a shape allow light through.
Second grade has spent the quarter learning about weather and the concept of change. We ended the unit by creating weather report videos. Students worked in collaborative groups to brainstorm their weather topics and plan their video script. Check out the videos at the link below.
Fourth grade started their ELA unit on survival with a thought experiment that had students imagine they were had been stranded in a wintry, Northern Canada. Students had to work as a group to rank twelve items in order of importance to their survival. Groups discussed each item and while they agreed on the ranking of several items, especially those that would help build a fire, there were some where they disagreed. In those cases, students had to present their arguments and come to a consensus. Their conversations were very interesting. Surprisingly, the chocolate bars weren't number one on everyone's lists! After, students chose their top 5 survival items and calculated their survival score. Lowest score won. Below are their notebook entries from their discussions.
Finally, fifth grade is exploring the concept of equality. In the next week, they will start reading the autobiography, I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World (Young Reader's Edition) but we started the unit by looking at The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We used the thinking practice, The 4 C's, from Making Thinking Visible to organize our thinking and to dig deeper. Students contemplated connections to their life experiences, challenges to their opinions or news stories, concepts important to them and changes to their opinions or beliefs. Many students made connections to current events and one student commented that she felt much safer now that she knew this information.
