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Thank you to Baptist Health and Dr. Patrick Withrow for conducting the Healthy Living Quiz Show with 5th Grade!
Grandparent of the Year Essays 2017
Following their field experience to the Fort Massac encampment based on the French and Indian War battle that took place there, students engaged in a CAROUSEL or GALLERY WALK brainstorming activity. (They first established broad CATEGORIES of information, then rotated through each station adding facts and details about each topic.)
After gathering our collective knowledge, students participated in R.A.F.T. Writing by choosing their own role, audience, format & topic.
5th graders write NARRATIVES based on "Turning Points" in their lives. Sometimes these are major life events. Other times they are first or last experiences or moments of realization.
Inspired by the Fall 2016 WKMS Short Story and Storytelling Contest, many students took the challenge to complete own their story drafts independently and practice their own storytelling! Click the button below to hear the storytelling sample we listened to in class to get us ready to perform! (It's part of a SNAP JUDGMENT podcast by Glynn Washington.)
All writing below this point is from the 2015-2016 school year.
Congratulations to Talaya Garnett, our School-Wide Winner of the AARP Grandparents' Essay Contest sponsored by the KY Retired Teachers Association!
She also won the REGIONAL DIVISION of the contest!
Officer Hicks selected the winning essays from each class and each of the 3 essayists read their award-winning writing at D.A.R.E. graduation on December 18, 2015. Congratulations to Destiny Thomas, Elijah Haywood and Darren Watkins!! (see the writing process for D.A.R.E. essays below)
To begin our D.A.R.E. essays, we had a GALLERY WALK to share our ideas.
Collaborative Brainstorming for our D.A.R.E. essays... see Word It Out links!
5th Graders enjoy writing about their REAL-LIFE experiences! They recently visited Fort Massac for the Encampment and had a lot to say about that!
After their field experience, the students decided upon categories of information about the trip before taking a CAROUSEL "gallery walk" to brainstorm at each station. (Examples of categores included: food, clothing, shelter, weapons, war, the reenactment, "things they made," taking care of themselves, etc.)
Once the categories were full of ideas, the students selected one idea as the topic of their WRITTEN CONVERSATION with two classmates. See some samples & other student comments below!
Brayden “My favorite thing at Ft. Massac was the Blunderbuss. I learned that it is a short stock, belled barrel rifle.”
Dustin “Do you remember the French and the British? We had to play as the British and I was up on the hill shooting at them. One of them shot at me and I fell to the ditch hard like I was dead.”
Landyn T. “I liked the reenactment and how they gave us wooden guns, swords and revolvers. George Washington’s men ambushed one team. The Indians and French won the whole thing because they snuck up on people. I liked the cannons as well. It was really loud but they just shot air so people in Paducah wouldn’t get hurt.”
Devan “ I really didn’t like it at all because it kept surprising me and my heart kept pounding!”
Nadia “My favorite time was the Reenactment. I was an Indian so I got to hide behind the trees and on the ground. I watched all the other people walk up in the valley. I pretended to shoot some people with a wooden gun.”
Darren “On my trip to Fort Massac I saw a lot of cool stuff. One cool thing I saw there is a gun. They showed us how to load the gun and how to fire it. Another cool thing I saw at Fort Massac is the fire starter station. The fire starter station is a station where they showed us how people in the 1800s started a fire. They would get grass and put a magnifying glass over the grass until it would start a fire.”
Jamarion “I like the part at Ft. Massac when the man with the musket and the women were talking about the weapons they used in the war. The musket could only shoot one bullet at a time then they would put gun powder in the gun. I got to hold the bullet to the musket. It was black and shaped like a ball and really light. I also got to hold the cannonball. I was big and a little bit heavier than the bullet.
Elianna “I loved the Blacksmith. I loved how there is fire and how it worked. It worked like you have to start a fire with flint then get metal and put it in the fire. Then you blow air in the fire. Pull it out and it will be red.”
Marijane “At Ft. Massac I dipped a candle, watched someone weave a basket, watched a blacksmith making weapons.”
India “It was surprising to me that if you got in trouble you got paddled with a paddle.”
Dustin “Do you remember the French and the British? We had to play as the British and I was up on the hill shooting at them. One of them shot at me and I fell to the ditch hard like I was dead.”
Landyn T. “I liked the reenactment and how they gave us wooden guns, swords and revolvers. George Washington’s men ambushed one team. The Indians and French won the whole thing because they snuck up on people. I liked the cannons as well. It was really loud but they just shot air so people in Paducah wouldn’t get hurt.”
Devan “ I really didn’t like it at all because it kept surprising me and my heart kept pounding!”
Nadia “My favorite time was the Reenactment. I was an Indian so I got to hide behind the trees and on the ground. I watched all the other people walk up in the valley. I pretended to shoot some people with a wooden gun.”
Darren “On my trip to Fort Massac I saw a lot of cool stuff. One cool thing I saw there is a gun. They showed us how to load the gun and how to fire it. Another cool thing I saw at Fort Massac is the fire starter station. The fire starter station is a station where they showed us how people in the 1800s started a fire. They would get grass and put a magnifying glass over the grass until it would start a fire.”
Jamarion “I like the part at Ft. Massac when the man with the musket and the women were talking about the weapons they used in the war. The musket could only shoot one bullet at a time then they would put gun powder in the gun. I got to hold the bullet to the musket. It was black and shaped like a ball and really light. I also got to hold the cannonball. I was big and a little bit heavier than the bullet.
Elianna “I loved the Blacksmith. I loved how there is fire and how it worked. It worked like you have to start a fire with flint then get metal and put it in the fire. Then you blow air in the fire. Pull it out and it will be red.”
Marijane “At Ft. Massac I dipped a candle, watched someone weave a basket, watched a blacksmith making weapons.”
India “It was surprising to me that if you got in trouble you got paddled with a paddle.”