We started getting into the groove of things for our third week of school. It seriously feels like we've all been together forever already (in a good way!).
This week we have had some super exciting news in regard to our little caterpillar friends. Doughnut's chrysalis began to clear up yesterday. We thought it might still be a day or so before they emerged, but to our surprise Doughnut was inching out of its chrysalis toward the end of the day yesterday! At the end of the day today, we noticed Doughnut's wing was not allowing it to fly well. We decided to keep in in our enclosure with some fruit, but I'll be stopping by to check on D tomorrow to see if they're ready.
While Doughnut was getting ready to emerge, Popcorn was on the prowl for a good spot to post up for the long haul. We watched in anticipation throughout the day, rooting Doughnut on, but D couldn't seem to find a good spot. When we got to school in the morning, Doughnut had its silk pad released and was j'd up on our basket. By midday, it made its chrysalis and everyone got to watch it in action. It was certainly an exciting moment for us!
During ELA this week, we have continued to focus on our Identity unit. This week we focused on skin color. We read All the Colors We Are, Different and Differenter, The Color of Us, and Black is a Rainbow Color to anchor our Social Justice Standards.
While reading Different Differenter and All the Colors We Are, we focused on skin color in general and our own skin specifically. Students learned that skin color variations can be caused by where our ancestors are from, the sun, and melanin. They learned that the busier your melanin is, the darker your skin color will be. Melanin was referenced throughout the week. These books also allowed us to celebrate our own skin and all that it does for us as people!
Once we transitioned into The Color of Us, the conversation began to ease from celebrating our own skin to celebrating all the skin colors around us. After reading this book, we began to mix some paint to try to create our different skin tones. On top of these creations, we wrote a Cinquain poem (focusing on nouns, adjectives, and verbs), celebrating our skin.
Today, we transitioned from celebrating others' skin to recognizing some are treated differently based on these different skin colors by reading Black is a Rainbow Color. The page below, in particular, brought about some beautiful conversation about current protests that are occurring around our country. They were able to make some lovely connections to what we learned earlier in the week, noting the unfairness of the treatment based on something as little as the amount of melanin one's body has. A lot of them made personal connections they had engaging in protests around Ann Arbor (for a variety of reasons).
Overall, our short week was wonderful. We did have to do a bit of assessment, which will continue into next week. Because of this, I gave the students some extra long playtime at CFP to close out our week. Enjoy the slideshow below :)
I hope you all have a safe and wonderful Labor Day Weekend. I will see you Tuesday!
Tate
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