Jam packed day

Hello,

Before I forget.  I meant to send a note home tonight about homework club.  It starts tomorrow night.  Here is a copy of the note:

Hello Parents,

            Homework Club begins tomorrow!  Every Tuesday, from now until the end of the school year, we will be staying after school and doing our homework.  Homework time will be from 3:30 to 4:15.  From 4:15 until 5:00 we will be playing a variety of games.  

The purpose of this is for your child to get their homework done in a timely manner, for me to get some more one on one time with students, and for us to have some fun as a reward for getting our jobs done.  I think you would be surprised to know how little instructional time that there is in an average day.  The homework club gives me a little more time with your kids to make sure they get everything that they need. 

This club is completely optional.  If your child doesn’t want to attend, that is his/her right.  They are welcome to come some Tuesdays and skip others.  I had as little as five last year and as many as fifteen.  Last year I did fun science, but because of the amount of set up time and clean up time, I’m going to go with games this year. 

Games help kids with their social skills, sportsmanship, rule following, and logical thinking.  We will play board games, card games, outdoor games and make our own games. 

            Any Tuesday that your child has permission to stay after school, please jot it down on a note.  You can give a blanket permission slip if you think your child might want to come every Tuesday.  Again, this starts tomorrow, Oct. 2, and will continue on the 9^th, 16^th, etc.  Any questions, just let me know.

            I almost forgot, but you may want to send in an extra snack.  For them, not me.

            Thanks,

            Mr. Shea

So please send a note in with your child if you would like them to stay after tomorrow with the homework club.  Don't worry if you can't pick them up at five.  I'm here until at least six if you need the extra time. 

We watched "Caine's Arcade" this afternoon because I thought it might inspire some of the kids to do some building on these rainy days.  (Check it out on youtube.)  I also thought our homework club might be interested in doing some building games instead of just playing games.  I could get all the cardboard we need from my wife's store. 

Ask your child about the 1858 wall map that they got to see first hand today.  I found some old maps in my attic.  This is a little picture I took of part of it.  It is huge, but very fragile. 

It is picture book week.  Everyone is going to keep track of all of the picture books that they read.  Maybe I'll make a chain across the room with each link representing one book read.  The message I want to send is "YOU NEVER OUTGROW PICTURE BOOKS!"  I don't want them to make it through fourth grade without reading most of the classic picture books, so dig out your oldies or make your suggestions.  If I don't have a particular title, I'll get it here. 

We took the chapter  one test in math this morning.  A preliminary perusal tells me that they did pretty well, but #7 Write 100 hundreds in standard form, threw them.  It isn't that they don't know it mathematically, it is that they don't know it instantly, so they give an answer and move on.  They need more strategies for what to do when they don't know.  If they stopped long enough to think about what 1 hundred looks like, and 2 hundreds, and 3 hundreds, that would have led them to 10 hundreds and an obvious pattern.  We'll go over a couple more strategies on this tomorrow.  It is a common NECAP test question to add something like 22 tens and 14 hundreds.  With answers like 1422 or 162 staring them in the face, they need to slow down and figure it out and not choose the first one that looks good. 

I had planned on more homework tonight, but the time flew by and we didn't have any time to get our assignment books out, let alone write anything in.  My fault.  I'll do better tomorrow.  

We finished our read aloud, Among the Hidden. Luke is venturing out on his own away from the safety of his parents and his attic.  In this next book, Among the Imposters, his life gets pretty exciting.  I'm wondering how many takers I'll have on this sequel.    

I feel like I have a lot of news for you, but it is almost 7:00 and if it is important enough, I'll remember it tomorrow night.

Thank for reading,

Mr. Shea