Dear Families,

Yesterday our entire school celebrated End Racism Day (you can read more about it on the United Nations website at http://www.un.org/en/events/racialdiscriminationday/). Dr. Mueller started us off by reading the book Skin Again by bell hooks. It begins "The skin I'm in is just a cover. It cannot tell my story."

Throughout the book, hooks sends the message we are a collection of many things - not only our skin color. After the whole-school read aloud, each class was poised to take up this message and others then come back together at the end of the day to share out some of the work we did. In our classroom we watched a video from the History Channel about the Greensboro sit-ins and discussed how people had to risk their safety to bring about important changes. We also looked at a collection of protest signs from the past five or six decades to see how different issues have been taken up in marches.

The kids were then split into small groups to think about a message they would want to announce to the world. After agreeing what this would be, they created their own posters to help them get this message out across the school. They did a wonderful job. Here is a peek at the posters we came up with...

Here are a few other images from science to show a sampling of the work we've been doing in class...

Building on the work we have done with soil in the past week or so, I introduced
an experiment to see which types of soil seem to hold moisture the best and which drain
the quickest. We related this to the needs of plants in regards to water absorption through
their roots.

Ms. Wilson and the kids have now launched an inquiry into electricity. In this photo they are
working to figure out how to light the bulb using only a D-cell and single wire. It was tricky! This
experience, and others, will help them build an understanding of different sorts of circuits. Electricity
is an extremely FUN topic to explore with lots and lots of opportunities to noodle around with materials
and discover how things work.

One important item to note is that our MAT, Ms. Wilson, is officially taking over all duties on Thursday, March 22. As the final part of her internship, she will run the classroom, with my assistance, for ten consecutive school days. She is poised to stretch her wings and has many fun plans in store for the kids. I just wanted to let you know of this date because this means the next few newsletters and any other communication will come from her (unless there is an issue that really requires me to step in). She'll do great!

Have a great rest of your week,
Chris