Today, we wrapped up our Multicultural Monday’s with a final project. Students got in groups to create a collage of images based on the different historical events, artists, and cultural movements we studied. In their groups of three, each student will then write a reflection/summary of what they learned about one of our three main topics:
The Day the Music Died
Bob Dylan and Protest Music
Motown
In our afternoon class, students finished up their conference prep to ensure they were 100% prepared for Thursday and Friday’s conference. Once students finished their conference prep, they were able to continue working on their Civil Rights Research Presentations to make sure they were ready to present on Wednesday.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2025
Today, students engaged in a Ketchup, Mustard, Pickle period! As our first trimester comes to a close, a Ketchup, Mustard, Pickle period is incredibly helpful for students to finish up any final activities before break.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2025
It’s presentation day! Students presented their Civil Rights Movement Research Presentations to their peers. It was a day filled with learning, and celebrating their hard work!
After presentations were over, students completed a brief reflection assignment and competed in a Thanksgiving Fun Facts Blooket! The goal of this activity was not only to have some fun, but to practice some test taking skills:
Making an educated guess when you don’t know the answer.
Learning from your previous mistakes to ensure you get it correct next time.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2025
Today, students took some time to finish up their collages they started in our Multicultural Monday class. As they were working, students who had a conference today were called to practice presenting their work.
We took a brief break to listen to Ms. Melissa’s class and their reader’s theater presentations about Thanksgiving! (:
In the afternoon, students had Science. They were given the opportunity to present their cell projects to lower grade students. I was really proud to see how many of them took the skills they learned from creating their Children’s Book Stories to these presentations as many presented their cells in simpler terms with easy-to-understand language for the kids. Many students also adjusted the amount of advanced vocabulary they integrated depending on what grade their audience was in.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2025
We started our morning class normal, with students competing in our weekly quick write and taking their vocabulary tests. This week’s quick write champion was Leo!
In the afternoon, I couldn’t resist having a bit of Thanksgiving Break fun… so students took some time to disguise some turkeys. As they worked, students who had a conference today were pulled to practice. (:
I hope everyone has a fantastic break!
I look forward to sharing more of our learning together when we return! (:
Today, we continued with our Motown Presentations for Multicultural Mondays and and ended up on an incredibly interesting side discussion. One group researched songs and somehow ended up with songs that were not part of the Motown discography – however, one of their songs were clearly inspired by the artistic styling of artists of color, and an additional protest song that opened the door for other Motown artists to speak out.
We talked about how White artists had (and have) an immense amount of privilege, and some used that privilege to open the door for artists of color to speak out and advocate for themselves through their music by starting to make it normalized on their already accepted platform. We also talked about how, even today, many artists of color do something and get backlash… until a White artist copies them and gets labeled as an innovator! We talked about how in many artistic mediums, people of color become trend setters missing their credit, as it only became cool when a White person “started” the trend, but was looked down upon when people of color did it first. We talked about how it traced back to Rock and Roll, to Rap, various fashion trends, slang language, etc.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed a play performed by Ms. Demetra’s class on knights and the medieval times!
Then, we had a conversation about bullying. We talked about the harmful impact it has now, as well as the negative lasting impacts. We also talked about media literacy and why it is incredibly important to be careful what you post/send on the internet. To help demonstrate these ideas, I used a piece of paper.
We started with verbal bullying:
I held up a white piece of paper, and instructed the students to say mean things to it. With every mean thing they said, I crumbled part of the paper. Then, I asked what we usually do after we said something hurtful to someone, to which everyone said was apologize. When we apologized to the paper, I tried my best to smooth out all the wrinkles. Even though it was better, the paper wasn’t the same. There were wrinkled scars from all the mean things they said to it – just like how someone never forgets the cruel words bullies say. I then talked about how their relationship/friendship with this paper is weaker, the paper’s physical strength is weaker. We talked about how even after we apologized, and became friends with the paper again, what happens when we back stab our friends by bullying them behind their back?
Once again, I had students say mean things to the paper. I ripped the paper. We talked about how each time we do these mean things, apologize, and do them again… the negative effects are more severe each time. This is due to broken trust, adding new wounds to old scars, etc. We can try to tape the paper, put books on top of it to smooth it out… but the paper will never be the same. I told them I still remember the words that were said to me when I was bullied in elementary school and our words can hurt; emphasizing that their actions will be remembered, and that they need to make sure they are remembered for their possitivity rather than being harmful to those who are different than us.
We then talked about doing these actions through cyber bullying:
We know what happens to the paper/person as an effect of the bullying, but I really wanted to highlight media literacy and how everything you post/send on the internet is forever. I held up a pencil. The class agreed that pencil’s are really cool because you can erase with them when you make a mistake. So, I wrote a mean “tweet” on a new sheet of paper, “I hate you!” Let’s say I began to regret my tweet, so I tried to erase it. However, it couldn’t fully erase… just like their posts/messages online will never fully delete. We talked about celebrities getting canceled and how it’s almost always something dug up from deep in their past they tried to bury/hide. We talked about how the older something is, the harder it would be to find – but it is never impossible to access. The erased letters will fade over time due to additional friction and aging, but there will always be an imprint on that paper that we can see if we look super carefully at it in the right lighting. We talked about how what they post/message could affect them getting into colleges, being a famous soccer player filming an anti-bullying campaign, etc. This was to demonstrate how their online actions will always be a part of them, and to be extremely careful when doing so.
After our lesson on cyber bullying and media literacy, students spent some time reading their independent novels silently. Then, students took our vocabulary test we needed to postpone due to last week’s field trip!
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2025
Today, we expanded on our learning of Motown into a mini-unit on the Civil Rights Movement. We started with a discussion of what students know, and talked about some of the key goals and ways people protested. When we were talking about the ways people protested, Adrian sparked an incredibly interesting discussion and modern day connection to the protests against I.C.E. he had been hearing about. We talked about how, in America, if there is something the government is doing that you disagree with – you have the right to peacefully protest. So, some people in America are unhappy with I.C.E. and are protesting to make sure their distaste and concern is heard and understood. On the other hand, some people are proud of what I.C.E. agents are doing and make sure their support is heard and clear in other ways. Adrian then asked about how I.C.E. agents know if an individual is a legal immigrant or illegal immigrant, so we talked about how every organization has different procedures – some of which we likely don’t even know! However, in America, everyone has a right to due process; so, if an I.C.E. agent was incorrect about them being an illegal immigrant, that individual is able to prove their legal citizenship for release. We talked about how those mistakes could happen, which then brought up the topic of racial profiling… becoming our full circle moment to jump back into discussing the Civil Rights Movement as part of racial profiling is stereotyping. We talked about some of the stereotypes that people of color faced during the Civil Rights Movement, and how it was so important for their protest forms to be peaceful in order to disprove the idea that they were dangerous and violent. I throw this in here, not because I want to be political or show an off-topic conversation, but to highlight the deeper thinking and connections our class is making. While unexpected when I called on his raised hand, I absolutely loved that Adrian was able to make a modern-day connection to some of the history we were learning and pushed his peers to think and reflect deeper about other points in the lesson!
After our group discussion and background learning, I outlined 6 main events/influential people or groups in the Civil Rights Movement for partnered pairs to research and present to the class.
Ruby Bridges (Researched by Lily and Marina)
March on Washington (Researched by Leo and Adrian)
Montgomery Bus Boycott (Researched by Maggie and Kosta)
Little Rock Nine (Researched by Vasia and Rebecca)
Brown v. Board of Education (Researched by Teddy and Jason)
Shelley v. Kraemer (Researched by Gia and Nefeli)
This assignment will test their presentation skills (something we have been practicing all year with presenting their children’s books, Multicultural Monday posters, etc.) and their ability to assess if a source is credible for their research (something we recently practiced/learned how to do). Students were so engaged in their research and creating their presentations, they actually opted to continue working as they ate their snack. So, if you see some yummy treats in any of the photos below… that’s why! They will continue working on their presentations this week in preparation for their presentations on Wednesday, November 19th!
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2025
Today, we took some time to begin preparing for our upcoming fall conferences. We took some breaks in between our prep work to enjoy service project presentations from Ms. Yana’s, Ms. Beth’s and Ms. Anna’s classes.
Ms. Yana’s Service Project:
Give back to children in need with a toy drive, organized by the Department of Child and Family Services. Each child, with your permission, will select a tag from Ms. Yana’s class tree! Each tag represents a DCFS child’s holiday wish list (items ranging from $20-$50). Please email me giving permission for your student to select a tag. You are also welcome to stop by either before or after school to select a tag together with your student.
Ms. Beth and Ms. Anna’s Service Project:
Bring any canned and/or boxed goods to donate in the collection bin in the office by November, 21, 2025. Donated food will be given to the Des Plaines Food Pantry!
We also had a wonderful presentation from the Music Institute to learn about pianos, guitars, and ukuleles. Speaking of music… we took a moment to reveal what song we will be performing for the holiday concert! In between our different blocks of conference prep work time, we took some occasional brain breaks to sing along to our class song to help get it into our minds before we begin our focused rehearsing after Thanksgiving break!
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2025
Students engaged in a work period to make some good progress on their Civil Rights Research Presentations. If any group finished, they were able to continue working on conference prep.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2025
It’s Friday! Which means, it was time for the weekly quick write! Today, our champion was Becky, and I’m happy to report that our quality of writing is getting quite a bit more sophisticated. At the beginning of the year, I typed up one of our quick write winner’s pieces. It just so happened to also be Becky’s! Now, I don’t do this every week, but I am going to do it this week, as we are nearing the end of the grading period. I want to show you how much our writing has improved, even in the early drafting stage, in such a short period of time. By typing up their fright club stories, you saw how much great writing skills they have developing using the writing process, however, there is something to be said about improving their first draft writing abilities as well… and that is what the quick write is for! So, here is Becky’s first ever quick write:
Me and my furtive friend saw an arachnid during recess. There was a whole arachnid web on a mangrove! Me and my friend were about to touch it! We ran up to our teacher and told her everything super quickly, so she said we were using gobbledygook. We wanted to burn the arachnid, so we found some kindling and we tried using that, but it didn’t work. I was trying be furtive, then scare the arachnid away. It worked! The arachnid jumped off the mangrove! Then, we felt bad for the arachnid and became friends with it. We called him gobbledygook, because our teacher said we were using gobbledygook when we were trying to tell her about the arachnid and the arachnid’s web. When recess was over, we said bye to the arachnid and went back to school.
Here is Becky’s most recent quick write:
There was a robbery in my city. The police were collecting forensic evidence. They couldn’t ascertain why there had been so many robberies lately. The police went to court with the robber. The judge made a prudent decision, and sent the robber to jail. The robber did not exalt God. The furtive people in the robbed neighborhood call the robber an iconoclast. They also said the judge was really iconic for taking the robber to jail. Everyone was extolling the iconic judge.After they let the robber our of jail, the judge edified the robber. The judge said that he was like an iconoclast for robbing the furtive people. The robber will never rob anyone again for all of posterity.
As I typed her recent quick write, I can tell you the amount of misspellings and grammatical errors has decreased drastically from the first one. Also, she is challenging herself to create new worlds that she doesn’t have personal experience in to further enhance and sophisticate her writing. Her vocabulary has a wider variety, the vocabulary words are being used more intentionally, etc. This improvement is not only evident in her writing, but in her classmate’s quick writes as well!
After we did our quick write competition, we took our vocabulary test. During our next class period, students did a reading comprehension diagnostic and some quill practice for their quill period this week.
Math with Mr. Zafeiris!
This week in math, we focused on, solving systems of equations using substitution (choosing a variable, substituting into the other equation, solving, and checking the solution), and clearing fractions in equations by multiplying both sides by the least common multiple (LCM) of the denominators before solving.
Science with Ms. Pam!
Students learned about dominant and recessive jeans this week! They learned how to solve genetic punnet squares, and used that knowledge to practice solving them and create their own monsters.
This morning, we reconnected with Mr. Joe’s class to finish up our Motown research and begin presenting and discussing our findings. We will continue presentations next week and finish up our Motown unit!
In the afternoon, students completed their postponed vocabulary test. Once they finished their test, they engaged in some silent reading time.
In our final block of the day, students took some time to reflect on what they were thankful for in honor of the upcoming holiday: Thanksgiving. Students started by writing a paragraph reflection on why they were thankful for their chosen topic, and then wrote what/who they were thankful for on their pumpkin for our class display. When students finished their project, they were given time to explore our new vocabulary set for their test this Friday.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2025
This morning, we completed our next lesson of Mindset Mathematics as it taught them some important lessons they will need to keep in mind for their upcoming Geometrocity phase. Today, we worked with shape nets! Students started by analyzing and predicting what they thought the shape next would create once cut out and folded. They practiced using the proper vocabulary within their predictions by labeling and counting the faces of the shape name, writing the name of the 3-D shape they thought the shape net would create, labeling different shapes they saw within the shape net (ex: 3 isosceles triangles and 1 equilateral triangle), etc. Then, students would cut their shape nets out and begin building their 3-D shapes to test if their predictions were correct. They learned a lot of valuable lessons about how to set shape nets up to ensure their 3-D shapes end up closed and not with an open side, they gained a stronger understanding of their vocabulary regarding shapes, strengthened their collaboration skills, and more!
We started this activity as a class, and when we discussed one of our first shape nets, a student claimed there was an equilateral triangle in the center of the shape net. As a mini-test to see how well they understood our lessons on how to prove a shape/concept is truly what they claim it to be. So, I became a skeptic and asked if anyone could prove to me that the triangle was indeed an equilateral triangle. Students did an excellent job of explaining one way to prove it, and asking each other for help in presenting more evidence! Some students measured the length of each triangle leg to show they were all the same length, other’s calculated the internal angles of the triangle by dividing 180° by 3 to explain each internal angle was 60°.
To further build our test-taking skills, I gave them a challenge! If we knew that the equilateral triangle had an angle of 60°, could we find the neighboring angles? This was awesome because it allowed them to practice some of their skills they have learned in class with Mr. Zafeiris! Now, it wasn’t fully possible due to only being given 1 angle, but they showed off a lot of critical thinking skills in coming up with clever techniques to attempt to do so. Then, we talked about how they could have used these skills on a test where they needed to make an educated guess; because even if it was impossible to get the exact angles answers, we were able to figure out what they were near using all our awesome Math skills.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2025
This morning, students were introduced to Quill. Quill is an amazing tool for students to use to improve their grammar within their writing without being overly repetitive. The challenging thing with grammar is that… it’s often really boring! So, as a student, when being given grammar reviews that you know you ace every time – it can often feel like torture and bring out loads of dread associated with the topic. To avoid this vicious cycle, I like to use Quill.
Today, students took their first Quill Diagnostic for their first set of grammar skills. They then began working on their recommended skills based off of questions they missed. The better students did on the diagnostic, the less practice activities they were assigned. Please do not have your students work on Quill practice at home! Every week, they will be given a period to work on Quill; while I know it is an amazing tool, they have enough other things to practice at home, and this is meant to be a class time activity.
Once they finish their practice activities, students will be given a post-test. If they get 100%, they get rewarded with some Class Dojo Island time for 1 Quill class period. Then, they will be given the next level grammar skills in the same format: starting with a Quill Diagnostic. By the end of the year, their grammar skills will be unrecognizable, and the method of which we used to improve them is differentiated and cuts out a lot of unnecessary repetition for students who are more advanced while still providing a necessary foundation for students who need some extra practice!
In our afternoon classes, we learned how to identify if a source is credible or not, and practiced analyzing sources to check if they were credible or not.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2025
Students got back to work on their Geometrocity projects! Many have reached phase 2: Designing your Build!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2025
We started our class with our Quick Write, and today’s champion was: Becky! It was a close call between Leo, Vasia and Becky to see who used the most words correctly, who used the widest variety, and who used the words in such a way that their plot was focused rather than random.
Then, we watched a couple of videos to learn more about the Cold War in preparation for our field trip where students get to learn about President Harry Truman! After our video discussion, we enjoyed a snack and got on the bus!
Math with Mr. Zafeiris!
This week in math we introduced how to simplify polynomials. We also talked about equations and explained that an equation works like a scale — whatever we do on one side, we must do on the other to keep it balanced. Students practiced this idea with hands-on activities during math class to help them visualize and better understand the concept.
Science with Ms. Pam!
I look forward to sharing more of our learning with you next week! (:
