Monday, April 4, 2011

4th Grade - The word of the day was Shoddy. Shoddy means of poor quality or make; dishonest and sounds like Body. Jackie Joyner-Kersee was the Pilgrim of Exploration. When she was born, her grandmother insisted that she be named Jackie after Jacqueline Kennedy (then First Lady), because grandma knew she would be first lady of something. By overcoming asthma, and with hard work and determination, Jackie Joyner-Kersee won several Olympic gold medals for the heptathlon. The warm up activity of the day was a Plexer Puzzle. Plexers are common words or phrases put into picture form. Students have to use visual clues in order to determine the puzzle answer. The affective lesson had us focusing on the fact that successful people exhibit the traits of creativity, goal setting, intelligence, courage and kindness. Today we focused on kindness. After dissecting the Pledge to the American Flag, students wrote pledges they could keep to those around them. The Exploration lesson had us studying the point that explorations of new frontiers may impact advancements in other fields of study. With the recent earthquakes in Japan, we will be studying the earth's tectonic plates over the next couple of weeks. Finally, the CSI team provided students with another clue for helping find their families.