There is a lot that has been happening in our classroom that I want to share with everyone. First, we had a winner for the Iditarod. Brent Sass won this year's race and one of our students was following him.
For the past 2 Fridays, we've been doing a sort of enrichment project with one of our Paras. She is originally from South Africa and the children showed a real interest in learning more about it. Every Friday (we hope) She will spend some time talking to the children about the culture, animals, schools, and facts about South Africa. Last week, she taught the children where South Africa is and they learned about the different languages. She brought in a custard pie for the children. This week she spoke o them about the schools, dances, and we got a special surprise. Her Aunt-in-law is the principal at one of the schools. They got the 4th graders there to say hello, just to us! We will be recording a message to send back to them this week. We got to try some fried dough drenched in syrup and chilled. These are true South African dishes and it's been wonderful that we've been able to have this experience. Below is the message from the other 4th grade students.
Your child brought home some flour Friday. There was a paper in there explaining the premise of "baking for good" and how to help the community. I hope some of you were able to bake bread with your child and if you were able to make extras for the food pantry, they are collecting it tomorrow.
We are collecting pennies (or other monetary donations) for the Miles of Pennies Challenge. The goal is to collect 84,480 pennies to equal 1 mile ($884.80). The donations received will be shared between 4 charities; Dana Farber Cancer Institute, SPCA Animal Rescue League, and St. Josephs's Indian School. This runs until April Break- 4/22.
The Weare Fun Run 5K is coming up Friday May 13th @ 4pm. I hear this is a lot of fun! Registration forms were sent home with children who were interested. If you would like one, you can find it online, in the main office, or please let me know and I can send one home.
"The Help Desk" is a play performed by our middle school students. It is Friday, April 15 @7pm, or Sat 4/16 @2pm. Tickets are $8 each or 4 for $28. Tickets are not sold at the door. Please order online at wearemiddleschool.net
We will be visiting the Weare Public Library every other Monday. If children have books to return or ones they want to check out this would be the time to do it. We will be going tomorrow.
And lastly, there have been some changes in the way students have been speaking to others and their overall tolerance of classroom procedures. I did speak with them last week and told them that I would be pointing out the times they called out. I wanted to show them how often they caused some type of distraction. This worried many children and they were afraid that they'd get in trouble or not be allowed to do some of the things we'd been able to do before. Many seemed worried of failure. This discussion prompted many emotions that had been bubbling below the surface for many children. Although we had a very emotional day on Thursday, it was, I think, a much-needed conversation. Children got to express their feelings, talk to others about things that bothered them and we tried to come up with ideas and solutions. We started to work together. We began Friday with Munchkins to sweeten our day (Thanks to one of our moms). We got the surprise message from the Children in South Africa, and we ended our day with the King Arthur Flour Bread demonstration. Friday was much more relaxed and peaceful and I hope that feeling continues.
