Dear Parents,
The slideshow below has a few shots from Alaska Day which was absolutely a blast. We eneded the day with ‘dog sledding’ but many of the 2nd graders spent their time practicing their ice skating, panning for gold, making totems and eating s’mores!
In my reading class we are reading a book entitled, Lily and Miss Liberty. It has opened up much discussion and learning about the Statue of Liberty and what she stands for. We watched the web cam from her crown and talked of our relatives who arrived in NY harbor. I brought in an enlarged copy of the original ship’s manifest listing my Grandmother’s entry to the United States from Russia. There are some pictures of the students getting to see it up close below. The different categories taught them a lot about what it meant to be an immigrant to this country. Who paid their passage, where did they come from, the name and address of the person/family member they were staying with and how much money did they have in their pockets, along with other information. Most people had $2 or $4 with them, some had nothing and that made a real impression on the class.
They’re ready to move on from money and coins to a unit on telling time in Math class next week. I’ll be sending home any of the bags of change that came in along with foreign currency.
They have also recently finished up a special writing project in Language Arts. I am in the process of filming them read their letters to different characters in books they’ve read and will try to put them in next week’s blog for you.
The current topic in our Lower School social curriculum is courage. To that end, we will be reciting some of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech at the Lower School assembly next month. We watched the speech this morning and there are some shots of that below as well.
Who knows what the weather has in store for us, but I for one, am headed home to put a spoon in the freezer and turn my p.j.’s inside out!
Katharine
