Hello,
Well, we're having a little trouble remembering our procedures. I'm not making this up when I say that a student asked, "What is a procedure again?" just last week. The snow has definitely disrupted our routines, which have been on shaky ground since the sixteen day holiday break.
Now we are less than two weeks away from February break with many other interruptions in our instruction time between now and then. Thirteen students are involved in the NAEP testing tomorrow. Ten students will be taking the NWEA math test on Friday and eight more will take the NWEA literacy test next week. We also have a couple more sessions of Arts are Elementary, where the students are making silk prints.
So I'll patch things together as best as I can. We have started a mystery genre unit with a focus on character development. In math, we are adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators. Math was lost today due to the late start, and tomorrow will be a wash as well, due to the testing. Therefore there will be no weekly challenge this week. (It will be Thursday before we go over last week's challenge.)
Thank you for making sure your children are still getting their reading done at home. I can't emphasize the importance of that enough, especially with our schedule lately.
We read about Ruby Bridges in our Scholastic Newsletter this morning. Our discussion that followed jumped from the Little Rock Nine to the Civil War to racism in general. The homework is based on a make-believe town of Brunswick where one gender is favored over another. Each student has to write about whether they think they would make a good choice to be part of the "Brunswick Nine," to help break the stereotypes of one gender being better than another. Would your daughter have the courage and patience to go to an all-boys school where they would be made fun of and feel unwanted? Would your son go to an all-girls school where they would be ridiculed and spit on, and yet not fight back? I look forward to the responses. (Why they would or wouldn't put themselves in that spot.) It might be a good one to talk about at home.
Have a good night.
Mr. Shea
