Fifth Grade AIM
Today in AIM
We started AIM by paying our fixed/variable expenses and balancing our checkbooks. Next we reviewed about the different styles of leadership from last week and introduced the third style: political frame. Leaders who use the political frame effectively use several methods including: clarifying what they want and what they can get; assess the distribution of power and interests; build linkages to key stakeholders; and persuade first, negotiate second, and coerce only if necessary. To practice building consensus the class worked together to select the color for new t-shirts for the class (just a simulation). Each student was given a slip of paper with their personal instructions (for example – You like to take and share your opinion during the decision-making process. You like most colors, but you hate the color red). They had 15 minutes to try and come to consensus! They were unsuccessful but got super close - we were able to reflect and take notice of the strategies that worked and didn’t work. We talked about how important it is to bring people into the process vs. doing all of the work on your own - very tricky balance.
We kicked off our Civil War unit by completing a challenge based on Lincoln's famous House Divided quote. Groups had to build a house out of index cards that could stand together, separate and still stand.
Then it was time to start working on the Civil War! We reviewed the list of topics we had created last week and then each student picked the one that they were most interested in. We had a mini lesson on the importance of avoiding plagiarism and the difference between primary and secondary sources. We had about 50 minutes to start researching about our various topics before lunch
After lunch we had a geography presentation by Cole and a robotics presentation by Ethan. I am loving the idea of giving them the opportunity to share what they are passionate about!