September 11, 2009

It's 4:40 PM on Friday and I will try to create a short, yet coherent summary of some of our activities this week.
We are going great on First in Math competition on the computer. Students from grades 3-8 are all working on it and we are working our way up in the rankings.
The 8th grade Reading finished a unit of Civil War fiction and non-fiction with a speaker today. O.J. Fargo spoke about conditions for the soldiers and told about the battles of the War. We learned that Iowa had more soldiers per capita than any other state and also had the oldest soldier who enlisted, who was 81 years old. Iowa was a key state in winning the battle for the North. We read several articles about younger soldiers in the War, and we learned to day that there were even a couple of 12 year olds who enlisted from Iowa. The students loved the talk and had a number of questions. some even came back during lunch to finish the discussion. Great Kids !
The 6th grade Reading group is tackling "The Miracle Worker" as it tied in with a shorter selection we had in the textbook. They are getting some tough vocabulary and are slowly learning about the relationships among the family members and how Annie Sullivan came to be such a key figure in Helen Keller's life.
Reading in the 7th Grade group is focused on "The Arabian Nights" right now - the stories of Scheherazade. Just pronouncing the names in the play is a challenge to the phonetic prowess of all of us. They read "The Lady or the Tiger" yesterday and wrote their own ending, which always causes great discussion. Several tweaked the story so that the door for the lady opened, but William didn't marry her, and still went back to the Princess, therefore guaranteeing a happy ending.I can't say that I blame them.
The 6th grade Math started on exponents today, which is always a challenge. We will be practicing those for a couple of days. It's really important as it comes up in every aspect of Math throughout their education. Just ask them what "5 squared" is and hopefully they'll have it down pat.
The e-pals connections have getting started.The 7th and 8th graders are starting to contact students in France and later in Italy. We hope to get messages back next week. It's always fun to see what students across the world have for interests and customs.
The fifth grade is working on Oceans to supplement their classrooms, 4th grade is doing Sherlock Holmes right now ("The Red-Headed League"), 3rd grade is learning about King Tut and the second worked on Johnny Appleseed this week. All the units give opportunities to improve Reading skills, cultural awareness, Social Studies understanding and Math skills, plus they're interesting topics.
No real "funnies" this week, but I'm sure something will come up soon, if I can remember to write it.

Anyway, the students are great, and I'll try to have them help write this - they are more interesting !