Newsletter: Week Thirteen

Are you tired of fumbling with your tools or trying to find them? Do you ever wish you had an extra hand? Hi, I’m Billy Mays here for the Tool Band-It. When two hands just aren’t enough, reach for the Tool Band-It. It’s a lightweight, magnetic band that provides a safe place to hold all your tools and parts.

Dear Families,

We spent time this week studying one of the highest forms of human communication… the infomercial. After spending a few days exploring magnets each of the kids worked to design their own magnetic invention. We then accessed infomercials from You Tube. We used these to see what we noticed them saying/doing to persuade us. We found:

· Loud talking to show excitement

· Fast talking to show excitement

· Shows how product makes life easier

· Shows all the different ways to use it

· Adds a free item at the end

· Sometimes uses rhyme

· Tells you how you’ll save money

· Shows all kinds of different people using it (“Even Grandma…”)

· Uses humor

· Asks a lot of questions (“Are you tired…”, “Would you like…”)

· “It’s just $19.95. Act now!”

The kids are now in the process of using a few of these ideas to develop their own commercial scripts. As you can imagine, they’ve been giggling their way through the process. I don’t know that we’ll have time in class but if anyone would like to help their child use this script to film a short commercial at home it would be awfully fun to share with the class! This is definitely NOT an assignment but an invitation to anyone who has the time or desire.

Thanks to everyone who has been sending in food items for our Passing of the Cans collection. While our primary goal is to help those in need, we’re also using with these food items to learn how to subtract with regrouping. Each day we weigh the food items that are brought in. To do this the kids stand on the floor scale holding the bag of cans and then again without the cans. They then subtract the difference. To date we have brought in about 70 pounds of food! Please continue to send these items in next week.

We’ve spent the past week reading Skylark together in class. I am reading about two-thirds of the book aloud and the kids are doing the remainder on their own during silent reading time. We’re using this book to launch a new structure in the classroom – book clubs. The kids are doing a nice job of learning how to sit and talk about their reading and their thinking. My primary goals for this first experience with small group literature discussion are: (1) to stay on topic/stay on task, (2) respond to the ideas of others, and (3) begin learning to truly converse rather than just take turns talking. So far, so good!

On Thursday, December 15^th we will cooking in the classroom. We plan to prepare the food and drink we will need for our winter celebration the following day. We’ll work next week to finalize our menu and begin calculating the ingredients and quantities we’ll need from the store. We’ll also work to estimate how much this will all cost so we will know how much money each of us will need to contribute toward the feast. I imagine it will be somewhere in the $3 - $5 range. If you’d like to come in to help prepare the food please let me know. So far I have heard from: Kathy Trice, Chandra Tate, Stacey Swayne, Ashley Simpson (MAT), Leanne Brinson (MAT), Karyn Gattman, Rebecca Clements, Dana Samuels, and Peggy Hass (my mom). We’ll be doing this from 1:30 – 2:30 ish. The more the merrier!

Have a great weekend,

Chris