Weekly Update

Literature
In Literature this week, the students have been preparing to read the play The Diary of Anne Frank. We started out by creating a KWL chart (Know, Want to know and Learned). The kids shared some of their knowledge that they had and also some really good questions that we should be able to answer as we read the play. Then we went to the computer lab where they perused an online scrapbook of Anne's life that can be found at www.annefrank.com. They completed a worksheet as they explored the site.

The major project for this unit will be to complete a diary that reflects the life of somebody who may have lived during the Holocaust. The students have been researching names for themselves and for anybody else who they may mention in their diary. They also explored some online journal entries that were similar in nature to the role they selected. If you'd like to read more about the project, all directions can be found on my website. This is a project I developed back when I was teaching at St. Mary's, and it is always one of my favorites to grade--the students usually create some pretty poignant diaries.

English
In English, we have moved on from the research portion of our lighthouse unit to the writing of the children's story. The students will be writing a story that is set at their chosen lighthouse. To prepare for this, I read two lighthouse children's stories to the classes, and we then created guidelines for plots, characters, illustrations, and themes. In terms of illustrations, the students will be using their pictures from our trip to Port Washington. They will be manipulating them using programs such as paint.net or Picnik.

Religion
We finished up our unit on the early Church in the Roman Empire. The students will now be embarking on a mission to create an infomercial that "sells" Christianity based on the aspects that we have studied in this unit.

Catholic Schools Week
We have many exciting things planned next week. Be sure to check out the information found on the school's website.