The Brave and the Bold

 

Today the kids wrote copious amounts of material. 

First off, the kids who had been absent earlier in the week took the writing portion of the ISTEP test. Those who didn't do that stayed back in the classroom where we all wrote our individual entries in a "welcome book" for our new student we will be getting next Monday. You see, this kiddo is coming from sunny Florida, so we are tapping into the silver linings of life in Indiana, and the students are writing a playbook to get the most out of the greater Indy area and what's awesome about Indiana. Turns out, there are many more things that are super-sweet about living here than I have students. Everything from the Pacers to the 500 to Holiday World to Bubs Burgers highlighted this guidebook. I personally think 5-1 would make a great subcommittee for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. 

Second, my research groups wrote ballads (a.k.a. narrative poems) about their topics. I did get some nice, haunting stanzas about things like the Pony Express and the Transcontinental Railroad. 

In Math class, my new students did get to feel the wrath of my Friday quizzes. The good thing, from the looks of them, is that they did pretty darn well on the first of my weekly quizzes. Unless, of course, they are amongst the kids who have been with me all year (or better yet, since early last year!), then they knew exactly what to expect and had no problem passing it with flying colors, or at least they knew what to expect. 

It was a pretty good Friday in 5-1. The kids were extra-chatty (full moon + ISTEP week, I'm not going to complain too much...), but as I told them, at least they weren't being mean to each other.