Newsletter: Week Fourteen

Early Edition!!!

Dear Families,

Thanks so much for working alongside your kids on the written conversations last weekend. I enjoyed hearing them share pieces of their conversations about the book. Written conversation provides an opportunity to engage the kids in writing and let the expertise and perspectives of others support and challenge them as readers and thinkers. Here is a small sampling of some of those conversations:

I think it may be a while before Sarah, Anna and Caleb decide to go back home. What do you think? Well I think that they will go back home and then Sarah and Jacob will have a fight because Sarah thinks it will be a great idea if [they]could all go live in Maine.

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I have a funny feeling that Sarah is pregnant because she has been sleeping a lot and she went to see the doctor. I think that too.

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How do you know Papa misses them? You know it by what he wrote in the letter.

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I don’t know why Caleb didn’t miss Papa when Anna did. Did you? I think Caleb was just taking in the new sights and family. He had not realized something was missing because he was overwhelmed by the aunts, the dog, the motor car, and adventure.

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She tells Sarah that Papa’s letters have a “lot of things between the lines.” What do you think that means? I don’t know what it means. Can you explain what it means?

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I wonder when Sarah and the kids are going to get home? I think they’re going back in the end.

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I was surprised that Caleb doesn’t know what a car is. When I was young I knew what a car was. I think Caleb was used to wagons. I wonder if Caleb knows what a ship or boat is? Excellent question! He probably has only heard of them from books. It must have been a strange sensation to feel the car move on the road, hear the roar of the engine and see the sights go by so fast.

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Why did Sarah leave Papa? I believe Sarah left Papa because of the drought and she missed her family and the beautiful state of Maine.

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I thought they weren’t going to leave the prairie so I was surprised that they went to Maine. I found it interesting that when they were going to Maine, Sarah was sad, even though she was going back to the place she missed – maybe she loved Jacob more than Maine.

For those families who were maybe a little confused as to what their children were asking them to do I will be sure, in the future, to send home an example of what this generally looks like. We will also give it a go during Curriculum Night after winter break.

After sharing the research on community organizations that work to support those in need the kids recently discussed what type of community project we might want to take on this year. We've talked a lot of talk but are aware it's just as important to actually do something to help. The suggestions were: homelessness, education, foster homes, abused and stray animals, and the elderly. Before taking a vote I asked the kids to take a few moments to jot down their thinking around this. Here's a glimpse into a couple of their notebooks...

I think we should help people with no education because sometimes they don't have any books and books help you learn...I think animals because me and my brother love animals and we hate to see a stray dog or cat walking around our neighborhood...I think hungry people because if they didn't have enough food then they would die but if they had someone to take good care of them then that person would give them food...I hope we pick education because it will really make a difference in someone's life.

The final vote favored working to help abused and stray animals. Here is where a democratic classroom (one in which many things are negotiated) comes into play. Everyone seemed to like the idea of helping animals and we will soon begin our work for this cause. I would like to take the kids to a shelter in January to learn about services they provide, issues they face, and ways we can support them. Ideally, we'd get an opportunity to do something for them while we are there but we will see what they might have in mind.

We started new book clubs this week. There were about ten or twelve books to choose from and everyone selected their top three choices. From these choices I paired the kids with texts I thought would be the best fit. They are now working with their book clubs to determine which pages to read each day as well as to discuss their understandings and reactions to the story. This is a favorite structure of mine. I enjoy seeing the kids gather around to talk about books; not to mention, the social element plays very well for some of our more reluctant readers.