Week of April 18-21

This week, my 3rd grade poets explored aspects of poetry like repetition, lists, surprising/descriptive language, and wonderings. We then tried to incorporate some of these things into our own poems. We discussed the importance of seeing the extraordinary in ordinary objects and seeing the world through a poet's eyes. I am so impressed with the sophisticated and thoughtful poems my students have been writing!

In 4th grade, we explored the language of Shakespeare and discussed his contribution to modern English. People back in Elizabethan times definitely spoke very differently than we do today, but after learning about verbs, pronouns, and some common terms from back then, we were able to start to make sense of it all! We had fun translating some modern conversations into Elizabethan speak using this website:
http://www.shmoop.com/shakespeare-translator/

In 5th grade, we have chosen our topics for our TED talks, and we spent this week doing research and mind mapping our topics to gather as much information as possible in order to become experts. Our next step will be to figure out the point we are trying to make and to decide which branches of our mind map to include in our speeches.