It's November... so it's turkey time! The kids learned some turkey terms and some crazy facts! We talked about everything from the behavior differences between turkey poults, chicks, and guinea keets to the way tryptophan makes us sleepy. They took a few notes, asked a few questions, and began to get excited about Thanksgiving!
Next, we started our literature lessons with a vocabulary review. The kids broke up into pairs. They used whiteboards to jot down answers to vocabulary questions. When you ditch the pencils and break out the dry erase markers, it keeps review fun! Along the way, we talked about the sad, exciting, scary, and sweet moments in the last few chapters. At home, students wrote about how Karana used things from the island to build her home, wall, and other tools and comforts. We talked about some of the creative ways that Karana created her home. Then, the kids were able to create blueprints of their own island homes. It was a little tricky for some to grasp an overhead drawing, but in a short time, it all clicked! They came up with different ways that they would create their island home, using only things found on the island in the novel. They created keys to help others understand their plans, and we will share them next week!
I gave out the field guides today, and I had more than one student that was sad that they didn't have it during the week! As they read the chapters in Island of the Blue Dolphins, they wanted to add so many things to their guides... so we worked on them a little bit in class. I wrote suggestions in each one, and I will take them up again sometime before Christmas. Some were so amazing that they deserved a trip to the prize box!
After lunch, the class shared Central America paintings, songs, foods, and poems. This was such a fun day! There were also a lot of awesome research projects that were shared today. By the end, I had to limit all of the questions, comments, and exclamations... or we would have never finished! How fun to share a project with excited and inquisitive peers!
In science, one of the kids' at-home assignment was to write horror stories that were based somehow on virus invasion of a host. They really knocked these out of the park! We were planning to read them in small groups, discussing them around the tables... but they begged to hear them all! Not only were these creative (and creepy), but they illustrated their knowledge of virus replication! They will be working on an activity in their science notebooks to review this lesson. Then, we will dive into the wide world of bacteria!
The class learned how to paper quill today! They are working with paper quilling tools and strips to create some Thanksgiving turkeys. We will finish these next week!
In science, one of the kids' at-home assignment was to write horror stories that were based somehow on virus invasion of a host. They really knocked these out of the park! We were planning to read them in small groups, discussing them around the tables... but they begged to hear them all! Not only were these creative (and creepy), but they illustrated their knowledge of virus replication! They will be working on an activity in their science notebooks to review this lesson. Then, we will dive into the wide world of bacteria!
The class learned how to paper quill today! They are working with paper quilling tools and strips to create some Thanksgiving turkeys. We will finish these next week!
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