Valentine's Day Celebration

Last Friday, the students in the Lily Pad celebrated Valentine's day! Students decorated bags, handed out their valentines, noshed on delicious red, pink and white healthy foods and then tried their hand at several Minute-to-Win-it games.

All in all a good time was had by all!

Should There be Zoos?

During our shared reading and Writing instruction, students have been pondering the question: Should There be Zoos?  

Students learned about elements of persuasive writing (tools writers use, types of persuasive writing, etc.) and then they were charged with critically reading each argument (For and Against) trying to take their own personal bias out of the equation.  As you can imagine, this was difficult to do.  We discussed how difficult this is for adults to do, too!

Once we read several arguments, students took a stand.  Then, students got down to the business of annotating the text (highlighting important facts and opinions) and taking notes on the text.

Once students were armed with their important facts, they got together into 2 groups and together wrote an argument FOR or AGAINST zoos.  These arguments will be completed and shared on Monday.  As you can imagine, each side was passionate about their case!

Finally essay will be shared here in the next blog post!

Next up for our writers will be to choose a topic, take a stand and then write their own persuasive piece.

Immigration and Migration

During social studies, students have been learning about immigrants and migrants who first moved to Madison in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Students learned that there were several factors that could either pull people to a new state or country as well as factors that pushed people from the homelands.  

Along with this, we have been reading an oral history about a girl named Elda who, with her family, immigrated to the US from Italy.  Students read about the struggle she and her family endured as well as the opportunities she and her family had in the USA.    We will continue to learn about the early immigrants over the next 2 weeks.  

Upcoming Events

• Tuesday, February 24 - School Music Concert and Fine Arts Night (1:35 rehearsal and 6:00 performance)
• Tuesday, March 3 - Drum Circle (6:00-7:15)
• Saturday, March 7 - International Food Fair at Lapham (11:00 - 1:00) http://goo.gl/forms/hYx558Sa2q
• March 19 - third quarter conference - I will send out an email regarding this next week
• March 30 - April 6 - Spring Break
• April 7 - School Resumes