And the moral of the story is…
by Sheridan School students Lydia B. Kestnbaum-Cook, Ella I. Lay and Hannah S. Kubler
This session during writing we focused on a small, mini-unit titled, “And The Moral of The Story Is…” We were each sectioned into groups of two, three, and four, and were assigned to write a detailed script for a puppet show suitable to present in front of our first grade buddies. We were asked to organize a time each night to continue writing our scripts, and begin practicing without our puppets once we had finished.
Each show would have to end with the line, “And The Moral of The Story Is…” Because of this, our stories would need to have a point in which we displayed a moral or lesson, which our characters would learn about along with the audience. These lessons were mainly supposed to display something a first grader would be able to understand, and follow through with it themselves.
Once we had completed the script, we worked during recess and at home to practice our presentation with our groups. This consisted of “Puppet Synchronization” which involved syncing the movements of the puppet with our voices. We also worked on generally speaking loud, making sure our voices were clear to the audience, and using our hands to mimic the puppets movements, which were very important.
A few days later, we presented our puppet shows to our class. We would leave comments about their clarity, visual performance, and script. We learned a lot throughout this project, and hope to learn more about similar topics in the near future.
“Poems of the Week”
by Ms. Utz’s Second Grade Class at Maret School
In our second grade class at Maret School we are studying poetry. We learn a different poem every week. We post the poem on the classroom wall in our “Poem of the Week” space. We bring it home in our homework folders to memorize. One strategy we use to memorize the poem is reading it many times again and again. We read it on our way to school, out loud to our family members, and before we go to bed. Another strategy we use is chunking it into pieces and practicing a couple lines every day. We notice rhyming words and rhyming patterns. Sometimes we have difficult poems, and sometimes we have simple ones.
On Friday, we return our poem and recite it to our teacher, Ms. Utz. We recite the poem, one at a time, without looking at the words. After we recite it, we sign our names on the poem. When everyone has recited the poem and signed their name, we tape it to the Poetry Wall. Some of our favorite poems are The City by Langston Hughes, Winter Guests by Elsie S. Lindgren, and How Doth the Little Crocodile by Lewis Carroll. We are looking forward to learning more poems this year. Soon we will write our own poems! We hope you will read some poetry, too!
