Henry did a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. He watced a video and read an article about Martin Luther King Jr. He answered comprehension questions about what he learned. He also began a new unit on early explorers. He read two articles in studies weekly and we read a book about Prince Henry the Navigator and his contribution to early explorers.

I have a dream! Today was all about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Danny did not remember him from our study last year. We began with a Brain Pop Jr. learning video about him. We learned about the concepts of segregation, equal rights, sit-ins, and peaceful protests. I paused the video throughout to support the material with simplification and expanded language for this complex and delicate topic. We saw how Rosa Parks would not give up her seat on the bus and Dr. King gave a powerful speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. We enjoyed watching a portion of a recording of the famous speech. We then completed a fill in the blank passage about Dr. King, in which Danny used a word bank to provide the missing key words. Danny and I then worked on putting 10 words into ABC order. Danny really got into this after he figured out how it was done. I gave him a visual support of the alphabet and we worked through the alphabet and words together. As he found each word, I read it and reiterated how it was related to Martin Luther King, Jr. These included words such as freedom, rights, leader, and peace. Finally, we watched a reading of The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. In this story, the Sneetches with stars on their bellies are snobs and segregate themselves from those without stars on their bellies. Through use of two machines, they go through the vicious cycle of adding stars and removing stars to try to fit in. By the end, they decide it doesn’t matter who has a star and who doesn’t and all are friends. We related this to America’s past. Danny, again, had two awesome sessions today. He was actively engaged, attentive, and asking appropriate questions. He maintained interactive discourse throughout and kept his story-telling to a minimum. He interpreted and responded appropriately to directives to continue on with our activity. We’ve been able to discuss concepts longer and deeper in both subjects these past two days. Simply fantastic!

Jayne and I completed her Resolution Girl by writing her top 5 goals for this year. We talked about goals being more about our ‘inside stories’ rather than something external that is outside our control.( eg. Traveling to Hawaii, a big one for her!) We read a book about empathy and gave examples of times we have shown empathy toward others.

Craig and I discussed the great migration and the influence on culture. We looked at History.com regarding the Harlem Renaissance and added new words to the word wall - suffrage, prohibition. We looked in the text and discussed what kind of President Teddy Roosevelt was. We watched a video to learn more about the Bessemer steel process and looked at images of flappers.

Charlie continued to make the peace crane - origami paper folding art from ancient Japan. We reviewed what we've learned about ancient Japan and Charlie had excellent recall of facts. He took the Studies Weekly assessment and only answered one incorrectly. He again shared the YouTube video by Bill Wurst about ancient Japan. We began listening to read aloud about the barbarians, Huns, and Vikings. I assigned HOMEWORK - reading and comprehension questions about the Bubonic Plague.

Craig and I continued with a different version of the Industrial Revolution game. He had to read the definition/explanation and match it with correct name of the invention being described. Afterwards, we continued reading the Newsela/Gilder Lehrman article about Jim Crow and the Great Migration. Craig read an excerpt and answered post-reading questions, making an inference based on the reading.

Craig and I played a memory game today, with Charlie, to identify inventions from the Industrial Revolution and match them with their descriptions and name. They had a lot of fun with this!

Today we officially wrapped up our previous study of winter holidays. We watched a Brain Pop Jr. video on the subject and were reminded of the essentials of Christmas (and enjoyed seeing the different names for Santa Claus around the world), Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s. We saw that people in Mexico ring in the new year wearing yellow or red underwear for good luck! We also saw that in Japan, it is good luck to watch the first sunrise of the year. Danny scored a 5/5 on the follow up easy quiz. Next, we read our Florida Studies Weekly curriculum study on Festivals and Holidays. We read about how these countries celebrate their Independence Day or New Year (Mexico, China, Brazil, Nigeria, Turkey, and Sweden). Danny then found these on a colored map by matching the word on his paper to the word on the map. He then found the country on a plain map and colored it according to the color word that he had to read. We enjoyed learning about these other countries and seeing where they are in relation to Florida. Danny scored 11/11 on these activities and assessment. Additionally, we completed Danny’s months/seasons of the year pages for December (he colored a Christmas tree and drew a menorah) and January (he colored a party blower and drew a snowflake). Then, we read a Time for Kids magazine “It’s Party Time” covering various New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world. We saw in Canada they do a “polar bear” swim in the cold waters, in Brazil they celebrate at the beach with the lighting of candles and throwing white flowers into the ocean for good luck. We then practiced reading different analog and digital clocks. Finally, as we’ve been discussing past and present throughout our studies, today we focused on a nonfiction book, Toys and Games: Then and Now by Robin Nelson. We looked at pictures and simple sentences comparing a rocking horse and bike, jacks and video games, homemade dolls and Barbies. Danny copied on the flip pictures in his Interactive Notebook. “Long ago, children played with homemade dolls. Now, children play video games.”

Craig was absent today.

Jayne and I talked about making goals and resolutions for the new year. She came up with 10 things she wants to do in 2018 and then ranked the top 5. We made a ‘Resolution Girl’ with spaces for her top 5 things. We will complete the activity on Wednesday.