Week of April 24-28

This week, the third graders continued to explore various aspects of poetry like consonance, assonance, hyperbole, personification, and more. We've been trying to incorporate some of these techniques into our writing to make it stronger and more powerful. I'm very impressed with my students' ability to apply these techniques in creative ways to their own poems!

In 4th grade, we explored Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. After reading an abridged version, some students were surprised at how depressing this play actually is! We then focused on translating some of the balcony scene into modern day language by having Rome and Juliet text each other. I was shocked at how quickly many students were able to make sense of Elizabethan English and pick up on the gist of what was going on!

The 5th graders continued gathering research on their TED Talk topics and adding to their mind maps. This important work will help us tremendously when we start to write our speeches next week!