What’s Around Me?
We traveled North along the Appalachian Trail to meet the First Nation people who blazed it! We explored the Northeast Woodlands Region of the United States. The lands of deciduous forests, rivers, and the Great Lakes are rich with natural resources. It was also the birthplace of one of the world’s oldest democracies. The beautiful book Hiawatha and the Peacemaker guided our
discussions this week. It is the story of the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse – they go by the name Iroquois too) comprised of
five tribes, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and the Seneca, who agreed to end warfare among their people. The agreements they made with one another still stand today as a model of “Peace, Power, and Righteousness”. The Wampum belt is the symbolic and integral part of the treaty between nations and later became the symbol of agreement between Europeans and the Woodland people.
The cylindrical wampum is made with beads crafted from the quahog (clamshells) and whelks of the North Atlantic. It is very time-consuming to craft – one row could take a year to make.
As table teams we became our own nations and created our own wampum belts. We talked about what it means to keep our agreements and how we build trust by keeping our word and our promises to one another. We used the color of our table team and then collaborated on how to choose the second color. Then we practiced designing our own design before we decided on the one that we
would add to the Wampum belt.
Alphas are GREAT teachers! With the whole group, first and second year students taught the other how to play math games from their arsenal.
In Math…
Ms. Kim’s Mathletes…
This week, Alphas worked on subtraction skills and practiced them by proving whether certain equations were “true” or “false!”
Alphas are learning to line up subtraction problems!
Ms. Emma’s Math Wizards…
This was a week full of assessments as we wrap up Quarter 2! These one on one check-ins are a time for teachers to review key concepts with each student and see what stuck. Our assessments look a little something like…
We still found time for some tricky “secret code” addition/subtraction practice…
In ELA…
Ms. Kim’s group…
AGAIN! No photos to share :( But whew, were we busy! We had a few check-ins, a few assessments, and we wrote even MORE about our Stuffies!
Ms. Emma’s group…
Tackled assessments! We also seriously practiced our lowercase alphabet! Most students perfected their letters to be written in under a minute. The alphabet race was a fun challenge!
Students also added a few more high frequency words to their word bank…
In Other News…
Happy Birthday Rex!!! Alpha knows you’re silly and wants you on their table team!
Thank you for the delicious cookies!
Alpha recess is so much fun, and a wonderful place to explore conflict resolution!
An especially cool show and tell…
Many impressive playdough creations…
And tangram rockets!
