We are back and better than ever! And I, Leila, am here to show you what kind of adventure we had this week. This week, we participated in many lessons and activities that showed how we can collaborate and take initiative to get things done.
First, we started book club and got to choose our own book and choose our own partner to collaborate with. Second is something that I am so happy and amazed to say… we got contacted by the Ellen DeGeneres show! Why you may ask? They heard about the kindness chain that we made. Because of that, we started a social media campaign to try and reach Ellen. And third, we began our poetry unit by exploring poems that we connected to, which is something that I really enjoyed doing.
Like I said earlier, we recently got to start book clubs and collaborate with our partners. We get to plan together for what pages we want to read so we both can go our own pace. We also get to analyze and summarize the book together to make sure we comprehend it. The book that my partner and I chose was Paper Towns by John Green. And let me just tell you, I have fallen in love with this book. It is so mysterious and it just pulls you in. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
My partner Ava and I love it so much, we have even read extra pages at home and used FaceTime to discuss what we read- without our teacher asking us to!
Book clubs aren’t just fun to do, they also help you stay organized and to be able to collaborate with someone even if they have a different opinion. Which is something I am sure we will all have to be able to do in our future.
I don’t know about you, but Ellen DeGeneres is Indi-ED’s role model. She puts a smile on our face each day and inspires us to be kind always. And when Mrs. Laurenzi got a call from the Ellen show, we absolutely freaked out. The reason we got a call from them was because of the kindness chain that we made. The kindness chain is a paper chain formed by acts of kindness- when someone does something kind, small or big, you write it on a piece of paper and add it to the chain.
So after one of Ellen’s interns called us of course we aren’t just going to do nothing- I mean this is Ellen DeGeneres we are talking about! We all decided we were going to write letters and post videos and pictures to get their attention. We worked together to come up with hashtags and strategies for the best way to reach them. We’re not sure if anything will happen, but we are still so honored to get a call from the show.
The final way we collaborated this week was during writing. I was so happy when I heard that we are going to be doing poetry every week. This week, we were looking up poetry and finding poems that caught our eye or that we really liked. Ava and I would then discuss what we noticed about the poem and the parts we liked. Then, we shared with our class.
Ava and I learned that we like poetry that is deep and has an important meaning to it. For example one of the poems I found was by a.v:
If you really pay attention to this poem, you start to really get into it and it opens you up to thinking about all different things that might connect to that poem. And then, you really can’t stop thinking about it. In my opinion, I believe this poem pushes you to think about things that your mind sometimes can’t think up on its own. Not only do poems have that power, they also inspire us to be honest about our feelings and inspire us to just be ourselves. That is why I am so happy that we get do this each week.
(Ava and I finding our new favorite poets.)
Each week is a new adventure to something amazing. We all get to work together to learn about what we enjoy as a person and learn about who we are as people.
I am looking forward to finding out what our next adventure might be on our journey here at Indi-ED.
This is Leila signing off!