Today we began our class team challenges.  Students focused on learning more about each other and working together to accomplish a shared goal.

Towards the end of the day we set up our language folders.  Our first page was a reference sheet on synonyms.   Our lesson focused on not just what synonyms are but how exploring them and thinking about the subtle differences between them can make our writing more effective.

In discussing the difference between "good" and a synonym we found in the thesaurus, "appropriate" we reflected upon the following video:



We discussed how the gum Violet chewed was clearly very "good".  However we probably wouldn't use the synonym "appropriate" to describe it.  After all, it didn't turn out to be a very good idea!

Vocabulary we discussed today:

Words with Flavour!
titanic = "like a titan (really really big giants from Greek mythology)"
fantastic = "like something from a fantasy (a nice dream)"
wonderful = "so good it makes you wonder..."
marvelous = "so good it makes you marvel (show astonishment, surprise, wonder or awe!)"

Our fourth grade students also experienced their first French class today with Madame Hunt.  Our fifth graders had their first French class of the year.