Courtroom Drama and a Battle over the word 'like'

Greetings Parents!


Conferences:

I want to say thank you to all for coming into conferences this past week. There were many productive discussions and it gave us all a chance for a little reflection and a bit of a course change if required. As always, if there is ever anything that comes up, please do not hesitate to call, e-mail, or drop on by.

Courtroom Drama:

Yesterday, due to a scheduling error, we found ourselves with some extra time on our hands. We decided to stage a mock court-room and have the boys debate the girls in a range of topics. Only one representative was allowed to debate per topic. They were allowed to have one assistant. Their job was to collect the notes of advice from their teammates and help out their lead debator.

We were able to get through 4 trials.

Elias (Mr. Paula Abdul) was able to out-debate Helen (Ms. Simon Cowell) and successfully argue that gum chewing in schools should not be allowed.

Ellie (Ms. Gummy Bear) out debated Jackson (Mr. King) in a who is better, boys or girls, debate. In a twist, the girls had to argue that boys were better than girls, and the boys had to argue that girls were better than boys. The court abstained from taking sides, but did award Ms. Gummy Bear with the win for more successful arguments.

Julia (Ms. Pink) shined as she debated against Jerry (Sir Quaks-a-lot). She was able to argue that books were superior to television and movies.

Finally, in our last case, Mitchell (Mr. Peter Francis Geraci) out debated Jessie (Ms. non-tree murderer) as he argued that kids should have homework in school.

For the record, the kids picked their own lawyer names .... obviously.

Battle against 'like'

Due to the overuse of the word like in our classroom, the kids have been challenged to go for one week without saying the word. They are already finding it difficult, but I believe this challenge will help expand their vocabulary. Such as and similar to have already proven to be popular replacements.

Give it a try at home and see how many times in one coversation your student says the word like. Not all students are bad at this, but it remains a challenge for all.

Spelling Words

Your Sitton spelling words for the week are: wonder, include, describe, electric, and sold.