A Break in The Rain

Enjoying a quick walk while there was still sunshine to start our morning right.

Our favorite iCivics games are back! Today we played "LawCraft," a game that explores the process of proposing bills, researching them in committees, and passing them in Congress. This game served as a provocation for our afternoon process of proposing our first NOMAD bill to eventually be pushed through Congress to become a law.

Many of us struggle with finding the main idea using important details in a text. Over the course of this semester, I'll be introducing and spiraling reading strategies to build our comprehension and analysis skills. Today, we practiced highlighting a text for main idea, details, and vocabulary words.

We completed three readings of the text as well, which we will continue to practice for the sake of thoroughness. The first reading is a skim for the gist of the piece, the second reading intended to build understanding, and the third reading asks us to analyze and question.

We worked on finding the main idea of the story "Cathy, Queen of Cats" by Sandra Cisneros. The main idea is somewhat difficult to tease out from this very short vignette, but we reached an understanding about the complex ideas around two girls of different races both wanting to escape the poor neighborhood they live in, feeling shame, and expressing it all in two very different ways.

The rain provided a completely new obstacle for Grounders tag today! It was nice to have a brief sunshine break and some fresh air.

Before heading back to the library, we created a small ceremony to set intentions for this semester of NOMAD.

Our responses to the question "What intention would you like to set for this semester of NOMAD" ranged from "create a great government" to become closer friends with everyone here" to "just have fun" and "create a real mural."

We watched some videos about the process of bills becoming laws in the US, then re-read our NOMAD Constitution. After, we sketched out how this process will work within NOMAD. Our first project is to create board games that teach this process to future NOMAD students.

We discussed the process and hammered out some complications like how many houses we will have, if there will be a difference between Congress and the House given our small size, and what sponsorship will look like by a senator or the purpose of committees when a bill is proposed.

One group got started on their bill --> law board games. They hit a few obstacles: will the game be a race to pass laws? Will bills be competing with one another? Will the game be collaborative? How will the various checkpoints be enacted through game play?

The other group began drafting the first NOMAD bill concerning how we will be able spend our earned NOMAD money. They also created a rough template that anyone can fill out to propose a bill (that includes you, parents! And you, public!). Finally, they decided to create a survey for parents about what they are allowed to buy and consume. This research will *hopefully* inform their proposed bill. Parents, this survey is homework to be completed by Wednesday, so look in your email for the link and complete with your child, please.