Gallery walk on the Gilded Age

Students preview some images from the turn of the 20th century. This time in history was full of industrialization and immigration. Children were often used as cheap labor. Students are trying to make sense of the images and ask questions as they look at the pictures.

Our wonderful volunteer, Mrs. F was also a "station" where students looked at a family diary from 1866 from a family member in Maine.

      Students observed that there were many children in the photos and that it appeared that they were working instead of being in school. Students wondered why children were paid less than adults. Students wondered why were people striking?  While we will be brief as we learn about this time in history, students will begin to see that as our country increases industrialization, there were some consequences for its people.

Images and Poetry

Students have worked throughout the week with a variety of writing techniques from Georgia Heard's book Awakening the Heart.  Using images, students used some pre-writing structures from Heard's book. Students have collected many photographs from this collection from National Geographic's best photos from 2016 

   

Here are some of their pieces.

Langston Hughes

We have been working with poetry during our reading and writing time. Students have been reading a variety of poems from diverse authors.  After reading some poetry from Langston Hughes, a Missouri native, students responded to two of his poems.

Oops! I omitted the "g" from his first name. It has since been corrected!

Agreement Circle in Science

We are approaching the end of phase one of our matter unit. We did a little check in and there were clearly some misconceptions about what is matter. With the suggestion of Dr. Hanuscin from the MU QuEST program, we held an "Agreement Circle".

How does it work? Students create a circle. The teacher reads a statement. If the students agree with the statement, they move "inside" the circle. Then, they turn to the members that are on the "outside" of the circle and explain (and defend) why the believe the statement is true.  We developed the statements directly from the student "check-in" the day before.

Here are the statements we posed:

• Everything is matter.
• Air has mass.
• Liquid or gasses are matter.
• Oxygen is matter.

Not only did students think the format was "fun" they probably refined their thinking during the process.  There were a few stragglers that stayed firm in their ideas, but most were able to see the way after talking it through with their peers.

Next step, let's go back and define what is matter by using a Frayer Model that is often used for vocabulary words.

The 102nd Day of School!

Well, actually for us, it was the 104th day of school. But, for our Kinder buddies it was their 102nd day. (They started two days after we did.) In any case, because Mrs. Mariott had jury duty, we had to celebrate the 100th day a bit later.  We finally connected and we had a blast helping our friends!

We will see you on Tuesday before the Valentine's Day Party!

   

Brain Games with Mrs. Sadewhite

During our counselor time this week, students played a variety of brain games. Mrs. Sadewhite reminded us that our brains are still growing. They are like a muscle; when exercised, they keep getting stronger!