Good luck

Hello,

Our field trip for tomorrow is cancelled.  I just realized that I never put it on the calendar in the first place.  With high winds, lots of rain, and many power outages expected, we decided to reschedule for early November.  More details to follow.

I'm sure you have heard, but there is quite a storm blowing in.  Make sure you have some water stocked up.  Charge your phone.  Keep flashlights on hand.  I lost power for six days just two years ago.  At least now I work in a school that has showers in the locker room.

We extended our Friday talk about atoms and molecules today.  Friday's discussion wasn't planned, but came out of questions from the class.  I decided to build off of that discussion to jumpstart our rocks and minerals unit.  I started from the solid/liquid/gas perspective.  We talked about vibrating molecules, temperature, temperature scales, etc.  The kids bounced around the room as nine and ten year old molecules.  When some our fourth grade molecules didn't follow the laws of physics, (like retaliatory bumping) they found themselves sitting on the sidelines.  This is one of my favorite units with a lot of hands on learning.  We will be alternating between geology and geography since they are so closely related. 

Our government unit is by no means over, because we will run our class government all year long, but I don't give them a big test or anything until later in the year.  I will wait until we implement the executive and judicial branches into our class government before I will expect them to understand it too deeply. 

I've been trying very hard to make sure kids that are pulled for GT, special education, RTI, etc don't miss too much.  That is going to be near impossible as we start overlapping units.  I need to cover social studies and science content within our writing and reading times.  I can't guarantee that some things won't be missed.  I'll do my best to keep the most important content area activities at times when we have most everyone.  (We have no time of more than 20 minutes during the day when we do have everyone.)  Pull-outs are a reality of today's education.  With each pull out, there are positives and negatives.  Missing stuff is also a reality. 

Gotta run.  We will have homework club tomorrow.  I figure if you don't have power, you probably would rather have your kids at school.

Lego club is going to start on Thursday nights.  I'll write more on that tomorrow.

Have a good night.  Stay warm, safe and dry.

Mr. Shea