Newsletter: January 17

Dear Families,

  We are so excited to have a new face in class...our intern, Ms. Myers. She'll be with us on a daily basis until late April. Here's a short introductory letter to help you get to know a bit more about her.

Hello! My name is Tianna Myers and I am a senior Elementary Education major at the University of South Carolina. I am so excited to have the opportunity to work with you and your students this semester. I am a native of Columbia as well as a proud Richland 2 graduate. It is so exciting for me to be student teaching in the same community where I received my K-12 education.

I have already been very impressed by the quality of work and focus shown during this first week in Dr. Hass’ classroom. I appreciate the warm welcome that I have received from the students and Dr. Hass. I’m looking forward to growing and learning with your students throughout this semester!

If  you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me through Dr. Hass at chass@richland2.org.

In other happenings around the classroom...

Adding to the advocacy work that's abound in the classroom, this week Ethan
shared a letter with us he had written to the Senators of South Carolina about
a piece of education legislation (S.419) he's been discussing with him mom
at home. He is very worried this bill will increase testing for some and will
not address the actual needs of classrooms. It was clear he'd had some rich
discussions at home.

In Social Studies the kids have wrapped up their study of Native American tribes
native to South Carolina.

Our focus was on the Cherokee, Catawba, and Yamassee tribes. 

Once their research was complete, each group created a poster holding all their info.

The final stage of this study was to visit other groups and hear all about
their learning. Next, we'll be moving on to an inquiry into Colonial America.

In writing, we're continuing our study of songwriting. This week Mr. Segal was kind
enough to come in and play a few songs for us as well as help us begin to think about the
effect of tempo on a song. He improvised a tune to fit one of the songs the kids have been writing
and demonstrated how those same lyrics could take on a variety to different feels simply by changing
the tempo.

This inquiry has been a big hit. There's been lots of writing, rehearsing, and
even performing. A few of the kids have even brought in instruments from home and
worked to create tunes/beats.

How does this work fit within our state standards? Much of our learning has
come from an analytical study of song lyrics from our favorite songs. This has allowed us to learn
about organizational structure and rhyme pattern. These lyrics have also provided great
opportunities to talk about interesting words and the use of apostrophes in abbreviated words/contractions.

That's it for this week. Ms. Meyer and I hope you all have a wonderful long weekend with your families!