Dear Families,
Sorry, I didn't get to you sooner, but you may have heard that I was whisked out to urgent care on Friday. I was just going down some stairs and suddenly I couldn't put any weight on my right leg. Well, the outcome is not as dramatic as the event, luckily. I can walk now and just have to be very mindful while I heal. The kids in the class were so sweet and helpful. After the evaluation at Urgent care, I bought a cane and went on to a wonderful Open Classroom Conference! Glad to see some of you there.
This last week before Spring Break we have Focus Studies in the afternoon. My contribution this round is to facilitate kids in offering Focus Studies. I have worked with the groups on planning and preparing. If your child is one of the 'teachers' and you have questions feel free to check in with me. We are offering "Unicorns", "Poems, Poems, What a Marvelous Thing", "Knock, Knock, Who's There? Comedy!!", "Russian and Danish Language and Traditions", "German Language and Culture", and "Paper Airplanes". The groups will be held under my supervision.
Tuesday is the field trip to Hill Auditorium for Link Up. We will be out of the building 9:30-11:45. We will be back in time for a normal lunch.
I am still stuck on the Spring Camp field trip. I contacted Dainava and tried to get them to let us sign up for May, but they are not willing to make a commitment until they are sure the bathroom renovations are finished on schedule. I contacted Camp Talahi, a camp I have used in the past. It's a beautiful location, west of Brighton about a 35 minute drive. They have dates available in May. This camp provides a program. Nice, but it is also more expensive. The 3 day camp is $110 per student ($2640.) plus $40 per chaperone. I don't have a price yet for going to the camp for 2 days, one night. Our Class Trip account is currently at $2181.22. and we still need money to cover a bus to release the salmon. I paid for a charter bus to go to Wolf Lake to get the eggs before I knew we would have trouble getting Camp Dainava, which has been very cheap the last 8 years. Lynn and I will send out a survey to get your feedback. We have to make a call soon.
Back on the ranch, we are continuing to work through multiplication, division and geometry. We will dive into fractions after spring break. In writing, I have been challenging the kids with dialog. They like to write dialog in their stories without any formatting, so we are working on quotation marks and paragraph indentation. We finished our read aloud "Watson's go to Birmingham--1963." Such a great author and an opportunity to talk about the American Civil Rights movement. Next we are exploring women in history and how women in America have actively demanded equal rights and recognition. We continue to maintain our salmon tank and watch them grow.
