We've been thinking about and sending love to our friends at services and in reflection for Yom Kippur. We're excited to see everyone back today.
We also had our first student-facilitated class meeting on Tuesday! Congratulations, Dylan! The facilitator noted that it was more challenging than expected and required a lot of quick-thinking, focus, and leadership.
Ultimately, the class passed a motion to name an official 3rd and 4th grade class mascot. It took thorough discussion and a lot of honest listening. With effective facilitation and compromise they eventually came to the consensus that our class mascot should be....
a plush watermelon and a plush pencil sewn together!!!!
The watermelon represents one of our strategies in personal narrative writing: we write about small, significant "seed" moments, rather than huge "watermelon" stories. The pencil represents our hard-working nature and creativity. Of course, this sounds a little silly, but it was a beautiful, completely student-driven compromise and I feel VERY proud of the class.
During Wednesday Poetry Club we looked at a series of poems written in a basic prose format and then with the intended line breaks for comparison. The students noticed the ways that the intentional use of line breaks can add drama, emotion, and power to poetry. The way a poet uses lines sort of 'tells' the reader to read the poem a certain way. The students then looked at a published poem, Safety Pin by Valerie Worth and organized it into the lines that they would have crafted. Next, they broke out into private workspaces and created some really strong writing. We ended the workshop with sharing before Julie picked them up for art.
Wednesday was the first Student Council meeting of the year. We elected representatives from our class in an in-class election. Vivienne, Gloria, and Hugo each showed tremendous courage and poise during their speeches. The election results were that Hugo will represent our class for the year and Gloria and Vivienne will share the responsibilities of the other representative. I couldn't be happier with the stellar representation my students have on the Council. Congratulations to everyone!
We wrapped up our studies of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler before the cabin trip. Almadin remarked that the ending was "like a firework show. The surprises just kept on exploding!" Today, I'm starting our next read-aloud unit on Beverly Cleary's Dear Mr. Henshaw. It is a powerful, engaging modern classic about a boy named Leigh who wants to be a writer. He sends letters to his favorite author, Boyd Henshaw. When Leigh's teacher assigns a book report, Leigh sends Mr. Henshaw a list of questions. Mr. Henshaw writes back some silly answers and a list of questions for Leigh to answer. At first Leigh is upset about the idea of doing "extra work" and is reluctant to open up. However, with his mother's insistence, he responds to Mr. Henshaw and we learn about Leigh's complicated relationship with his mostly absent father, his struggles as a new kid in a new school, and his sadness and confusion about his parents' divorce. He also shares his feelings of being lonely and misunderstood by his peers, his difficulties with some of his school assignments, and his important relationship with his dog, Bandit. Leigh is a very relatable, sympathetic character and I welcome the thoughtful discussion that his story will certainly inspire. I look forward to incorporating written responses to the text, character mapping, and vocabulary studies to our novel study. It's exciting to introduce the kids to a wonderful author with a very readable writing style.
I have a couple extra copies of the book in the classroom if anyone would like to borrow it and read along with us!
It will be so great to get together tomorrow at the Autumn Celebration BBQ! Please come pick up your child at noon in the classroom and enjoy the BBQ together.
