Important Dates
- Monday, April 25-Wed 27. Field Trip! Please drop off at 7:45, vans plan to leave at 8am
- Friday, April 29. 3:45-4:30pm (possibly shorter). Poetry block final project-a poetry reading with light snacks, coffee & tea that will include a mix of student originals and well known poems.
- Tuesday, May 3rd. 6:30-8:00pm. Parent evening with Ms. Hartz and Miss Kiefer-block plan unveiling, answer your questions, socialize, developmental talk about middle schoolers
This Week
- Packing, drop off time, what to wear Monday
- Morning Lesson
- IOWAs in school
- The Plant!
Packing, Drop off time, What to Wear Monday
Packing: Please use the pack list from the outfitter as your guideline but be SURE TO PACK ALL RAIN GEAR INCLUDING RAIN PANTS!!!!
Monday we are canoeing and pulling out at sandbars so please have your child wear pants that can be easily rolled up(skinny jeans don’t fit the bill here) or zipped off to make shorts, a hat if sunny, and water shoes such as keen sandals if you have them (no need to make a special purchase, but if you have them this is the ideal shoe for our canoeing adventure)
Please drop off at 7:45am Monday as the children will load right away and the vans plan to take off at 8am.
Food: Pack 2 snacks and a hearty lunch for Monday, all other meals will be provided and the students will take the receipts to add and divide out as a math problem when we return to figure out the food contribution per child (we used the whole budget for our excursions and transportation and, as in the past, will request a contribution for food)
Morning Lesson
During Wish, Wonder, and Surprise we worked heavily on observation, writing, using our thesauruses, revising, and analyzing poetry.
Forms we explored: cinquain, quatrain, couplet, sonnet(mostly Shakespearean with a mention of Petrarchan), acrostic, haiku, free verse
Poetic Devices we focused on: rhythm, rhyme scheme, imagery (sensory language), symbols, alliteration, assonance, repetition, internal rhyme, simile, metaphor, named the iamb and pentameter
We also looked at several illustrated poetry books and talked about the idea of carrying a motif (design theme) throughout our morning lesson books.
It can take great courage to put yourself out there and read self authored poetry in front of a group-it is often much more personal than narratives, research reports, short stories, etc. We prepared for reading our own poetry in class by first reading well known poems by others out loud, looking for a theme or assignment to incorporate into our own poem, writing, workshopping, and finally reading our own poems in front of the class. The final project for this block will be creating a cafe experience and welcoming parents, relatives, and friends into our space to hear a selection of well known and self authored poems all read by grade 6 & 7.
IOWAs in School
As of yet we still don’t know if CPS will have non CPS students take enrollment exams this spring or early next fall. UPWS has scheduled the IOWAs in school for the week of May 16th for both grades 6 & 7. Grade 6 will have their first standardized test taking experience and grade 7 will be able to continue practice working with standardized tests.
The Plant
Thank you to Miss Leidy and Ms Hartz for researching and planning such a wonderful earth day trip! Your children may have told you The Plant is situated downwind from a fat rendering facility…they had a very industrial experience walking to the location.
We took public transportation and used our feet to deliver us to The Plant, a facility where multiple businesses are trying to close their waste loop to keep the full cycle of reuse/recycle turning on site. They have a 30 ton digester that will eventually fuel the entire building where they continue to renovate and take on new businesses. The building currently has a brewery, coffee roaster, mushrooms, aquaponics, greenhouse, bees, outdoor gardens, and probably some other elements that are slipping my mind right now. I encourage you to check them out!