Tuesday, November 2

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today!

In the morning, we started off with Morning Math as usual. I realize I haven't posted an example of Morning Math in a while, so here you go:

We're starting to move from regular problems into word problems, which is awesome because it gives the kids an opportunity to work on reading comprehension as well, and to see how their math skills can potentially help them in real-life situations.

We talked about Remembrance Day, and watched this video. It's one I like to show every year because it's beautifully animated and quite emotional, despite being simple. I like that it's appropriate for kids too. And I also like that it is loaded with symbolism, which we'll talk about soon!

We looked at a diagram of a bat's ear, and found it was remarkably similar to a human ear! In fact, the inner ear components are almost identical. We reviewed the functions of the Cochlea, Ossicles, Pinna, Ear Drum, and Ear Canal. The students labelled diagrams of bat ears.

The class brainstormed ideas for their very own Wayside School Spin-off stories. They based their stories on the stories from Wayside School, but changed details to make it their own. The students completed graphic organizers and wrote jot notes about the beginning, middle, and ends of their stories. Story writing is way harder than you'd think - the most common problem is students having too many ideas and trying to incorporate them all. That's why making a plan beforehand tends to come in handy.

I sent home Scholastic Book Orders, once again (I feel like they're putting them out every other week this year..!), and if you're interested in ordering anything, please remember to include our Class Code! Scholastic gives us a pretty sizeable portion of each purchase back into our 'bonus bank' which we can spend on some cool things for the classroom.

Have a nice night!

Zac