A Horse is a Horse?

I hope everybody had a wonderful long weekend. Before we know it, summer break will be upon us!

Today we started a whimsical writing project. We had been talking a good bit in the communication unit about animal communication, and how people can understand some animal communication, and, at least in the case of Koko, have the animal understand how to communicate with people. So I figured, why not get a little whimsical here and imagine some talking animals.

Now when I was much, much, much younger Mister Ed was one of my favorite television shows. For those of you under fifty, Mister Ed was about a horse who could talk, but only talked to his owner. I still remember the theme song word for word and the students looked at my with a combination of horror and pity as I sang it to them this morning. (I’ll try to find it on You Tube when I get home, and if I do, I’ll link it.) I told the students they were going to follow a similar premise. They had an animal that could talk, but it could only talk to them. I told them to think about some kind of adventure, serious or comic, which they might have with this animal. They did some planning with the story and started a rough draft. They will finish the rough draft tonight and we will share those and edit them tomorrow.

We also discussed California’s transformation in the years following World War II, and we read a bit from the history text here. Students also began putting together their Unit Four history booklets. We correct the math homework, played softball, and discussed how probability can be expressed as a fraction. Overall, a pleasant but low-key day back.

Homework: (1) Finish the rough draft. (2) Do "Word Knowledge and Vocabulary from Context for the “Louis Braille” story. (3) Do "California Grows and Changes" study sheet. (4) Do "Probability as a Fraction" Math, pages 570-571.