Hi Families,

I will keep this blog post short since we are still doing much of the same work as we were doing last week.  Details below!

The BIG thing this week has been finger knitting (as I'm sure many of you have witnessed!)  The students just love it and can't seem to get enough. It is soothing and satisfying, and I am happy to give them 5 minutes to work on it a few times during the day.  Thank you all so much for the yarn. We are going through it fast, and I will be sure to bring in more next week. I also plan to invite a friend (who is a master crafter) in to show the class a few other basic yarn crafts next week, just for some diversity!

The students are working to come up with topics to write their persuasive speeches about. We started by looking for problems that exist in the world, but moved on to looking for wonderful people who need to be recognized.  Next week we will settle on our topics and get into the nitty gritty of how to write a persuasive piece.

We've been learning a variety of strategies for recognizing social issues when they come up in books. We've discussed fairness, noticing when a character is struggling, and noticing when a scene is making us uncomfortable. All of this has been in preparation for book clubs, which we started today! The work today was mostly about where to meet, how many pages to read, what to discuss, etc.  But the class seems really excited about the independence I am giving them, despite the fact that they didn't get to pick their books!

This week we learned what the government does for us and how it can afford it. We learned about taxes (very generally!) and are beginning to understand that we have to pay them so our government can do things like fix our roads, etc. Today we learned (again, in a very basic and non-biased way) the main differences between democrats and republicans. The main message was that all voters should be responsible enough to know the candidates and their views, despite which party they come from.  Next we will learn about how a bill becomes a law.

We are finishing up geometry soon. 4th graders learned to use a protractor and are now learning about mirror symmetry. The 3rd graders are learning about the attributes of triangles and then will move on to quadrilaterals. We continue to work on knowing the difference between perimeter and area and how to find each.

Finally, we are going to the State House on February 5.  I didn't send home the permission slip today since you just got one for the Flynn trip yesterday. I will send it home with the homework on Tuesday. Chaperones are welcome, so check the date and mark your calendars if you'd like to join us. I'd love to have your help!

That's a wrap!  I hope you all enjoy a restful weekend.