Lego Club is coming.

Hello,

Here is the deal for Lego club.  It will be just like homework club except instead of playing games for the last forty five minutes, we'll build with Legos.  If you are interested in having your child stay after school to do home work for forty-five minutes and then play with Legos for an hour, just send in a note. 

I was a little dismayed with the amount of math homework that I needed to help on tonight.  I always hope to have a little one on one time for reading or writing with some of the kids, but tonight it was all math.  I'll speak to my colleagues about our forty minute guideline.  I had the kids stop after forty minutes of math, with my help, and we hadn't even got to the reading.  I know I give too much from time to time, but I want the kids to understand that if they put in a solid forty minute effort, they have my permission to close the book and let me know the next day that they didn't finish because it took too long.  I'll find out from there, whether it was my mistake or just a misunderstanding. 

I'm now writing the homework for my math class in the homework calendar, but be aware that that may not apply to your child if they do not have me for math anymore.  I will know label it Shea Math to remind you of that. 

Our new class read aloud is The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau.  I think it contains one of the best story starters ever.  The two page prologue, which is all I read to the class today, really makes the reader curious and ask all sorts of questions.  I picked it for several other reasons as well, a major one being that the main character is a girl and I was well aware of my current streak of two boys in a row.  Let me know if you would like a copy to read with us.  It also hits on some major themes that I love to get fourth graders engaged in: geography, geology, energy, government, and CURIOUSITY.

The class put on some little skits today for reading class.  The principal, Mrs. Skorapa, happened to drop by to give us a special audience.  The class did very well performing some very humorous skits that I got from an old drama book.  Ask your child if they played the role of rock star, teacher, waiter, little child, manager or diner.  I was happy with their performance on stage and as an audience.

All for now.  Have a great night.

Mr. Shea