Word Scrambles, Coat of Arms, and Volume (not for your ears)

Our Jumpstart today was a classic word scramble.  Students used their prior knowledge together with some decoding skills to uncover our mystery vegetable names.  How well can you solve our scrambles?

Students were hard at work on our medieval times projects.  Students continued their investigation of knights, armor, and weapons.  They then chose symbols of heraldry to represent themselves on the battlefield by creating their own Coat of Arms.  

Work in Progress- Coat of Arms

Next week they will also choose between writing their own minstrel song or creating an advertisement for the medieval equipment they studied.


Students experienced yet another format of "Reader's Theater" today.  Teams practiced  and performed different "To Tell The Truth" game show scripts and presented them to the class.  We are focused on fluency and projection and also learned some interesting facts about Harriet Tubman and J.K. Rowling!  Students may select from several formats, including "To Tell The Truth",  when creating their own Medieval Times reader's theater script and production.  

"To Tell The Truth- Harriet Tubman"  Rehearsal

Sneak Peek of the J.K. Rowling performance!

We also continued our discovery of M3 Math- Measurement for Me by introducing Volume.  Of course, we discussed the specific volume used for measuring how much something can hold as Capacity.:)  Students chose one of the two graphic organizers to serve as a resource throughout the next few lessons.  Today we began "Let's Make Lemonade" and quickly learned that a classroom full of students and a few adults would drink many cupfuls of lemonade.  Next week, we will look more deeply into capacity conversions.

We're baaaaack and Collaboration Abounds!!

Collaboration was a major focus for us today in our development of the 6Cs.  Students had several opportunities to further hone their collaboration skills through class activities in small groups and partner work.

We also began the day with Content exploration through our Jumpstart by taking a closer look at common Greek and Latin Prefixes and clues.  Give it a try to see if you can outsmart our "SPARK" thinkers.

Mindset Moment
For our mindset moment, we referred back to our discussion of "The Dip" and looked at reflecting on mistakes as a helpful strategies for moving forward.  Students then submitted their ideas for activities we could do in class to help us practice overcoming the dip.

Medieval Times PBL
We made progress on our medieval times projects by wrapping up the fair or festival invitations we began last week as we studied castle life and celebrations.    Students created amazing invitations. We will work to make them more authentic with tea-stained paper next week.

This week we also began to look at the popular topics of knights, armor, and weapons.  Students are collaborating on a Google Slides Presentation by working in small groups to create a way to share the most important information from their highlighted chapter.  

Students also had the chance to collaborate with partners to create a replica of the popular medieval weapon catapult.  Check out their work and excitement below.:)