Monday, March 17

 Hi parents,

We had an okay day today. The students finished up their leprechaun traps, after we discussed how the traps would be graded. The students came up with 'success criteria' that we put on a rubric together - I will be sending those rubrics home for Student-Led Conferences, so if certain sections sound a little weird, it's their fault. In all seriousness though, I actually think the students did a fantastic job of explaining what made a great, good, decent, and poor leprechaun trap, and to decide where their trap fit on that scale.

We revisited the sleep paragraphs from last week. We talked about topic sentences, and came up with a few examples of classic 'hooks' that work well as topic sentences. For example, asking the reader a question, using a sound effect, or describing a scene in vivid detail. While these hooks can come across a little cheesy to adult readers, they're a great starting place for kids.

We spent more time in the afternoon working on leprechaun traps. We have spent about 4 hours working on them now, and for some students it really shows. Others' traps look pretty much the exact same as they did after 15 minutes... which was something we talked a lot about today. In Montessori, intrinsic motivation is everything. Projects like these are meant to teach time management as much as they teach science. When students have four hours to complete a task, I expect a lot!

Anyway - the ultimate test will be seeing how Lucky the Leprechaun handles them.

Have a nice night,

Zac