The Second Quarter

I could not believe today was the first day of the second quarter.  Even more surprising Friday is November 1st.  And the thing that is pushing me over the edge this week is my son turns three on Sunday.  Where does all the time go?

Today we started talking about a new thinking strategy determining importance.  I love this thinking strategy.  The ability to determine if something is more important than something else seems so important.  To introduce the strategy I gave the students a problem.

In the problem they were stuck on a raft in the middle of the Pacific after their boat had sunk.  They were left with 13 items in their raft.  They had a shaving mirror, some Army rations, two boxes of chocolate bars, 20 feet of opaque plastic, mosquito netting, and some other odds and ends.  Groups had to decide which item was the most important and which item was the least important.

In other words they had to determine what was important.  The reason I think that determining importance is such an important thinking strategy is because in the world today we are constantly bombarded with information.  The better we are at sifting through that information and deciding what is important, what is interesting, and what is not important...the better prepared we are for the world.

During the conversations around the room I heard a student arguing that the mosquito netting should be number 13 (the least important).  He did an amazing job of explaining to his group that their was no need for mosquito netting in the middle of the Pacific.  He was right.  You are not going to find many mosquitos in the middle of the ocean, this item was not important.  I heard students arguing about whether the water or the food was more important.  I heard multiple students say they water was more important because you can live longer without food than you can water.

Our students are obviously off to a great start about deciding what is important.  Now I just want to show them how they can use this strategy to make them stronger readers!  If you want to know what the number one (most important) item was on our list, ask the students.  I was rather surprised by the answer.

Tomorrow we are going to start our new read aloud book.  I am a bit excited.  Hope you all had a great Monday.