Winter is right around the corner! Next week we’ll be changing our season strip from “otono” to “invierno” (those are our Spanish seasons), but it certainly feels like winter already. We will be going outside most days and hope that the children are prepared for cold weather. We had a very brisk recess yesterday, but we survived. We’ll see what next week and the New Year bring us.

Exploring Magnetism – another Invisible Force

We’ve been having fun working with magnets. See what your child can tell you about them and how they work. We’ve been learning about the different types of magnets and what things are magnetic. We’ve been learning about poles – opposite poles attract and like poles repel. We know magnets have different strengths, but we are not sure why. We know that there are natural magnets called magnetite or loadstone and we know that magnets are all around us. In fact, we are on a giant magnet. We can’t see this force, but we use it every day.

Learning about Sentences

We’ve begun to learn more about sentences. We know they have two parts – the subject and the predicate. We’ve discovered they can be simple, complex or compound. They can be statements, questions or exclamations. We are learning more about how sentences are constructed and how we can craft them to make our writing more interesting and/or informative. We are working to become more aware of grammar and the rules used in writing conventions. Many children are not following conventional rules because they do not know where they should use them. They do not know what a sentence is beyond saying it begins with a capital and ends with a period. We’ll continue this exploration and learn how to punctuate dialogue so that conversations become clearer in writing as well.

Telling Time and Figuring out How time Passes

We’ve been working to tell time and to calculate how time passes. Children have felt this challenge! When we first started exploring time and time elapse problems it was a way for us to practice telling time and to learn our 5’s multiplication table. Now we are using time as a way to explore 6’s and the power of 10. If you have a chance to pose time questions to your child please do – things like, “We’ll be going to the hockey game at 6:30. How many minute is that from now?” or “We’ll leave for the library when we’ve finished baking the cookies. It takes 12 minutes to bake each sheet of cookies and we’ve got 4 sheets to bake. When will we be going to the library?”

I know questions like that take a lot of time so make your questions fit the time you have. They do help children come to understand more about how to manage their time and pay more attention to the tasks they need to accomplish. Time can seem both short and endless. It helps to become more aware of how time can be measured and used.

Bits and Pieces

• Going on a Field Trip to the SEE Science Center – we’ll be going on our second field trip on Tuesday, December 20. We’ll be leaving the school right at the start of the school day and returning around 2. We’ll be experimenting in a Slimy Science lab and learning more about Invisible Forces while we are there. We’ll also have time to explore all of the exhibits in small groups as well.
• Celebrating Scientists and Science – I hope things are going well with the “Who Am I?” projects. From the comments and whispers I’ve been hearing it seems as though everyone is on track for the “reveal” on Wednesday, December 21. Thank you for helping the children with this project. If you need anything – please let me know! In Thursday, December 22 we will be celebrating together with Science as a theme, rather than the holidays. Some 8th graders will be joining us so we can spend much of day in small groups experimenting and creating Flubber, bouncy balls and more.
• Learning the “kite string” letters – this week we began our second set of cursive letters. There are many in this set so we’ll be working on them for a couple weeks. Cursive is fun!
• Walking through the Silent Maze with Mr. Caron – are continuing to work on Self-and Social-Awareness, Self-Management and Decision Making. They are big challenges for many in our class and the Maze was a fun way to work in that. Children had to make mistakes in order to help the rest of the class learn the path. They also had to focus to make sure that the same mistake wasn’t made another time. And they had to manage themselves because if there was talking while a classmate was working to solve the challenge, the classmate in the maze had to leave. We also had to work on being aware of judgment and blaming. There were lots of lessons in that simple challenge. It was fun and hard. Our whole class was able to move through three different mazes in forty minutes.

We are growing and becoming a stronger learning community every day. Our biggest remaining challenges are being aware of when it is the right time to be funny, and recognizing the difference between funny and immaturity. Thanks for talking to your child about his or her efforts to stay focused and in control – especially while a few around them may not be. We’ve nearly earned our first special treat for behaving well. Our jar is getting full!