Distant Learning Day 2 - Thursday, March 19th

Hey Kiddos,

I hope you're all doing well. Have you kept up with any news while you've been home? Not surprisingly, most everything lately has been about the coronavirus. One of these on Newsela was titled "Why Tough Times Can Mean Better Neighbors."

It was about people finding ways to spread kindness during these strange times where people need to practice social distancing. I've seen people doing this, spreading kindness, around our community as well. Some groups are working to make sure people who can't leave their houses still get the items they need from the grocery store. Others are ordering food "to go" from local restaurants to help these businesses make a little money even though people aren't stopping in to eat anymore. And others are calling their neighbors to see how they're doing and to ask if they need anything. I heard someone mention one thing we all could do is to write letters to people in retirement homes who may not have much access to the outside world right now. That might be something we all consider doing in the coming weeks if we still aren't able to return to school. We'll have to hold on to that as a possibility.

I received lots of pictures yesterday of you all doing work at home as well as enjoying nature. Check these out...

Here's Eli'sha reading the blog post from yesterday. Today he'll be sitting in that exact
same spot, looking at the exact same computer and see this photo of his past self doing the
exact same thing. It'll be kind of like he's spying on himself. Weird.

Andrew is hard at work on some math. I've really missed all his dances this week. No on
at my house can dance nearly as well as Andrew.

Jordyn is out for a recess hike where she saw two snakes, lots of butterflies,
bumblebees, ducks, and geese. Oh, and a bird also dropped a little present on her.
Sorry about that, Jordyn!

Ethan is doing some art. Looks like his little brother is interested in making one of his own! 

William and his family have found lots of other great resources for home school. These have
included Khan Academy, Ted Ed, and Duo Lingo. With so much time at home I wouldn't be
surprised to find out William has invented another couple languages since last we saw him.

Abby is on the back deck doing some science experiments and documenting
her thinking in a notebook. You probably won't be
surprised to know she pretty much filled that page up.

In addition to all the work he did, Pierce evidently declared yesterday a
Pajama Day - and didn't even let us know. Who else wore their pajamas?! 

Notes on today's assignments:

Math - The warm-up has problem where you have to make a line plot of the number of paintbrushes in an art room. Remember, a line plot is when you put X's along a number line  - similar to a bar graph - to share data. The rest of the today's math is very easy.

Reading - I hope you have a great independent reading book at home you're enjoying for those twenty minutes. I hope many of you wind up doing much more than just twenty minutes! The assigned reading and questions are pretty easy also. This isn't the sort of thing we do together in the classroom but it'll have to do until we get back together again to finish up our biographies!

Writing - The writing assignment the district gave you didn't make much sense today so I just asked you to write a short (3/4 page) memory story about a time you played with a friend (or group of friends). If you want to share your story with me you could send me a photo. Or if you type it you could email it to me. I'd love to read them! If that's too much of a hassle, I understand.

Science - Today you're looking at liquids. Have fun finding different liquids from around the house to collect. Just make sure they're all safe!

Social Studies - You can pick any of these you'd like to do. Don't worry about the ones listed as a "Must Do." Any of them are fine. I saw yesterday that Pierce designed his own flag. He wrote, "In Dr. Hass we trust." Ha, nice touch Pierce!


Lastly, I thought I'd share a funny photo with you. As I'm sure you remember when Ms. Myers brought in her 3rd grade photo I promised to bring in a picture of me when I was little. I somehow "forgot" every single day. Well, here's one from when I was probably two or three years old. I'm not at all sure what's going on with that outfit but I can promise you my mother must have picked it out for me. I'll not be taping this one to our classroom door!