Freedom Quilts

Today we finished our discussion on freedom quilts. Freedom quilts are quilts that the slaves would make that would help lead other slaves to freedom. The students learned about 12 different quilt patterns and got to try their hand at decorating the quilt squares. They are turning out pretty nice! Tomorrow we will be cutting out the finished quilt squares and making them into a book so we can remember the meaning of the squares.

At the end of social studies every day I have started giving a mini quiz to make sure that students are listening to the topics we are discussing every day. The questions are ones that every student can EASILY answer if they are paying attention to the discussions that we have every day and the material that we are learning about. This also reinforces the topics that we talk about every day so that students are retaining the information we discuss.

I have noticed that students aren't reading at home anymore. Of the 13 students in our class I only get reading logs back from about 3 students every week. It is so important that students are reading at home to improve their reading abilities and to practice. After all... practice makes perfect! So, reading is now going to be part of their reading grades. It is expected that students are reading 20 minutes every day. This can be time read independently, with a sibling or other family member, or aloud with a family member. The daily reading logs come home every Monday and are turned in the following Monday. These are going to be graded for completion only. It is important that students are doing this because not turning in these logs will make them have a really hard time bringing up those reading grades (all of which need serious help!).

Thank you for the book orders that were turned in! See you tomorrow!