Tuesday's Child is Full of...ENERGY!

It was an odd-energy day over all today. I felt that way this morning before school began and before we even began our first unit (drama) this morning, I offered that idea to the Sixth Grade students: "It's a strange-energy day today, isn't it?" I asked. They all agreed. One said, "I think it's the weather." And it just well may be. The feeling seemed to last all day.

Despite that, the students did some great work during their vocal and physical warm ups this morning and they did some absolutely stunning work in drama!

The opening drama exercise we did was created to give actors a chance to simply "be" on the stage, while at the same time giving the "audience" the opportunity to support the "working actors". Across the board, the students took their jobs to heart and made the exercise a success because of the very-present give and take that took place.

Next, we played a game of Stone Age Charades. This consisted of terminology students learned yesterday mixed with a dash of creativity and willingness. Yesterday we had read in our History text book several reasons why language may have been created. But what did people do before they had language? How did they communicate? Some of the Social Studies terminology we used today was very difficult to act out - to "mime." When a student felt stuck or stumped by the term he or she needed to "perform" they were encouraged to figure out a way - to problem-solve - how they would be able to communicate this information...as if they had to. Some students got very creative and other students were simply very good guessers.

Grammar, spelling and punctuation...it seems to know no bounds in our classroom so far (for about half, most of the time, for about three-quarters, some of the time), so the past two days we have given some extra focus to spelling, word usage and punctuation.

Whether never learned or suffering from summer brain, half the students stumble over which to use: "there", "their" or "they're". "Too", "to" and "two" can sometimes be a problem as well, as can "then" and "than". The only remedy for clarification and proper usage is practice, which we partook in and will continue to do so.

This week is our final week reading Old Yeller. In fact, tonight's reading assignment will take us to the end of the book. Thursday, we will be having a "tea" - as we will when we are finished with all of our books - to discuss and celebrate. Our next book will be Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

I am grateful today for the weather cool-down and yesterday's storm, and am hopeful that tomorrow will bring a new energy...a little less strange...well-focused and spelled correctly.

: )

Cheers,
Ms. Pitman