Novel Studies - Literacy Groups
Last week we finished our "Long Walk to Water" class novel study.
This week, students divided into smaller Literacy Circle Groups and started a new novel. Literacy Circles are great for independent, student-driven interaction with a text. Each member of the group performs a specific, task-oriented jobs (jobs switch each week), hold daily discussions with their groups, and write daily reading responses. We are studying "The Egypt Game" by Zilpha Snyder, a Newberry Honor winner. By having all the groups study the same novel, we can introduce and practice each of the jobs of the Lit Circle. "The Egypt Game" goes great with some picture books we read when we began studying Characteristics of Civilizations, and will also be a great way to build prior knowledge and interest for our upcoming Egypt unit.
Theme - Mesopotamia Research Projects
Thursday and Friday were also very busy as students worked on their independent Mesopotamia Research Projects. These research projects are the finally to our Mesopotamia Unit. Students chose topics, and research focus questions to study some aspect of Mesopotamian culture and civilization. These projects allow students to demonstrate what they have learned during this unit, and to dig deeper into topics of interest. Thursday and Friday were buzzing with students building model Ziggurat temples, creating posters and slide presentations, building Sumerian city mobiles, or creating informative websites. Watching all this student-driven work was an awesome sight. See pictures below.