October 21, 2022

Good Morning to all of you.  I hope you are having a lovely Friday.  I know the students are excited for the fall celebration this afternoon. I arrived in DC earlier this morning and as I write this, I find myself inside a building wearing a mask (required).  I am realizing and remembering how happy that the everyday wearing of the masks is past us. Wearing a mask and trying to wear glasses is a tough one! More fog on my lenses than RT. 100 on an early fall day.  

This week I received several emails about kids being nervous or even a little scared about the biking unit that Ms. Ally has been doing in DC. I really appreciated the heads up and used the concerns to drive a project we did on Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, I read the story The I'm Not Scared Book by Todd Parr, to the class. "With his signature blend of playfulness and sensitivity, the author explores the subject of all things scary and assures readers that all of us are afraid sometimes." After reading the story, the students identified a time when they were scared and what they did or could do to make it less scary.  Their writing and illustrations of this, will be sent home next week. 

Yesterday, the students started a 2nd science experiment.  The experiment involved putting a gummy bear in a cup of water and one in a cup of vinegar. Again the focus was on making predictions, setting up the experiment, creating diagrams of what they saw and writing "I noticed" statements about their observations. Today the students were going to record what happened over night and then check to see if their predictions were correct or not. I've been really impressed with the detail in their observations, recordings, and their science writing.

In math, 1st graders have been working on building fluency with their complements of 10 and also with domino math facts.  They have been playing a game where they each add their fact and then compare each other's quantity by using the greater than or less than symbols. Second grade math has been working on adding and subtracting 10s from a given number.

NOTES:

*Please remember to add a photo of your child in their Halloween costume (if they wish to) and I will add it to the presentation on the 31st.  Please add any photos into this drive folder. If anyone wishes to donate 2 gallons of cider for that day, please let me know.  I will provide the class treat.

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Tommy