Newsletter - Thursday, August 30

Did you see any good movies this summer? Two that our family watched were Mirror, Mirror and Brave. Our kids really enjoyed both fairy tale-based films. What stood out to me was that each of these stories flew in the face of what our class had noticed in so many fairy tales last spring - girls seen as weak or only concerned with their beauty. Both Mirror, Mirror and Brave had wonderfully strong female leads that sent all sorts of great messages. I was reminded of this when Micah brought in the letter she received from Scholastic over the summer. The letter was a response to the letter she had written them asking for more stories with strong female leads. Scholastic's response shared that there were, in fact, such stories being circulated and that many of the tales we hear that belittle women were written many, many years ago. That made me think it would have been interesting to sort out our fairy tales by their date of publication to look for such patterns. I'm sure they are, in large part, correct. However, my hope for the kids is that they develop a watchful eye for the messages being sent by ALL books, movies, video games, advertising, etc. Many of these messages they will agree with. Others they will not. The first step, and one we are trying to focus on in the classroom, is to just become aware of their presence.

Speaking of messages, on Tuesday we spent some time reading the Pledge of Allegiance. I had shared the concern that we were all facing the same corner of the room with our hands over our hearts while reciting a pledge that many of us did not understand. One of the kids shared that a pledge is really a promise. I wondered aloud if it might be important to understand a promise before placing our hands on our hearts and repeating it each and every day. When asked "What do you think the pledge means and why might we say it each day?" the kids responded...

It's a promise to God...We are worshiping the Army and wishing them luck...It's to help us have a good day...We're pledging to be good citizens...We're promising to respect the flag and live equally..We're promising to listen to God

After these initial responses we discussed the confusing words such as allegiance, united, republic, indivisible, liberty, and justice. We then tried to simplify this pledge a bit to see if we couldn't come to a clearer message we could all understand. In the end we decided it meant something along the lines of pledging our loyalty to America. We also thought it was saying that people should respect and follow our laws and expect to remain free as well as be treated equally.  These seemed, to us, like pretty good ideas. As we study history and the present we will keep a watchful eye to see if these ideals are indeed being realized.

In math, we spent the week working on multiplication. We began with a fun game of creating equal groups and ended the week creating arrays for each of the numbers 1 - 24. For example, for the number 18 one group used blocks and graph paper to create the arrays 1x18, 18x1, 2x9, 9x2, 3x6, and 6x3. These arrays helped us launch our first discussions around topics such as "turn-around facts", multiples, factors, and prime numbers. These will be topics we'll continue to explore throughout the entire school year. Soon I will be asking the kids to work on memorizing their multiplication facts. If you have a set of multiplication flash cards at home you may want to break them out from time to time to support this work.

Did you notice an earlier post about our classes' upcoming CAMPING TRIP? If not, be sure to mark your calendar for Saturday, November 3rd. We'll be meeting at Sesqui in the afternoon for a day of eating, fishing, hiking, orienteering, etc. That evening we'll have a big campfire and then sleep under the stars (or at least the nylon roof of our tents). Much more information will be coming your way in October.

For Next Week:

Reading - Responding to texts in various ways (speech, writing, art, etc)
Math - Continue work around multiplication
Writing - Different types of writing that exist in the world (and here in our classroom)
Science - Developing our field guides for the flora of CFI

I hope you all have a great long weekend. Remember that all homework (reading log, two interviews, and math sheet) are due on Tuesday.

Chris

Homework - Week of Aug. 27

1. Reading log - Read at least five nights in the coming week. A typical night of reading should be around 20 minutes, but don't let that limit you. Over the course of the year I'd like to see us move away from use of the kitchen timer and toward a more natural stance that has us reading until we feel "full". Or, perhaps, tired.

2. Multiplication word problems - Be sure to show all work. Feel free to use a separate piece of paper if you need to. Just be sure to staple it to the worksheet before turning it in.

3. Nature Interviews - Check the survey you did today in class with an adult at home. Have them check each one they agree with and help you correct any they aren't so sure are accurate. This is due back tomorrow.  Beginning Tuesday, conduct the nature interview/survey with two people. One of the people should fall in the 35-55 age range and the other should fall in the 56+ age range. Remember, our hope is to look for trends (patterns) among different generations in terms of how children use and enjoy the outdoors. This will take a while to complete so do not wait until the very last day. I would love for the forms to be neat and carefully written. This will help us gather our data.

Each assignment is due back on Tuesday, September 4th. 

Have fun!

Newsletter - Monday, 8/27

Our first full week! Our first week back together was brief but wonderful. Now that our supplies have been tucked away we are ready to jump right in to third grade. Here is a forecast for the week to come:

Reading - Figuring out what the Pledge of Allegiance means, Setting hopes and expectations for independent reading time, Reviewing how to successfully browse for a good book, Figuring out when and how often to abandon a book, and Singing songs.

Writing - Setting expectations for writing with a partner, Lower-case cursive review, Types of writing we could work on during workshop time.

Math - Multiplication as repeated addition, Multiplication in real world applications, Turn-around facts, and Factors.

Science - Considering our use and comfort level with nature, Interviewing others about nature/outdoors, Observation and description of items in nature, and Creating a field guide for the plants on our school grounds.

Welcoming New Classmates
We have two new friends, Surya and Josier. To ensure privacy I never attach photos with names to this public blog. However, you will get a chance to see them at Opening Picnic in just a few weeks. We are very excited to have each of them join our class.

Class Camping Trip
 You may have heard that we are planning a class camping trip for this fall. It will be Saturday, November 3rd at the group/scout camping area in Sesquicentennial State Park. Many more details will be shared in the coming months. For now, just mark the date on your calendars.

Thanks,
Chris

Photos from Our First Day Back