September 30, 2016

Good Evening,

  I am writing this on Thursday evening because I will not be at school tomorrow.  As I had said earlier in the week, I will be headed to Maine to watch my daughter and her team race.  Our Artist in Residency program offered some scheduling challenges this week and it caused us to have to move some things around.  I was only able to meet with the reading groups once this week and will only have Monday of next week to meet too.  Next Tuesday (during our reading time) we will have another scheduled time with our artist. I am hoping the following week will allow us to settle into our regular schedule.

  On Wednesday, we were able to start our new science unit.  We talked about the idea of animals adapting and used the book, Fur and Feathers by Janet Halfmann.  If you would like to learn more about this book or explore more with your child, check out this site.  We looked at four different type of classifications of animal adaptations: camouflage, locomotion, food, and protection.  The students were asked to draw examples of animals that represented each category.  Below is a quick video of the book.



 NOTES:

*If you look to the right of this page, you will see a link for the volunteer schedule.  I will ask the volunteers to start coming in a week from Tuesday or October 11th.  Please let me know if you ahve any questions.

*Artist in Residency time on Tuesday may involve some painting and building. Please plan accordingly as far as attire.

*Several kids are complaining that they are hungry during the day.  I always allow kids to get extra snack if needed.  Please check with your child to see if packing an extra snack is necessary.

*PLEASE, PLEASE make sure your child brings back their reading book each day.  Some of the students will be bringing home a book that is being used in reading group and will be needed the next day.  If they don;t have their book, it makes it really hard to have them participate with the group work.  I truly appreciate your help and support with this.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Peace,
Tommy