Weekly ELA and Science News 4/1 - 4/4

What a week!  I always find the first few days back after a break to be challenging.  Our sleeping schedules are a little off, we've forgotten how to focus for longer periods of time, and we often struggle to work with others.

Starting this term was different though.  Some aspects of it are true, but I've been really impressed with student's working together in my classes this week.  We had a hodge-podge of lessons - art literacy, OAKs testing, some team building, Portfolio work, goal setting, and finally starting our new Science Unit.  Through it all, I just kept noticing how much our classes have grown and changed over this year already.  I also noticed a few things I hope to really focus on this upcoming term before we all move on to our next grade/level/stage of life.  

A good example of this was our team building activity this week, "Touch Someone Who."  Students used the activity to affirm their classmates of their strengths by anonymously tapping a student who fit a statement I read.  Ex:  "Touch someone who is a leader in our class.  Touch someone who is kind.  Touch someone who you look up to."  Students felt complimented, affirmed, and elated when their classmates thought those good things of them.  I even had a students say, "I think the things I didn't get touched for are OK, and they give me something to work towards."

That's it.  That's exactly it.  We've come so far, and it was great to see them acknowledge that in each other.  We also still have opportunities for improvement, and instead of shying away from them, our students are beginning to embrace them.

That's developing life-long learning if I've ever seen it.