Upcoming Events
Thursday, November 15: 4/5 Feast! Check your email for details. Each student brings one ingredient.
Friday, November 16: Grandfriends’ Day
Then we’re off for a week for the Thanksgiving Holiday.
Writing Letters
Students enter their second week of a letter-writing unit on Monday. This week they will write letters of gratitude, and you may even be lucky enough to receive one later this week. We are doggedly reminding students to start at the margins, put commas after their salutations, indent first lines, etc. Letter writing is all about the formalities. Later in the week, we may delve into some activist letters to the Washington Redskins (sorry NFL fans). They tend to write back, too, with some colorful responses.
What was the first Thanksgiving?
The Wampanoag people, who were said to have broken bread with the pilgrims in 1621, have been giving thanks for all of nature’s gifts for 12,000 years. Each harvest, each first sprout, each new day, each full moon – all of it reason for gratitude. On Monday, students read about the cranberry celebration they still celebrate each November, based on their gratitude for the plentiful cranberry bogs of Martha’s Vineyard and its surrounds. We will connect this gratitude study to the mindfulness practice, and hey, maybe we will even create some gratitude rituals of our own for our local resources (Fresh air and rain when they finally arrive!).
Progress reports around the corner…
Teachers head into heavy hibernation mode over the upcoming holiday as we prepare our fall progress reports. They come out almost two months earlier this year, which means we can initiate interventions earlier if necessary, and generally increase communication between home and school. We are also working with new criteria that mark a student’s progress related to grade-level expectations. I am hopeful this will be a more meaningful process for everyone.
Homework
Writing: Finish your rough draft of your gratitude letter to your parents. It should be 2 pages, and 3 paragraphs long. First paragraph is about what you’re grateful about in the morning, second paragraph is what you’re grateful about during the day when you don’t see them, and the third paragraph is about the evening. Follow the conventions of personal letters as they are laid out in your writer’s notebook!
Reading: Reading Bingo 3.0 due Friday.
Math: 4th graders have a 2-sided worksheet due Wednesday. 5th graders are on Dreambox for one more week.
Spelling: you will get your words on Tuesday!