I love January!  We are settling into some hard work with focus and determination.  This week, we had our first "Connection Circle" following the guidelines of restorative practices. Be sure to ask your children what that looked like and felt like! I hope to have a circle time like this at least a few times a week for the remainder of the year, giving us a safe place to feel connected as a classroom community and get to know each other on a deeper level.

Our week started with a trip to the Flynn to see The One and Only Ivan. Most of the students seemed to enjoy the show, although they didn't all like the lack of costumes. I thought it was a beautiful envisioning of the story, which is moving and sad and happy all at the same time!  I'm glad we were able to have the opportunity.

We are finishing up our non-fiction reading and writing units. The students are making final edits in their writing pieces, and this includes thinking about what text features they can add (pictures, charts, tables, glossaries, etc.)  They want to add everything because it's fun to use technology that way, but we have had some good conversations about the importance of these features, and how authors only add them when they actually make it easier for the reader to understand the text.  The finished pieces will be coming home next week.  We got together into research teams this week to read about different kinds of extreme weather.  The students worked hard to break their research up into categories such as causes of the weather type, how it is predicted and measured, how humans try to stay safe, and what the consequences are of these weather events.  They are busy researching, synthesizing information, and taking some notes.

This week, we also learned more about democracy and the rights of citizens. We discussed how our Constitution came to be (becoming independent from Britain) and how our founding fathers set out to make sure we had rights as individuals, rights if/when we are accused of crimes, and protection from government power.  The students made posters summarizing and illustrating the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights, and they seemed excited to be learning this information! Next week we will get into the 3 branches of government and what responsibilities each has.  We will be going to the State House in February, but dates are not confirmed yet. Stay tuned!

Finally, we completed the first bend of our new math unit (both grades.) In this bend, we learned about measuring, measuring systems and tools, and how to convert measurements. We also learned a lot about perimeter.  Next week we will start learning more about measuring area.

Weather permitting, we are hoping to visit our trees on Wednesday 1/15. We plan to leave at about 9:15 and be back by about 10:30. If any of you are available and feel like taking a walk that day, you are welcome to join us!  I always enjoy having parents join the class!

Thank you to those who have sent in bread ingredients. The only thing we lack now is butter. I will pick some up this weekend, and bread will start coming home again on Monday!

I hope you all enjoy the sloppy weekend. Stay dry!