Tuesday, May 5, 2015

King Cotton

Room 303 has hopped in a time machine and is exploring what life was like from the perspective of two children, one a plantation owner's daughter and a slave.
We started our lesson by identifying the meaning of 'perspective' which means how a character thinks or feels about a particular topic. Next, the students had the opportunity to observe a cotton boll and record their observations. Many students described the cotton as soft and fluffy. After the students recorded their observations, we read the first 2 pages of Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt. We learned that Clara was a child slave in the cotton field.
The students learned more about slaves in the cotton fields in our stations.





The students analyzed pictures at "Table Top Twitter".




They read diary entries from Sarah, the daughter of a plantation owner....


and a conversation between two slaves.


The students listened to recordings of voices of real slaves during the time of the Civil War on Ed Puzzle.

After each students has visited all the stations, we will observe the cotton again to see if they feel something different this time.
We know reading can not only make us smarter, but also more compassionate on topics that we do not know a lot about.
Stay tuned to read if these stations changed how we think and feel about a topic.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

All the Beautiful Landforms on Earth!

Happy Earth Day! What better way to celebrate than to display the Earth's beauty through a child's creativity. And one was pretty delicious! 

Great job, crew! You continue to amaze me each day! 









Monday, April 20, 2015

Landform Experts!

The students are working on presenting one landform with a picture, definition, and interesting facts to the class.


Meanwhile, at home, they are working on creating a landform project including 10 landforms, labels, and definitions. Here are a few samples that have been sent in so far. 
Keep up the great work! 


Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Landform Examples

In the link below you will find examples of landform projects. Please be sure to only use #1-10 landforms on the Earth's Land and Water Features page-
1. glaciers
2. ocean
3. river
4. lakes and ponds
5. volcano
6. mountains
7. valley
8. canyon
9. caverns
10. island




https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw1EZENe9jb2UHNudGtsaUl4RXc/view?usp=sharing

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Kid Blog Update


Our Kid Blog site has reached over 10,000 page views!!!! I am so thrilled to see our young authors reaching out to a LARGE audience across the US! Way to go, Mrs.Daniel's Crew!!!
Image result for kidblog

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Charleston Memories

Our much anticipated fieldtrip to Charleston, SC has come and gone, but I am sure the memories will last forever.
  My love for sea turtles sparked after reading The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe several years ago. The author is an environmentalist from Charleston with a passion for our state reptile, the loggerhead sea turtle. In her series, she writes about the sea turtle hospital. Of course, it has been on my 'bucket list' ever since. I could not have chosen a better group of students to learn along side as we researched and raised money for these gentle giants. Meeting Yawkey, the rare leatherback, was a once in a lifetime opportunity. She was released soon after we left that day. I think she arrived and departed just in the right time frame for us to meet her, and we are so glad we did! 
We hope our contributions to the sea turtle hospital will help heal these sweet loggerheads pictured below. 




    My husband and I visited Boone Hall Plantation the day after we were married in Charleston. This place has a special place in my heart. I was excited to return nearly 7 years later with 20 children that have completely stolen my heart. I am so thankful for their eagerness to learn each day.
Boone Hall served as our kick off for our next inquiry based unit on the Civil War.  Stay tuned to learn more! I am really excited about our upcoming unit! 




To read more Charleston Memories from our amazing group of authors, click on our Kid Blog link! They are thrilled to expand their audience outside of our classroom and across the world.