One more piece

We only need one more potato head piece for our next celebration. They can do it IF they use self-discipline. Some kiddos are being way too social and too noisy.
Our day started with Math 4 Today and then on to research for our I Survived stories. They are doing pretty well with the story ideas but need to dig a little deeper with their research to truly write from the perspective of someone in the era they are writing in. For example, today, a student talked about using a sword in a battle. I challenged him to research exact weapons used by which people (Native Americans, French, English) so that he could be more exact. We also discussed researching from the perspective of their character. An example of this would be during the French and Indian War. What do they need to know from the perspective of the British compared to that on the Native Americans? Speaking of perspective, our focus in Reader's Workshop has been on point of view and perspective. We visited this topic earlier in the year while reading Wonder, but now we are diving deeper and comparing and contrasting the different perspectives. We are doing this through reading Because of Mr. Terupt in read aloud where we are viewing a class from the different perspectives of the students in the class. Last week and the beginning of this week, we've also been looking at perspective with informational text through first-hand accounts vs. second-hand accounts. We used Ruby Bridges' story last week and read from a few very different perspectives about Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World, as well as the impact of September 11 through the book 14 Cows for America. Students are now journalists and writing articles from different perspectives about one of the events, using the literature we've read. After a glorious outdoor recess, we were, "All about the shapes, 'bout the shapes..." in Math Workshop. We sorted and categorized and discovered and discussed. By the end, students were able to describe shapes using all of the geometrical terms we've been discussing. Our day concluded with Social Studies and an Ohio Studies Weekly to help learn about the road to Ohio's Statehood and the Northwest Territory.