Newsletter: November 2, 2012

Dear Families,

I hope you are all ready for our class camping trip on Saturday. I know the kids are very excited. Again, the general plan for the day/night is:

3 - 4        Arrive at the park. Drive back to the group/scout area to drop off your things.
4 - 4:45   Class kickball game. I'll take the kids for the game while you either watch, play, or settle in.
5 - 5:45   Small group activities - fishing, collecting firewood, nature art, scavenger hunt
6:00         Dinner
7:00         Night Hike
8:00        Campfire
10:00      Bed Prep
10:30      Kids in tents

The weather forecast looks pretty good. It's supposed to be in the 70s during the day and in the low 50s overnight. If you are planning to stay the night, be sure to bring warm PJs, a sleeping bag, and lots of warm blankets. If you have an air mattress this would be a good idea as well. We'll have muffins and juice in the morning.

Here are some highlights from from the past week or two...

A lot of the kids have been working on independent research projects during Exploration time. This is purely optional. Topics have ranged from the Titanic to Big Foot to the Grand Canyon.

Of course, a staple of Exploration is finding news articles to share with the class. We worked during Social Studies this week to learn how to selectively highlight the most important words and phrases - rather than entire sentences and paragraphs. This is a growing skill that will serve us well as we begin our expert projects next week.

Reading is another favorite during Exploration time. Since much of our daily silent reading time is independent, Explorations offers an opportunity to read alongside friends without worry of distracting others from their books.

Here is our math journal. The kids often like to pose challenging math problems that relate to the work we've been doing in class.

A favorite math game is Addition Top-It. It is much like the traditional game of "war" but in this version you flip 2, 3, or 4 cards at a time, add them together, and see who wins. Soon we'll be playing Multiplication Top-It.

It's always fun when someone brings in a book from home that relates to what we've been learning. Here you can see a book about fractions.

Morning Meeting is our time to share all these things. It generally begins by 8:30 and concludes around 8:50 or so.

We had a special visitor this week. Dr. Julia Lopez-Robertson visited us from USC. Adding to our conversations around other cultures and the idea of "normal", she talked about how she has been shaped by so many places and cultures. Her mother is from Columbia, her father is from Cuba, and she was born and raised in Boston. She has also lived in Arizona and, now, South Carolina. I realized how broad a term "culture" can be.

We sang her two of our favorite songs before giving her a copy of our class CD as a thank you gift for taking the time to visit us.

One of the kids came up and asked if we could have a group photo with Dr. Lopez-Robertson.

In writing we have been learning to read like a writer. By this we mean read not for a sense of story but to see what specific craft moves the author is using to make their writing sound so nice. Each day we have noticed a number of these craft moves and then each of the kids selected one or two to try in their own writing. Ms. Ruff, who is here Monday - Thursday for the next few weeks, is leading this inquiry.

Next Monday our class is conducting the CFI Presidential Election for Kids. We have already prepared the ballots and discussed our procedures. To help us better understand what we'll be helping the other students do, our class voted today. On Monday we'll tally the results from the school. In addition to the big result we will also be sorting this data into various categories, looking for trends, and working to develop theories to explain these trends. We'll also be exploring the different ways in which we can share this information with the school. If you'd like to see us share our results please join us in the Gathering Room around 2:30.

To help celebrate our work with the election I'm going to get pizza for the kids' lunch on Monday. You do not need to send anything in. However, if anyone is available to pick up and deliver the pizzas for us that would be great!

Thanks,
Chris