The month of September is rolling in as we approached to our 4th week of school. We began our Writer’s Workshop focusing on Personal Narrative Writing and Book Club focusing on developing reading strategies of monitor for meaning and create a mental image.
Writer’s Workshop
For the first week of Writer’s Workshop we focused on strategies for generating personal narrative.
Learning Intention 1: Think of first times, last times, or times you realized something, and then list stories you could tell about each and write one.
Learning Intention 2: Think about a place that matters, list small moments that occurred in that place and write one.
We shared our personal narrative of a place that matters to us with partners or a group.
Book Club
In our first week of Book Club, we focused on reading strategies of monitor for meaning and reading historical fiction genre that connects to our Peace and Conflict unit.
Learning Intention 1: Use monitor for meaning strategies when coming to an unknown word.
Learning Intention 2: Identify and describe historical fiction genre.
Natsuki: "I'm reading a book about World War I. I was finding out the definition of words I don't know. It helps me with my vocabulary skills and reading strategies. "
Miyabi: "We were reading about books that were connected to our unit of Peace and Conflict. I am reading a book called Ellie's War, and she has a hard time handling her conflicts. The book had British English words that I didn't know. I talked to my friends of what it could mean. If we both didn't know, we looked it up in a dictionary."
Unit of Inquiry
We continued the second week of Unit of Inquiry Peace and Conflict unit with our focus on personal conflicts and global conflicts.
After we worked within our groups to investigate the unit’s vocabulary words’ meaning, we viewed images related to the vocabulary words. For each image, we wrote down on sticky note of a vocabulary word that closely associates with the image.
Learning Intention: Identify and apply Peace and Conflict vocabulary words in writing and discussions.
- conflict
- ideology
- intervention
- dispute
- negotiate
- revolt
- oppression
- intimidation
- lack of resource
- democracy
- corrpution
- resolution
- discrimination
- dictatorship
- treaty
- prejudice
We focused on personal conflicts last week and this week. We come to an understanding that we will face personal conflicts throughout our lives. As 5th graders, we use various strategies to resolve conflicts.
Learning Intention 1: Causes of conflict (personal and local)
Learning Intention 2: Consequences of actions
Learning Intention 3: Strategies to resolve conflict
Our groups were given various real world scenarios that occur in a school environment.
You and your best friend have always played soccer together. You both try out for the school's team. You make it and your friend doesn't. At first your friend claims not to care, but you soon realize your friend is very angry. Your friend doesn't want to spend as much time together as you used to, and, of course, you have daily practices and games your friend doesn't attend.
Your friend tells you a secret. You don't really mean to, but you tell another friend. Soon the whole school seems to know what your friend's secret is. Your friend is really mad at you. Your other friends are also upset that you revealed the secret.
Scenario 3 (https://www.eduplace.com/activity/pdf/conflict.pdf):
There is a girl in your class who you think is always mean to you. She always bumps you when she walks by. She laughs at you and calls you names. You don’t think you can take it anymore.
Scenario 4:
You and your group of three are assigned a team project. Two of your team members are only talking to each other to plan and work with you. You feel left out.
Scenario 5:
You leave class to head to lunch. In the hallway, you noticed a group of girls speaking in another language, laughing, and they glanced at you while still laughing. You are wondering if the girls are talking about you.
Scenario 6:
You collected your lunch bag and make your way to the table. You see a group of classmates already seated and eating their lunch. You chose a spot next to your classmates and were about to take a seat when one of your classmates says, “you can’t sit here.”
Scenario 7:
You and your team of four are assigned a brainstorming activity. Your team members are actively sharing their ideas with each other while one team member is writing the ideas down on paper. In a few minutes, you shared your ideas with your team. Two of your teammates are busy sharing ideas with each other, and one of your teammates repeatedly turns your ideas down.
Scenario 8:
You are in the hallway to unpack your belongings from your bag. A friend approaches you looking angry and accuses you for telling others that you are no longer friends. However, you did did not tell anyone that you are not friends. In fact, you believe you two are still friends.
Scenario 9:
You and you friend have been together for three years and have done everything together. After one month of the beginning of the school year, you noticed that your friend is hanging out with another classmate. You wrote a letter to your friend that you no longer want to be friends.
We analyzed the scenarios with a partner to identify the cause of the conflict, predict the consequences of the conflict, and develop strategies to resolve the conflict.
Kate: "So we were thinking about if the scenarios happened to us, what would we do. In some scenarios, if we hurt our friends, we would use the Kelso wheel or the Ladder of Success and think of the steps to resolve the conflict."
At home activities:
Activity Number 1: You can choose any of the above scenarios to act out with your family. Brainstorm strategies to resolve the conflicts.
Activity Number 2: Table Talk - At the family dinner table or in the living room during tea time, have a family discussion about historical global conflicts. You can discuss the causes of the conflicts, consequences of the conflicts. We will move on to learning about global conflicts and resolutions.
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