Welcome back, and to the year 2012 too! What a treat to have such a nice break (with such warm weather too) and then to come back and jump right into school again. Although I think the students felt the break could've gone a little longer, which I won't take offense at.
We jumped right back into things with our LA work, starting out with a creative writing exercise, imagining ourselves as a student who needed to forge an excuse note. Now, we weren't going for excellence in forging ability, but for entertainment value. The kids thought I was crazy asking them to forge a note from their parent(s) but they loved doing it. At the same time we started a free-choice novel assignment. The kids are required to read a novel in class and provide a summary of the novel. I am asking for this to be done just before our long weekend at the end of the month, but I will monitor how things are going and adjust as necessary.
In Social Studies we are all excited to be looking at ancient Athens. Our focus is to explore the processes that this Greek city-state used to carry out its decision-making, but we started with a little primer on Greek culture, and an assignment on transcribing English words into Greek characters. I was surprised at how much the kids enjoyed doing it, with some of them writing more neatly in Greek than they do in English! Go figure.
In CE we finished our Jesus stories, presenting what we have done to the class. We also had a great speaker in chapel this week, challenging us about different ways we can live out our faith. Another great week in that regard.
And finally, in Science we started our Sky Science unit. We are approaching it a little differently, as I put all the sections of the unit in front of the kids (on the wiki) and told them to research and locate the answers on their own. I am still testing them after they finish each assignment, but they at least can choose the assignment they want to do to answer that question. It has been an exciting and interesting week in class, with all the kids really pushing to show their best understanding of each question they research. If you want more information on how this unit is working, I encourage you to come to the information meeting I am holding on Monday, January 16th in my room at 7pm (finishing no later than 7:45) to hear more about what we are doing.
I thank you for all your support and your trust as I get to spend time with your kids. God Bless!
