Your child may have come home last week to tell you about how my flying monkey went missing. They probably told you about the threat of EVERYONE receiving a consequence if it wasn't found by the end of the day. They probably told you how it showed up out of the blue in Mrs. Kinley's book basket at the 11th hour and let everyone off the hook. Well, as crazy as that sounds...its mostly true. My monkey did go missing. He was recovered in Mrs. Kinley's room at the very end of the day. What the students don't know (or didn't until just before this post was published) is that I orchestrated the entire scenario. I even went so far as to involve Mr. Ashley, Mrs. Kinley and the admins. It is part of a social experiment that I do every year about this time. The experiment is designed to cause suspicion as well as a little panic among the students. I let them off the hook before the school day is over because I don't want them to lose sleep over this, but I do want them to have a slightly uncomfortable experience at school.
We will begin reading The Salem Witch Trials - an unsolved mystery from history by Jane Yolen this week.
The purpose of the experiment is to let the students experience just a small taste of what it felt like in colonial Massachusetts in 1692. It is always interesting to see what happens throughout the day. As I suspected, students were very nervous throughout the day. Many came to me with accusations and suspicions. Some were even over heard saying that they were going to confess so everyone wouldn't get in trouble. These are some of the very same reactions that occurred in 17th century New England.
During this nine weeks we will be reading a lot of non fiction texts. The focus will be on finding evidence in the text to answer questions. This sounds easy enough, but believe it or not, the students really struggle with this.
Students will also complete a tic-tac-toe project this nine weeks. It is worth 100 points. Students have already completed 40 points of the project in class through our Puritan research. All students who researched, wrote notes and sufficiently shared their information with their team received full credit. The rest of the project is independent. There are 8 more choice the students can make to equal 100 points.
We will put things in high gear when we return from Thanksgiving break. We only have a few days left to get things done before our Christmas break comes. I wish you all a very safe and happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your week. Just to make you smile, here is a fun video to watch.
