Day Two

Hello,

We got a little more academic today.  I may pull back the reigns a little bit tomorrow, though. Behaviors, not necessarily the best ones, starting popping up. We have to get the blurting out under control, before everyone is going to feel like they can comfortably speak up. Lots of kids trying to control the class, doesn't work very well. We'll get a handle on it.

We reviewed some place value in math today. We used place value cubes, rods and flats to demonstrate large numbers. We built a giant flat and a giant cube out of pvc pipe to represent 100,000 and 1,000,000 respectively. Most of them need more work on the bigger numbers to get a firm grasp of the big patterns.

The class met the new librarian, Ms. Sherrill this morning. Library will be bi-weekly this year. Our next library session will be September 17th. The kids will get a chance to exchange books before that, however.

One of the big schedule changes this year is that chorus will be held during lunch recess. Sensing a loss in numbers due to the pull of the outdoors, our music teachers have decided to put on a musical. Musical rehearsals and role tryouts will start next Wednesday at lunch recess. I think it is a good decision to attract students, especially for future years.

In literacy, I introduced the kids to the Roger Hargreaves books. I've tried this in the past, and thought I'd go with it again since we have such a wide range of abilities. After reading a few of the books, students will be creating their own Little Miss or Mr. characters. Tomorrow they will start developing their own stories.  The idea is to give them an easy run through of the writing process. Writing simple stories will make the drafting process easier for them.  Most nine and ten year olds want their first draft to be their last draft. This will give them a glimpse into the future of their writing: write a draft and then make it better.

Students will be learning the seven continents (if they don't know them already).  At least one of the continent songs will be heard in your house over the next couple of weeks.  Students will be expected to identify the continents, oceans, major lines of latitude, our home country and state on a world map or globe.

The homework in a bag is going well.  We got through about half of the bags and are getting to know about our classmates.  More tomorrow.

Have a great night.

Mr. Shea