Our Week – February 10

This is a short note. It’s been a short, odd week – two and 1/3 days out because of snow. The weather really hampered the flow of our learning. We are in much the same place as we were last week, and yet, we’ve been flooded with information about the countries we are researching.

THANK YOU! Thank you to everyone who’s found time to answer the children’s questions about their countries. Thank you for reaching out to friends and family to spread the news of our information search. It has been exciting and very gratifying to learn so much from everyone. Last week when the class began working on their posts, they struggled with what questions to ask. They couldn’t imagine getting answers. This week, however, as they read through their comments learning about favorite foods, holiday traditions, animals, beautiful landmarks and so much more, the class understood how questions reach out. On top of that, they realized questions lead to more questions. They are very excited by what they are discovering about our world.

We’ve been reading books about various crises in the world and talking about what it might be like to have to leave your home because it wasn’t safe. We’ve read about picture books inspired by events in Sarajevo, others in Sudan and still others in Pakistan and Syria. When we wondered what it might be like to live an a place that felt unsafe and bad, the general agreement followed what Tera said, “I work to make where I lived a good place.” We hope that as we learn more about our world, we will be able to make it a kinder, more understanding place. We hope that by being more aware we will find ways to make the world better

 

 

 

Bits and Pieces –

We named our geography museum: 17 kids +15 countries in 1 room = Wow! Save the date, Tuesday, February 21 from 2:00 to 2:40 and from 5:45 – 6:30.
Subtraction is our challenge. We are working with regrouping and finding it to be a challenge.
While we’ve been at school, we’ve learned more of the cursive capitals. We’ve learned half of the alphabet now.
We’ve been exploring equivalent fractions by looking at the patterns we can find on our Number Corner calendars.
We’ve begun to plan and draft our original fables. It will be fun to discover what lessons the class chooses as most important to teach.

In The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs, Eben has found his first three wonders and is about to discover a fourth. It the fifth day with only two days left to find the rest. It seems as though searching for Wonders is a little like asking questions. Once you start looking and wondering, you notice things and wonder even more about things. It can be exciting.

We did have fun in the snow on Wednesday as you can see!