Thursday, October 30, 2014

Season of Mist and Mellow Fruitfulness

What a great show the kids put on this evening! I was so proud of how well 5-1 was represented on stage today. It's so great to see my students' talent come out like that. It was great to talk to so many parents and get caught up with you as well.

Speaking of talking with parents, this weekend I will start sending out emails to set up conference meetings. I like to meet with all of the parents of my students between about now and Christmas.

We watched the rocket explosion today--that was pretty nutso, wasn't it? Interestingly enough, the spot where it took place was close to Hatorask, which is on Roanoke Island. Right now I am reading a book called Roanoke: Mystery of the Lost Colony. I love how stuff ties together.

One highlight of my day (and this is my favorite kind of day, with so much going on) was when we went to the library later on this morning for a book check-out. While the kids were checking out, Mrs. Kleinschmidt asked what we would do when we got back to the room. I told her we would do our SSR time (Sustained Silent Reading). Normally, when the schedule gets so wonky, we would skip SSR, but I knew things would be so crazy today that we would all need that down time. Mrs. K suggested that we just do our SSR time in the library. The kids loved this idea. Mrs. K and I talked for a little while, and we decided to corroborate on a project that will benefit both of us during our upcoming Unit 4 for Reading. The theme of that unit is "Justice", and we have some cool things planned for it. She found me a related book about the U.S.S. Indianapolis, and I sat down in one of the incredibly comfortable chairs with the kids started reading myself. I was reading in peace, while all around me, my students were also reading. I was in heaven. Any time I can totally lose myself in what I enjoy, while my students can do the same, and it's considered "leading by example"...wow. Two-birds-one-stone is all I need to say.

During our normal Reading time, we continued to read a story about the sunfish. "The" sunfish is not what we think of as a sunfish here in Indiana. Here's what it is:

We have read some bizarre, even grossly hilarious facts about the sunfish over the last couple of days. Ask your kids how this thing eats. It's pretty bizarre. Also, the reading book keeps referring to this fish as having "a hard beak". I think we can all see pretty clearly that it actually just has a hole in its face.

We took a Science quiz which will wrap up our astronomy unit for now. (The astronomy unit kind of permeates the whole year...) We will be watching a video over the next few school days about NASA's trips to the moon which is a Nova episode from 1999. It's an incredibly well-done documentary.

I just want to take the time to say that I love this class every bit as much as I knew I would at the end of July when I checked out my student list online. I am so proud of what they do, how they behave, and who they are. I love who they are becoming, and I love watching them change every day.

That's enough for one day. Everybody earned their night's sleep tonight.

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