Newsletter: Wednesday, January 7th

This is an overhead shot of a candle in our classroom. We were looking at it during Morning
Meeting and talking about how solids turn into liquids when they are exposed to enough heat. We
poured the hot wax onto a sheet of paper and watched it cool back into a solid. We'll be studying
solids, liquids, and gases later in the year.

Dear Parents,

Welcome back! It was great to see all the kids' faces again on Monday. We jumped right back in from the get-go. In reading this week we are exploring apostrophes as they appear in contractions and possessives. We have begun the week thinking about contractions. We started by reading a few books...

Then we looked through our silent reading books to see what contractions the authors were using in their writing. Some of the most common ones we found during this informal search were: don't, it's, didn't, there's, I'd, and wouldn't. While looking at contractions we wondered where the word won't comes from. Shouldn't it be willn't? Over the next few days we'll sort the contractions we find into groups based on similarities (such as the words they combine). We'll also turn our attention to the use of apostrophes to show possession.

In math we are continuing our study of division. After spending a few weeks before break exploring the concept of division using many manipulatives (blocks, raisins, paper "cookies", etc) we are now working to see the relationship between multiplication and division. Over the past few days the kids have learned to check their answers to division problems using their multiplication facts. Some realized they could now forgo using the blocks and use multiplication to not only check their answer but solve the problem.

In social studies we are learning about the American Revolution. I began by asking the kids how they think America came to be a country. Many of them believed the Native Americans started the country. This led to a discussion about the Native Americans, the colonists, and the conflict between the two. We then jumped into the conflicts that arose between the colonists and Britain. We heard about violent riots the colonists staged in opposition to the oppressive acts of England - throwing rocks through windows and burning down people's houses and  businesses. We also saw a video explaining how there were multiple perspectives as to how and what happened regarding the killings at Boston Massacre. In many ways, this sounded familiar to stories we've heard over the past few months in the newspaper.

Sometime next week we'll begin using the American Revolution to talk more about perspectives and how a society of many needs, wants, and beliefs works together to make decisions. In this case, we'll see how not everyone was in favor of war. There were many perspectives to be found among the colonists during this time. How did they deal with this?

In writing we are beginning the second half of the year with a short songwriting unit. As you know, the kids are all bringing in a favorite song to share with the class. We are studying three of these songs each day to see what we can learn about rhyme pattern and song structure. The kids really enjoy listening to everyone's song. They'll work over the next two or three weeks to write a few songs of their own and eventually record one of these for our class CD.

It's good to be back. If there's anything you need please just let me know!