TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2026
Today, we started our class by presenting our final drafts of our Law Day Essays to celebrate everyone’s hard work and awesome arguments they created! One purpose for this was to give everyone one final read through and make sure there weren’t any misspelled words, extra punctuation or spaces, or sentence fragments that may have been missed in the editing process. Another was to practice our formal presentation skills, as if their essay gets chosen, they will need to present them!
Then, students took some time to finalize their Socratic Seminar Prep. for tomorrow’s discussion.
After their final Socratic Seminar Prep. period, we learned a bit more about the Special Olympics and signed a card wishing all of the athletes good luck! This is an extension to our service project with NISRA.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2026
Today was our pajama day in celebration for our class raising the most money in our coin drive for NISRA. Even though we were all cozy, we still had some work to do. To start, we had our Socratic Seminar, where we discussed and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the way the film and the book told the story of White Bird.
We had some amazing discussion points! Such as, the increased use of symbolism in the book with the image of the white bird, and how it strengthened our understanding of the characters internal feelings. We talked about the cut scenes to modern day in the movie, and how they added context to Grandmere’s purpose behind telling Julian certain details of her story. We discussed how the book focused more on the message of bravery, while the movie focused more on the message of kindness, due to what each medium decided to highlight more consistently throughout the story. For their first Socratic Seminar, they did a great job!
After our Socratic Seminar, we discussed what went well and set some goals for how we could improve our discussion skills next time. After our discussion, students completed a Google Form to independently reflect on their performance. When they finished their Google Form, they hopped onto Quill for some grammar practice.
During lunch, it was time for the ultimate reward: Ice Cream! While this was earned for being the class to donate the most in our coin drive… it doubled as a reward for officially finishing their Law Day Essays they worked so hard on!
Since we officially finished our White Bird unit, it was time to introduce our next unit: Book Clubs! In Book Clubs, each student with be placed in small groups for their novel studies, as opposed to reading them as an entire class. As they read, they will hold novel discussions, complete activities, and at the end, present their books to the class to share what they learned from their stories. Since our Book Club unit ends with each book being presented to the class, everyone completed the pre-reading activities for each novel.
Activity 1: The Weight of Leaving
“You are told you must leave your home. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Right now.
You don’t know when (or if) you’ll ever come back.
You can’t take everything with you. You can’t even take most things. You have to choose quickly what matters most… and what you’re willing to leave behind.
As a group, you have 2 minutes to pick out 5 items to pack with you on your journey. Everyone in your group must agree, and you must be prepared to explain why it was more important to take these 5 things over the others.”‘
Students were shown 12 items to choose their 5 from, with a 2 minute timer set. This was to simulate the pressure many faced during war when they were told they had to immediately leave, and the quick and difficult decisions they had to make during that time.
After they chose their most important 5 belongings, they were told their journey was longer than expected and their bag was too heavy to keep going. So, they must eliminate 2 of their 5 important items.
We then reflected on the following questions: What was hardest to give up? How did your group decide?
This was a preparation activity for the novel: Refugee by Alan Gratz.
Activity 2: The Story that Survived
“These are the remains of someone’s life, found in an abandoned suitcase. You don’t know their story… but these objects survived.”
Students were asked to look at 5 items, and to tell the story of the person they belonged to. This was meant to help them understand that some important items people chose weren’t always for survival, some were to help others tell their story if they didn’t make it through.
We then reflected on the following questions: How did it feel to tell a story through objects? What details mattered most? Why might someone feel responsible for sharing their story?
This was a preparation activity for the novel: The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler’s List by Leon Leyson.
Activity 3: No Mistakes Allowed
“You are now in a labor camp and must follow any and all instructions without question. There is no talking, no laughing, and no mistakes allowed. If you make a mistake, you will start over.”
Students were given the mundane task of: Copy this sentence repeatedly: “I must follow directions exactly.” Do it quickly, but line up each word exactly. Write it one sentence at a time.
Then, rules would switch up without warning or reasoning, to emphasize the power trip many Nazi soldiers possessed, and remind the prisoners they had no choices.
- I turned off the lights to worsen their working conditions. When many students looked at me, they were told to keep working.
- I told them they were taking too long, and only had 5 seconds per sentence, giving them only 1 second per word. They were told their writing must remain perfect… which was an impossible task, but the expectation remained.
- I began to flicker the lights occasionally to further distract them from their task.
- Finally, once most students got to the end of the provided lines on their worksheet, assuming they’d be done with the task. I told them they were wasting too many resources during the war, and had to erase the whole thing, and re-write the sentence… erase the sentence they just wrote, and write it again on the same line, over and over again.
We then reflected on the following questions: How did it feel to have no control? What made this difficult?
This was a preparation activity for the novel: Making Bombs for Hitler by Marsha Skrypuch.
At the end of our activities, I revealed each book option by reading the synopsis from each novel. After each book, I heard many students saying, “Oh, I want that one,” or “That one sounds so interesting,” etc. As tempting as it was to tell each student who was reading which book… I wanted some anticipation to build so that our Book Clubs was something that remained exciting!
The reading for their Book Clubs will replace their reading log as I completely understand some students need to focus on one book at a time, and completing a separate reading log would not assist them in improving their literary skills.
THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2026
Today, we had our field trip to NISRA! First, we enjoyed a presentation telling us more about what they do, and engaged in activities to build empathy for those with disabilities by emulating some difficulties they may face. Then, we got to tour the facility, and students were able to enjoy some of their cool resources and equipment. Finally, we donated our Coins for a Cause proceeds, and learned they are celebrating their 50 year anniversary with a fundraiser of their own, where all donations would be doubled!
To end our trip, we had a celebratory lunch together at Noodles & Company.
FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2026
Today, we returned to our quick write, where we had a tie! Leo and Lily read their stories where the tie breaker comes down to best use of vocabulary words, and making sure our winner had the most creative and unique plot. Today’s winner was Lily as her story was about forming a kitchen society, where kitchen utensils were personified!
Then, we did a digital escape room to be independently completed. It focused on complex ELA skills, such as:
- Recognizing organization text structures in nonfiction text.
- Comprehending nonfiction texts
- Identifying main details in a fiction text and organizing them into a plot structure.
- Using context clues to understand unfamiliar vocabulary.
- Understand and interpret poetry, including figurative language elements.
As they practiced all these awesome skills, they also got to use their critical thinking skills to decipher puzzles to reveal their codes from their correct answers.
In our afternoon block, Book Club Assignments were revealed to everyone! Then, they took their vocabulary test. Once they finished their vocabulary test, they could continue working on their digital escape room. If they finished their digital escape room and their test… they got to enjoy some free time as a reward for all their hard work this week.
Math with Mr. Zafeiris!
This week, we focused exclusively on geometry. We explored the theory of the perpendicular bisector and applied our understanding through a variety of problem-solving activities. In addition, we worked with parallel lines and transversals, as well as angle pairs and congruency relationships formed by transversals. We will continue to build on these concepts to ensure students fully understand the steps and reasoning required to solve geometric problems. Through visualizing shapes and relationships, we are strengthening students’ critical thinking skills and deepening their mathematical understanding.
Science with Ms. Pam!
This unit, students are learning about all the bodily systems: Skeletal, Respirtory, Cardiovascular, etc.! This week, students completed a lab to learn more about how their heart rate works by calculating their resting heart rate and seeing how exercise can inflate their heart rate.
I look forward to sharing more of our learning with you next week! (:
