Newsletter: May 2, 2013

Dear Families,

Thanks so much for your help with Mr. Chris' sendoff last week. He misted up as each of the kids took turns offering him a bit of advice about working with children, handed him their homemade letters and cards, and presented him with a $140 gift certificate for the bookstore. By the end of the day about 2/3 of our class was crying (hysterically in some cases). As I walked them through the Gathering Room I commented to the school nurse "I think I might need a mother to come help me with this. I tried telling them all to 'buck up' but that didn't really help too much!"

This week we have been working on the writing drafts we began last week. These are free choice pieces where the kids are trying to be deliberate about how and where they introduce and describe the setting. We've studied a number of published authors (such as E.B. White and Cynthia Rylant) to see how they go about establishing the setting. The kids' pieces need to be a minimum of three pages long (not counting big spaces or illustrations) and are due tomorrow. I've told them that if they need extra time they may bring these home over the weekend and complete for Monday. About half the class has already completed their stories. We'll work after the PASS test next week to begin revising and editing.

In math we've spent the past couple of weeks exploring pi, learning the parts of a circle, measuring the circumference of trees outside and using a formula to calculate the diameter, learning to do long division, and reviewing for the PASS test. We'll spend the last month of the school year exploring all the areas of math people have been dying to know more about - square roots, exponents, pre-algebra - while also revisiting some of the trickier material from this year.

In social studies we finished up a quick look at the post-Civil War Reconstruction. Our conversations seemed to revolve around the idea that while laws may work to create change (say, ending slavery or voting rights for African Americans) people still work to develop new ways to keep things the same (say, sharecropping or unjust voting requirements targeting Blacks). We also noticed there are a lot of streets, cities, and counties in South Carolina named after people who are responsible for some pretty ugly acts and ways of thinking. We wondered how these sorts of places come to be named. We'll finish the year with an extended study of Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement, and what role these play on life today. Someone hinted that they didn't think there was racism or unfair laws or practices anymore because we had solved all these problems. That'll be a great question/topic to explore. Perhaps there are parents or other family members who could contribute to this discussion?!

I look forward to seeing everyone who can make it out for our potluck/Curriculum Night this evening. The kids are very excited to have fun together as well as share with you a little piece of what they've been doing over the past few days and weeks. We'll begin with dinner at 6:00 and finish up in the classroom no later than 7:30.

Thanks,
Chris