WonderFALL!

Our first day back to school brought a wave of good energy into Room 503!

With desks rearranged and new seating arrangments, our room physically reflected the "newness" of TPJA's second quarter.

We began our day contemplating the first phrase from the Mother Teresa hand out we've been memorizing: "People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway."

The students were asked to think about someone in their lives - in our classroom, families, or any other area of our life - who they find to be"unreasonable", "irrational", or "self-centered." Then they were asked to try to practice forgiving this person to the extent that we don't always know why someone behaves the way they do. Any irritation, annoyance or resentment we may feel towards them probably doesn't help them and only hurts us. So the students were encouraged to practice forgiveness this week and we'll see if it works.

We are beginning our next piece of literature this week: Madeline L'Engle's second book in the Time Quintet, A Wind in the Door. This morning's discussion centered on the book's title and what we gleaned from the book's cover. Per usual, we made bookmarks as reading aides.

The students were introduced today to a new piece in our curriculum: Indpendent Reading. Many of the students in Room 503 are already voracious readers. Students took home today an "Independent Reading Form" that they need to fill out and return to school tomorrow, stating what book they are going to read outside of their classroom literature. Students will create their own time line for reading each book, and upon completion will have a choice about what kind of "project" they'd like to do based on their reading, i.e. a written report, oral report or artistic presentation (dramatization, painting, diorama, etc.).

We began our new Social Studies unit today: Ancient Egypt, and we also got going on our all-class O.T.O. project: Saving the Manatees.

Our day ended with a journal entry where we reassessed the aspirations we had committed to at the beginning of the semester. Students were encouraged to look back at the aspirations they wrote in August and notice if they have been doing what they need to do to meet them. If they want to recommit to the same aspiration, they could do that. They could also add to their current aspiration or create a new one.

My observation: It was a full and busy day!

My apologies about not getting an entry up for the end of first quarter - I think I fell into a couch in Palm Springs somewhere and didn't emerge until yesterday. Hope all of you had a fun and/or relaxing break!

Cheers,
Ms. Pitman