Dear Families,

We have begun Peer Reading with the B-2’s pre-school class! It requires a lot of patience to read to a 2 year old who is really interested in so many things other than just the book and the class had to make some adjustments. It wasn’t just reading a story straight through and I was pleased to see them interact and try to get to know their new friends.

We also had a chance to present our dioramas to the 5th & 6th graders at a Middle School Meeting. I like to give the students as many opportunities as possible to present their own work; to stand up and demonstrate what they have created and to answer questions about it. It takes a lot of presence and courage, some have that naturally others need a little more practice.

I have also begun having the class use Reading Journals at home. They have a free reading book here at school and I would like them to read one at home as well. Reading with a parent or on their own is fine, again, practice is everything.  In Math we have moved on, for a bit, from Place Value and onto multiplication. We will be working with different ways of graphing and prime and composite numbers shortly.

Scholastic Book order forms went home this week. If you haven’t seen them yet, they are in the homework folders. You are under no obligation to order anything if you don’t want to. If you do choose to order, you can do it directly online yourself (all the info and order #info is in the letter) or send in a check for Scholastic to me and I will send it in. The deadline for the October order is Oct 22nd.

On Wednesday the morning was devoted to planning our Service Learning Project for the year ahead. We had a terrific discussion about the ills of the world and where our efforts might be best realized to their best effect. We have decided upon doing what we can to preserve the bird population as there are many simple actions we can do to help the birds. Hint: be prepared to start drinking shade-grown coffee and use some decals we will make that help to save birds from flying into windows.

Thanks to Maggie M. and Nicholas for our delicious apple cider donuts the other morning!

Some Important Upcoming Dates:

Monday, October 7 – Away Soccer game with IMS. PPU time at BCD is 6:00.

Wednesday, October 9th– No School Yom Kippur.

Thursday, October 1oth– Mountain Day- Hiking in Kennedy Park in the morning/weather permitting. Please have an eye out for the weather that day, fleeces might be needed and proper footwear. No sandals, please. (No bagels for snack that day).

Friday, October 11th – Grandparents Day. We are so looking forward to having grandparents and friends in our classroom that day. If grandparents are unable to come, we will match that student with another friend and their Grandparents. No one will be alone!

Monday, October 14 – No School. Indigenous Peoples Day.

Thursday, October 17th – Bagels for snack if ordered.

I’m really looking forward to Grandparents Day. They really bring out the best in the kids and it’s great for the students to share their classroom and all the work they are doing.

Great weekend to all,

Best, Katharine

p.s. the slide show below has a little bit of most things mentioned above plus some shots of a math card game that brought out the card sharks in us all.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ump1jBuExbKWg7Mr7