Busy Week: Holocaust Survivor Speaker, Choosing New Groups, and Valentine's Day!

Mrs. Knothe knows a Holocaust survivor, Hershel Greenblat, and planned for him to speak to all of fifth grade and share his experiences.  We were in awe of him and his story!

Smith group is in the group planning phase.  This time around, students evaluated their peers and the top scoring six students based on their peers' observations are the new group leaders.  Every student created a resume and were assigned a "top secret" number to be applied to their resume.  Group leaders (aka "bosses") have to decide which potential candidates they want to hire based solely on their resume (without knowing who each person is and only seeing qualifications).  Groups will be finalized this week and announced to everyone, including leaders, by Friday!

Of course, our classroom had to be decorated for Valentine's Day, courtesy of the fabulous Mrs. Hagen and Mrs. Earley!  They spoil us! 😃

Butterfly Ceremony: Honoring the Young Victims of the Holocaust

Students were each given a poem written by a child who was in the Terezin Concentration Camp, which was part of Auschwitz and was used as propaganda to show how "well" prisoners were treated.  Students designed a butterfly to represent the child author's life and wrote their feelings on the butterfly and drew pictures to symbolize hope for their lives.

After completing their butterflies, we displayed them in the classroom and observed them flying freely for a few days before the ceremony.

Gabby wore a butterfly scarf and angel wing earrings for the ceremony!

Each student stood by their butterfly for the ceremony, read the child's poem, and shared their butterfly.  Afterward, they found out the fate of the child.  If the child died, they cut their butterfly's string and let it fly to freedom.  This ceremony was an extremely emotional event and many tears were shed for all the kids who lost their lives.