Post Hike Week Update

Hello Wonderful Families!

I hope you all heard lots of great stories about the hike last week. I was sorry to miss it but I know the kids had a great time.

Sorry about the possibly perceived preachy/lecturey tone of what is going to follow, but recent events in class call for me to ask you for some assistance.

I talked about this some time ago is a previous blog post but many of you are new to my class so I'll reiterate a point I'd like to ask you to support. It is election season. The general public has some big feelings about the candidates one way or the other. I can't do anything about this. However, recently, kids have been coming in using some pretty hurtful language about candidates running for president, leading to some hurt feelings. It is my belief, and one that is emphasized at our school, that because we disagree doesn't make someone bad or good. It means we have something to learn from one another. This connects directly to our young ones, as they are always trying to see the world in black and white. They are too young and not ready to understand the immense amount of grey involved in the world, in this case presidential politics and policy. I ask you to please make sure that if you are choosing to discuss politics with your child that you make it clear that because you disagree with someone's views that it doesn't make them a bad person. People can disagree and still be friends.

On a another note, I have had kids coming in and asking about clowns at school. In case you haven't heard, there are people dressing as clowns and doing some pranks and scaring of people. It is one of those viral things that will pass with time. In the meantime, however, I would appreciate some filtering of this kind of information to kids. One student came in talking about his parent's Facebook messages about the clowns and it affected some kids in class. It scared them. Your help is appreciated in being the person discerning what information is appropriate for your child to know about.

Back to the other work at hand...

We have all been working hard in class and we have finished all of our reading assessments. The kids are going to be put in groups to start working on specific skills next week. Some groups will be primarily working on word-solving strategies, some working on reading fluency to build their reading rate, others will be working on comprehension. There is a lot to learn!

In Writer's Workshop we are working on books that are called "All  About Me" ABC books. It has been a real blast reading about how kids see and describe themselves. They are concentrating on their handwriting as well as thinking about the words that best describe them. They are going to be looking at ways that they are same and different to other things as well. We will be using Venn Diagrams as one of the tools to do this work.

We have continued to work on our weather chart and next week will be charting the shortening of the days. We will work on our observation skills as well at our observation table. We will also be having a station where we can carry out an investigation, next week we will be weighing.

We are reading the Minpins in read-aloud. Ask your child about the story, it is a Roald Dahl classic. We are working on making a movie in our minds when a book is read to us. We stop and ask the kids what they are seeing in their movies in their heads and it has been a great exercise for them all.

I am having such a blast this year, and your children are to thank for it. It is a most wonderful group, indeed!

Have a wonderful weekend,

~B