We began creating community agreements today by brainstorming a list of “shoulds” and “should nots.” We will revise the list over the next few days before establishing the set of rights and responsibilities we agree to for the year.

SSR is off and running. Students will do their first homework assignments tonight. Read on for details.

During SSR, students can sit wherever they want. They record the book they are reading in a reader’s notebook and note each day how many pages they read. Teachers roam the classroom to check in and conference with readers, giving them the push they need to get to the next level.

This drawing may look familiar – this symbolic drawing is a good way for students to articulate their hopes and dreams for the year. Ask your child about the significance of the various parts of the flower, and we can look together at their drawings at our first conferences.

We had our first cultural studies lesson today, and students drew a California map from the tops of their head. This was the whole-class effort, and yes, you will find Los Angeles in three different locations, none of them quite on target. You also might notice Los Vegas and a Golden Gate Bridge in the Central Valley. This was a kind of pre-assessemnt of our geography study, and it turns out there is plenty of room for growth! Some example follow of individual student efforts.

Homework:

4th grade math: Grid worksheet. Please visit Strawberry’s website (click on the link in the toolbar above) for downloads and details. Jeff teaches fourth grade math and regularly provides downloads for students who forget assignments.

5th grade math: 2 Diffy puzzles. (Student should know directions, but here are some more if there is a misunderstanding.) Here, also, is this week’s packet. This has all the homework and classwork we will do this week, and know that this is what you can expect each week: one stapled packet that your child will receive the first day of the week and you can download from the blog if it gets lost in transit.

Read! Students must read 20+ minutes every, every night. They will sometimes have an assignment that accompanies this reading, but often, it’s just reading. They’ll bring their books back and forth between school and home, so please help your child get in the habit of putting it in the backpack each morning or the night before. If they don’t have a book tonight, that means they forgot it at school, and we’ll try to do better tomorrow!

Also, a note from a parent who lost a dish at the potluck:

I realized I left an oval plastic platter with a lemon ( I think) design at the before school picnic. Have you seen it?  

Let me know, and I can get it back to her. Thanks! Have a great night.