Where did the sunlight go?

Hello,

I'm writing at 5:15 and it is dark out.  I'll pretend that my room looks out over the ocean. 

The field trip to CREA (Cathance River Education Alliance) in Topsham was fantastic, as usual.  They do a great job there.  If you haven't been, it is a perfect place for a fall hike.  It is the site of many trails, including one along the meandering river, and several feldspar quarries.  Some amazing amounts of biotite (black mica), muscovite (clear mica), feldspar, and quartz can still be found around many of the old quarry sites.  Our students were able to sluice a cup full of rocks and minerals to look for gemstones.  Every child found and got to take home some mica, quartz, tourmaline, black tourmaline, feldspar and garnet.  Some of the crystals were beautiful.  One boy found a pretty spectacular green tourmaline speciman.  He graciously donated it back to the Ecology Center.  I told him that I would bring him some nice crystals from my mineral collection in a show of thanks for his generosity.  Make sure to ask your child for a little show and tell session from the day.  They all took home some great stuff.  CREA makes this possible by buying buckets of material from another local mine.  Your child should be able to tell you the main ingredients in granite, as well as some common uses for quartz, mica, and feldspar.  If they can't do it yet, they will soon.

According to the substitute, Friday went extremely well.  That report, along with the one from the staff from CREA, calling us the most polite class yet, makes me very happy.  We show who we are through our actions.  It makes me proud of them to see such behavior, and hear positive feedback. 

We started writing a thank you note to CREA after we returned to school.  The rough draft should be finished tonight.  We talked about thanking them for: the samples, allowing us to come, and teaching us about so many things.

The other homework tonight comes from a program called The Great Mail Race.  We got a letter from a girl in Idaho asking us questions about our school, town and state.  Her class has written to all of the other 49 states and is hoping to hear from all of them.  I gave everyone a copy of the questionnaire.  We will fill one in together tomorrow.  Maybe the kids will be motivated to try this themselves.  We'll see.

On that note, we definitely need some pen pals.  I'll look into getting us some, maybe international ones.

Have a good night.  It feels like 6:30. 

Mr. Shea

By the way, I have heard zero responses on the weekend homework question.  Yea?  Nay?  Hello?  Don't make me email you.