Dreams, Words, Raisins, and Ambassadors

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend as much as I did!

Here are some more shots of life on Team 3/4.

It's Bananagrams! Quick! Make as many words as you can with your letter tiles!

On the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington, we watched a video of Dr. MLK, Jr.’s incredible “I Have a Dream” speech and discussed the context of life in the segregated South that made his words so important and meaningful.

As writers, we noticed how Dr. King used repetition for emphasis.

We identified some of his powerful sentence starters such as, “Let us not…” and “I have a dream that…”

We brainstormed the dreams that we have for our own lives, for our community, and for the world.

And finally, we wrote beautiful speeches that we're excited to share with you! Check them out on the hallway bulletin board tomorrow!

Strong spellers rely on symbol images (their visual memory of a word's spelling) and use their phonemic awareness (understanding of spelling rules and sound patterns) as back-up if a visual pattern is lost. Below, you will see students utilizing one of our methods for acquiring a visual memory of a word. The students in the next pictures are "air writing" their spelling words with their eyes closed. They visualize the words in their minds, "write"them in the air with a finger, and whisper the words aloud as they write.

These mathematicians are working with skills for estimation. If they know how many raisins are in their individual boxes, how can they use that information to estimate the number of raisins at their table? In the whole classroom? At the grocery store?

Playing Evens and Odds in partners...

Welcome to Day #1 of the Ambassador Workshop! Throughout the year, the students rotate through the weeklong position of Team 3/4 Ambassador. In that post, they are responsible for really stepping up as leaders. The Ambassador facilitates the class meeting, reports back their observations of whether or not the class successfully upheld their social contract during the afternoon specialist classes, and greets visitors to the classroom. We’ve been working on greeting visitors with a welcoming smile, eye contact, and a firm handshake.