Surprises Around Every Corner

The last few days in English have been difficult to establish a foundational understanding for writing (watered-down) research papers in Grade 3 (as the IBO standards require). Perhaps it was my choice in activities and directions or perhaps it was the students lack of understanding - although I think it was a little of each. Friday morning during English, these ideas that I have been talking about all week finally seemed to click with my students.

I was overwhelmed with excitement. I was getting to the point where I didn't even know how to reteach this because I had tried to come in at many different angles. The understanding started with a few students and was more contagious than California wildfires. The entire class seemed to finally get this and once one student was done, they teamed up with another. Next week we are writing our final drafts and I am excited to see the outcome of these papers. I know that they will be fantastic!

While this was all taking place, I busted out some new music for the kids to listen to. Every day we switch music. Usually we listen to instrumental and movie scores and swap it up with some praise and worship music. However, Friday I decided to bust out some ABBA. I was shocked that my kids knew every song. Not only that but they were belting out every line while they worked. It was so funny and adorable. One of my kids asked why I didn't play this before. I'm not quite sure why I haven't, but they definitely seemed continuously motivated while listening to ABBA. I'll definitely integrate that into Grade 3's weekly playlist. Who would have thought that music could be such a motivational factor?!