Sunday, December 20, 2009

Tour de Trent



Thanks to Reese and his family, we were lucky enough last week to be visited by elite cyclist Aaron Trent. A few weeks ago Reese brought in a current news article about a local man who, when given Penicillin as a baby, had a severe allergic reaction resulting in a cerebral palsy-like condition. However, after years of loving sports yet not being able to participate Aaron found a love for cycling. Even better, he found that he was exceptionally good at it.

He is now taking a year off from classes at USC to train full-time for the 2012 Paralympics in London. He is so dedicated to his training that he actually mounted his bicycle right outside our doors and took off on a training ride. He shared that he rides about 350 miles per week.

Aaron's story was very inspirational and he was an extremely nice guy. The kids were so excited that they pulled out their writing notebooks and asked for an autograph. A big thank you to Reese and his dad for helping to arrange this special visit.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Holiday Songs and Raps

The kids worked today to create cards or letters for their parents. Many decided that they would like to write a song or a rap for their parents. They turned out pretty well for the amount of time we had available to devote to these projects. Take a listen!



Book Chats

A few weeks ago the class broke up into book clubs. Everyone had a great time reading and discussing the books. Here is a video of one of our groups chatting about their book, Ivy and Bean. This was the kids' very first experience with book chats and I think they did a great job!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Passing of the Cans






Here are a few pics from last week's Passing of the Cans. Our class collected 138 food items.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Welcome!

Welcome to our brand new class blog. I envision this being a space where I can post newsletters, fun stories, homework, pictures, and videos. I would also love to get the kids involved in posting updates on the happenings of the class.

This is very much a test run. I hope that a combined effort between students, parent volunteers, and myself will allow this to be a rousing success.

Chris