Good Afternoon,
I hope this finds you all well. I want to start with information about our Apple Orchard field trip this coming Wednesday. We have funding for the bus but I found out today that field trip costs were cut from the budget. The cost is $6 a student. I am asking that you send this in by Tuesday (if you can swing this). I am also asking that if you can give a little extra, that would be great too. This would help me cover the costs for kids that might not be able to swing the $6. You can send cash or a check. The check should be made out to Waitsfield Elementary School. If we end up collecting more than we need (due to donations), it will be put into our field trip account for another trip. Please let me know if you have any questions. Again, I need this by Tuesday.
This week we have read several books about kindness and what it means to be kind. We used the books Meesha Makes Friends, What Does It Mean to be Kind and Try A Little Kindness. These books allowed us to look at acts of kindness, when and where they can happen, and who can do them. I have asked kids to report out if someone does an act of kindness to or for them. I am hoping this will promote the acts and allow the "receivers" to acknowledge when they happen.
We started using our science notebooks this week. These notebooks are rushed to record observations they way a scientist does with their own work. The idea is to be detailed, to be accurate, and to demonstrate what they learned during their work. We had two observations this week, each one focused on an observation of an apple or an orange and they used tools such as colored pencils, labels, and presented their work to the class.
This week the class used their Hopes and Dreams to develop classroom rules that they thought we would need for our classroom. The kids came up with three categories and then we placed rules they thought they needed into the category that it would fit in. This way we could make sure every idea was covered but not have a list of 25+ rules. The class came up with the following rules: Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible. If you would like a deeper understanding of the "Rule Making Process" please check out this link.
