Happy Dwankhozi Week!

Celebrating our partnership with 
Dwankhozi Basic School!

Throughout the year, the members of Room 203 we have been talking about our partner school in rural Zambia. This week, I am so excited to spread the excitement we have about this partnership with the whole school! 

This week, we are holding our third QAE philanthropic fundraiser, which we are calling Dwankhozi Week. At our Monday Morning Meeting, we will launch the week with a Skype visit with a few teachers and leaders from the school. Throughout the week, classroom teachers will be sharing videos, pictures and stories of our first visit, introducing all of our QAE students to the students we met in Zambia.  Families will also have the opportunity to share in this learning by visiting our Dwankhozi Partnership page (now attached to our QAE website).

QAE ~ Dwankhozi Partnership Page

In addition to learning about our new friends this week, we are hoping to raise funds to support our partnership by collecting money in classroom coin jars, holding a bake sale and selling Zambian fabric bracelets. On Friday, Room 203 will be having another marble jar party, and the students and I will be planning 
a Dwankhozi focused celebration. 

Friday evening, there will be a kindergarten fundraising event at the David's home. I hope that many of you will be able to join us there. (If you did not receive the e-vite for this event, please let me know so I can get you the information!) There will also be a letter that comes home asking QAE families to consider making a financial contribution to this partnership.  

I have so appreciated the support Room 203 families have shown this partnership already this year, and thank you in advance for any additional support you are able to provide this week.

Zikomo (thank you in Nyanja),
Katie

Celebrating Earth Day with a visit 
from some Seattle Tilth Worms 

Learning that Group Work is Team Work!

To prepare the students for working in their expert animal groups this coming week, we did a mock group work activity during readers' workshop last week. I taught them about the group roles we will be using:

and then assigned each student a role to practice as they worked in their reading groups to create a collaborative African Savannah. Before starting, each group came up with a fair plan that would ensure that everyone had a chance to draw and help create the savannah. The savannah are amazing (proudly displayed on our large class bulletin board!), showing off everything the students have learned about the savanna.

On Monday, students will be assigned new table groups that will also be their animal expert groups. We will be doing some more creative collaborative work early in the week before diving into researching and writing our non-fiction all about animal books.
Group members will work together to find a role for each member of the group that best suits everyone's needs.