Good afternoon!

Today was a busy day. We started off with our Multicultural Assembly. Students of all grades gathered in the gym to discuss the importance of recognizing how wonderfully diverse and multicultural our school community is. Students also sang, “We Are the World,” which is something that they have been practicing in Music class with Mrs. Power.

After the assembly we were able to share our “Simple Switch” projects with one another. I saw a lot of wonderful creativity from everyone who shared a project today. There were students who created a single closed circuit that had 2 switches as part of the circuit. There were students that created 2 closed circuits with 1 switch as part of each circuit. There were even 2 projects that used resistors as part of their circuits to help modify the flow of electricity through their devices! Well done everyone. I know that this project required a lot of work at home, so thank you to everyone for all of the help and support that you gave to your students in helping them to complete this project.

In Health today, the boys from Ms. McNeil’s class once again joined the boys from our class, while the girls all worked together with Girls Inc. in Ms. McNeil’s classroom. The boys and I started with reviewing some of the topics that we have been discussing. Then we watched Shane Koyczan’s “To This Day” together. This is a poem that we have already watched and discussed as a class today, but I wanted to share it with Ms. McNeil’s class because it does have such a strong and powerful message about bullying. You can view the poem for yourself by following the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY

Then the boys and I completed an activity called “Bullying Thermometer” in small groups. Each group was given 3-4 cards with vocabulary words related to bullying on them. The cards said word such as: intimidation, hitting, conflict, drama, practical jokes, etc. The group was challenged to think of their cards. Did they think that it was a “hot” sounding word (a word that was an example of very serious bullying) or a “cold” sounding word (a word that is still a form of bullying because it can lead to conflicts and misunderstanding, but that wasn’t as serious). The students worked as a group and then as a whole class to place their words on a scale from least harmful to most harmful. This lead to some interesting discussion between both of our classes, and it was interesting to hear where students thought the words should be placed and what their opinions surrounding the words were.

In Art today we started a multicultural Art project to help celebrate multicultural week. Students looked at a Matryoshka doll that I brought from home. They were asked to consider the details and the dress of the doll and the importance of the doll as a cultural item. Then students began to create their own nesting doll. Students are using a blank template so that they can decorate their dolls as they like or with symbols and designs that represent their own culture or families. We will finish assembling the dolls next week.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Book Orders – April 30th

Math: Pgs. 169-170 #1-8, 10

Health: Girl Inc. forms signed