This week has been about enjoying books, reading together, exploring weather and learning more about fractions and the connection between multiplication and division.

It was wonderful to see so many you at the Jaggies today.  The awards ceremony was a wonderful way to celebrate how reading can bring us together as a school.  What fun!

S.E.L. – Sorting Problems

We’ve continued to sort problems and talk about how we could or should deal with situations that feel annoying.  What should we do when people talk over each other?  What should we do when people call others names (we agreed this happens more often at home with siblings)?  What should we do when people fall on us in basketball?

We had some rich discussions.  Now we need to see how well we can remember in the moment.  Will we stop talking when we know we should be listening?  Will we take greater care at recess because we realize there are 20 people on the basketball court at recess rather than the usual 10?  Will we walk away from name-calling?  We’ll try.

We also watched the Personal Safety Puppet show this week from Haven.  You’ll see the worksheet in your child’s folder where they encouraged the children to make sure they had several adults they felt they could talk too.

Stormy Skies

This week we learned more about the water cycle and different cloud types.  We watched a Mystery Science video about how clouds are formed and then conducted an experiment where we captured water vapor so we could understand what a cloud feels like.  It is cool and wet.

Talk to your child about the water cycle and see if s/he can explain the process.  We are learning about evaporation, transpiration, condensation and precipitation.  They are fun words to know and use.

Global Geography

Most of the children have completed the research portion of this project are now on to the writing portion. They are creating a travel journal sharing the sites in their country that they think are interesting.  The children are getting better at note-taking, though some of them are still tempted to copy what they read and call it their own.  You’ll know if that is what your child is doing when you read their pages.

Next week we’ll begin creating the travel bag and souvenirs.

Bits and Pieces

• We’ve continued to learn more of the Upper Case cursive letters.  We’ve learned about half of the letters and will complete the alphabet next week.  Next will be to spend some time writing sentences.
• We’ve gotten to the excited part in Winterhouse.  Will Elizabeth ever earn Freddy’s friendship back? What will happen to Elizabeth is she goes to the Heims’ room?  What was the red light?  Why can Elizabeth see letters in “the book” that no one else can?
• We are continuing to learn more about fractions and to explore the connection between multiplication and division.
• Thank you, again, for you kind words and your patience.  I was hopeful that on Monday we’d be making a plan for my dad’s transition from the hospital.  I thought I would know dates and could plan conference time with you.  I’m sorry to say that did not happen, and I did not follow up on that to reschedule conferences.  The second term ends on March 13 and report cards will be sent home on March 20.