Choose kind

Hello,

I feel badly that I missed the Snow Biz musical tonight.  My practice went long. Unfortunately, because of the Bowdoin game tomorrow, I'm not going to get to see it. I try very hard to see my students when they are performing in different activities important to them, and I feel awful to be missing out on the results of their hard work. I'll find out tomorrow how the first performance went. We had many kids with spoken/sung lines tonight.

Our new read aloud is Wonder by R.J. Palacio. It is a fantastic book that I have wanted to reference many times this year, so I'm getting to it. It gets into many issues that fourth and fifth graders have to deal with, including school pressures and bullying.

The main character of the story, and current narrator, August, is a fifth grader starting at a new school. August has a face that is extremely abnormal. People stare at him. Wonder is his story, but told from many different points of view.  I did it as a read aloud last year, and I will read it to each class because of the lessons that it teaches.

Tonight's homework is related to August's English class. His teacher, Mr. Browne, writes a new precept on the board every month.  His beginning of the year precept is: When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.

We talked about that for a while today. It is an important lesson, and a theme that runs through the book. Choose kind.

In our WWF matchups, the moose and the ocelot were victorious over the shark and the gibbon, respectively. Both won by 13-8 votes. Tomorrow the koala goes up against the tree frog and the red panda takes on the anaconda.

I've started one on one conferences in writing. This should happen with each child once a week. Now we can start really buckling down on the specifics that your child need to work on. Ask your child when their conference is scheduled.

I corrected yesterday's spelling test. I'll be breaking up the class into small groups to focus on where their greatest spelling needs are. Interesting results. I keep relaying info on this as I get it.

Have a good night.

Mr. Shea