We continue to be thankful for having such a wonderful group of young people to work with. Thank you for sharing your children with us.

The class has embarked on the world of story writing with the beginning of Writer’s Workshop.  To help them on their way, we have asked them each to write their first story using the action figures that they created in art class as the main character.  They have brainstormed many facets of their stories from the setting, to the problem or conflict, all the way to the resolution and ending.  We have also put up a “Graffiti Wall” in the classroom where the children are allowed to express themselves in words and pictures.  The wall is an explosion of color.  In science, our tree unit has wrapped up (although we will continue to study our BCD trees throughout the school year) and we are busy learning about what it means to be scientists.  This week we have been experimenting with candy. (We promise this does not involve eating the candy!) We did an acid test with sour candies on Tuesday and a color separation test with M&Ms on Thursday.  We will continue to explore and experiment as scientists through December before turning our study to bears in January.  On Tuesday we ventured upstairs to the third grade classroom to learn about various places in the Berkshires from the third graders themselves.  The presentations were informative and creative.  It had all of the children talking about what they may want to report on when they are in 3rd grade.

A few notes:

Snacks – many of the children are hungry in the afternoons, if possible, please pack a second snack for the afternoon.

Outerwear – on these in-between weather days please make sure your child has at least a long-sleeve sweatshirt or fleece to wear outdoors.

Extra clothing – along those same lines, your child needs to have an extra set of clothing to keep here at school.  Being young, creative, and adventurous can often lead to a need for something dry and clean to wear!

We hope you have a wonderful time with your children during our time off next week.

All the best,

Katharine and Kay