OLDER CLASS

The History project and the play have been our main topics this week. These projects have given us all a new energy and enthusiasm. Again I have to almost pinch myself to believe that I am seeing these preadolescent & adolescent students getting so involved with their work.

So far, we have had seven presentations for the history project. They were – The Fertile Crescent, Alexander the Great, Japan’s isolation from the 1800 to 1854, the causes of WWII, the Temple of Artemis – one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Protestant Reformation, and Mesoamerica. Each presentation took about a half hour. With each student having six to do that would leave us with 101 left to finish by the end of the year After each of the presentations, we have had a question-and-answer time, and then each student in the class took notes as I went over important parts of the presentations. One of the things we have all learned is that history is not pretty, it’s very complicated, and often depressing. Our discussion sessions have been amazing – here are some of the things we talked about – Where did the Christian religions begin or come from? – Was the Treaty of Versailles so demanding of Germany that it helped push them into WWII? Martin Luther nailed his 95 issues on the churches’ doors only 30 years after Richard III’s death! What was a shogun? And many other questions and topics all generated by members of the class.

Richard III also appeared in Discovery Magazine’s hundred most important developments in the year 2013. This of course was the discovery of Richard III’s bones buried under a parking lot in England (which we had watched in a video produced by National Geographic).

The play is tapping into student’s appreciation of Shakespeare and their desire to always enjoy big creative projects. I know that several of my students have viewed the video The Boisterous Bard over five times, they have been practicing their lines, and making shopping list of props. J seems very involved and has really enjoyed making his shopping list of key ingredients that the witches need to put into their cauldron in the scene from Macbeth. A led a group at making a 9 x 12′ mural of the Globe for the back of the stage. She researched a picture of the Globe and used the grid technique (which we are expert at after last year’s animal project) to create this backdrop and was helped by 5 other students. Sara and I also added our drawing skills to help get this picture ready for the younger class to collage. During this play work, we will not be covering any other Shakespeare in-depth but I do plan to cover three more plays. They are A Winter’s Tale, The Taming of the Shrew, and 12th Night. That will give us a total of 10 plays that we have covered in depth this year!
This week we had a new Scope Magazine. We read the mini play which was about Nazi Germany, we had eight vocabulary and grammar sheets, and we read articles. I also presented a puzzle from New York Times Magazine which turned out to be a great success. The puzzle presented 35 words in an activity that involved taking one letter from a common six letter word and changing that letter into a double letter creating a common seven letter word. (ex. chapel turned into channel) I was so surprised how much excitement and effort this puzzle generated in the class on Monday. If you would like your own copy just let me know.

The schedule for the week also included math workbook pages, phys. ed., reading partners, reading our essays, and going over some of the sheets that I had given out over the past two weeks. We also had an all-out search for four lost math books this week. I am on the verge of doing something drastic like having students start over in new books if they continue to lose these books. However many students are very responsible about keeping their three ring binders and materials in a place where they can always locate them.

MIDDLE CLASS

Today we read The Queen’s Progress a book on Queen Elizabeth’s summer journeys. The class is researching life in Elizabethan England. They will be collecting information that will help them write a fictional story that will incorporate these facts. The children are intrigued by the daily life of people who lived in the various classes. Some of the questions that have been generated are, “How were children educated?”, “What kind of money did they have?”, “What kind of clothes did they wear?”, etc.

During the play we will be continuing to work on individual math packets, writing our Elizabethan stories, finishing watching the Nova series, Making Stuff, writing in our nature journal and starting seeds to plant when the weather is warmer. Please send in a translucent gallon milk jug for your child to make a winter sowing “greenhouse.” If you have extras, we would appreciate those also.

The third year’s and I are planning our “microsociety” which will be part of our May work. The theme will be mythological worlds and we will be reading mythology from several different cultures in preparation for creating characters and a society.

Just a reminder that May 6-9 is “Moving Up Week” when the third year students in my class will visit in the older class for the week.
Kathryn will continue working with individuals during the next few weeks to tie up any loose ends and wrap up our origami and math unit. After the play, we will pick up with our regular Friday schedule.

YOUNGER CLASS

We have had a very full week. First, we have had several visitors who all fit very well in our classroom. And the class was very welcoming and enjoyed spending time with them. They love having visitors!

We had a great day last Friday when we went to see Henry and Mudge. The kids were so well behaved, and everyone seemed to enjoy the play. (Although the reviews the class wrote on Monday were not all that positive.)

We have been working on many different aspects of the play. The class learned a new part of the play (Midsummer Night’s Dream) that they will be in. We have practiced our sonnets, and I am very impressed at how many of the children know their sonnet line already. Please help them keep practicing their line every day! We also practiced our songs.

Jay, with help from some older classers, has drawn an amazing version of the Globe Theater. The little class will be collaging this to use as the background scenery for the play. With help from our visitors, the class has cut many colored squares from magazines to use for the collage, which we will start next week.

We have also been cutting huge piles of leaves out of green paper to use to make trees for the little class’s scene from Macbeth, the trees of Birnam Woods.

We also have worked on math activities, wrote reviews of Henry and Mudge, finished newspaper writings, and researched more facts about Elizabethan times.

Happy first day of Spring!!

YARD SALE Updates!

• Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! to all those who have signed up to help with the Yard Sale! We can’t do it without you!

• We still have tasks & shifts that NO ONE has signed up for! PLEASE check the Volunteer Sign-Up Sheets outside of Jill’s office and take a shift if you can.

• If you are donating clothing, please group them by gender and size (it will save a lot of time when we organize them for the sale).

• Donation drop off will be from Monday, March 31st – Friday, April 4th. Karen Antone is graciously donating her trailer again this year so we can store items. Specific drop- off times and instructions will be included in next week’s bulletin.

• Large item donations (furniture, etc.) can only be accepted the night before the sale on Friday, April 4th due to limited storage space and manpower. Again, specific drop- off times and instructions will be included in next week’s bulletin.

• CALLING ALL STRONG PEOPLE! We need at least 3 strong people to help us move the heavy things the night before the sale, Friday, April 4th. We have a furniture donation about a mile from the school and need people to help move it.

• Please continue to post YARD SALE Fliers (located on wall outside of Jill’s office next to sign-up sheets) in area stores. If you can advertise the sale on your social media accounts, we’d appreciate that too!

• Please contact Patty Aber (pcaber [@] yahoo.com) with any questions or concerns.

OLDER CLASS

This week I gave out an entire set of handouts. Six Grammar sheet covering nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and four different types of sentences. I also gave out four math sheets covering graphing, mean, median, and mode. The class worked on the sheets with each other and with Sara and me. We also went over many of the answers in bookcorner and each student in the class should have done diagramming using the apps on our iPads.

We had two new writing assignments, one using 16 spelling words in a creative story, and the other using an essay format. We had everyone read their spelling stories in bookcorner and later had a spelling test on those words. We also read our New York trip writing this week.

We have changed our reading book to Ender’s Game, we had started reading a version of Star Wars that is written in Shakespearean verse, but we had to stop. I realized to fully appreciate that book we will have to see the movie first, which quite a few students have never seen. I sometimes get surprised by things I think the students know or have experienced, not taking their age into consideration. It also surprised me that the students knew nothing about Harlem when the tour guide was talking at The Tenement Museum about Victoria, a character portrayed by an actress, who immigrated to the U.S. and wanted to move there. To them it was just a name. I realize that I should add a corner of Harlem to a New York trip next year. Many years ago I had a New York Trip that started on 165th St. in Harlem and went down Broadway to Battery Park. It was an 11 mile walk, on which I asked students to take photographs of the different neighborhoods as we walked.

The schedule also included math work, Phys. Ed., Amazing Facts and extensions, and music connected to the upcoming play, The Boisterous Bard.

I talked to students about several articles I had read in my new second most favorite magazine, Smithsonian Magazine. Did you know that a farmer got 20 years in prison in China for killing three giant pandas near his home, it takes 90 days for a raindrop arriving at the origin of the Mississippi River to reach the Gulf of Mexico, and that 76% of all species were wiped out by the asteroid or comet that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago?

This week we finished watching the very intense BBC version of Macbeth, viewing 20 minutes of the film each day.

Finally our focus this week again is on the history project. We created a new wall display for students to display their work prior to us making it into our book. I also decided to change the way the work would be presented to the class. I was going to do this in chronological order from 4000 BC to the present time, but I have decided instead to have projects presented in a random order as each section is completed by each student. We actually started off on Thursday with our first presentation on the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of civilization. I am very excited about the work I see students doing and every time I look at them I’m thinking of them to some extent in the context of the history they are researching. I mean this in a good way because they are our source of information about that portion of history.

I started Tuesday off talking to the students about their work. I talked to them about their reading, writing, math, and project work. I have a class of very competent readers who all participate fully when we are passing books around or materials to be read in bookcorner. We have also been very conscientious about reading with our younger class partners every week.

This class has been willing to share their writings and they have appreciated everybody’s writing style. For the most part, students have been responsible about doing their assignments and when I checked the last two writings, 32 of the 38 possible writings were completed.

In math, I told the group that we had four people that have finished all of the Key Curriculum series books and that that was amazing with two other students near that goal. Not too long ago, I only had a total of about a dozen people who had completed all the books since we started using them in about the early 80s! Math has certainly been a valuable and active area this year. The Math Counts group has been very productive, and it may be possible for some of those people to do independent work in specific text books next year.

All of our project work has gone well, especially our work with Shakespeare. I encouraged everyone to put a lot of effort in their history project work.

One of the things that I find so rewarding as an educator is when students find references to things they’ve learned in their everyday life. Recently a student mentioned that the item he ordered at the Indian restaurant had a warning that said “Eagles Dare Not”. Sara looked up the quote and it turned out to be from Richard III. The class was thrilled and surprised, and we talked about the fact that Richard III would probably continue to pop up in their life. This is one of the main things I think education is all about – relating information one knows to future things and experiences. Of course, to allow this to happen, one has to talk and have a person like Sara, who always impresses us with her curiosity and her knowledge. I love how she has inspired the students with these qualities and with many other which she shares with them every day.

MIDDLE CLASS

We have been working to finish our Doodle for Google designs which will be mailed out on Friday. The topic this year has been so much fun to explore. We started by discussing all the things that would make the world a better place. My class “thinks big” and decided that some of the problems that needed tackling were global warming, natural catastrophes, disease, animal cruelty and war. They also thought that more rainbows, a smoother start to your day in the form of a robot to help with your morning routine were also good ideas. We did several activities where we looked at everyday objects and brainstormed other uses for them, discussed the properties of the materials that they were made of and why these properties made them useful and looked at the big problems and brainstormed how they affect everyday life and what inventions might help. We have also been watching the PBS Making Stuff series which highlights the new breakthroughs in science and TED talks by inventors and their innovative solutions to everyday problems.

The children have been working in two groups and continue to write the text for their endangered animal picture books. Working together to collaborate on the story, decided on layout and assign tasks is no easy feat when you have to get a variety of ideas and working styles to agree. This process is so valuable and it is amazing to see the children work through the challenges.

Kathryn’s math workshops continue to explore the relationship between math and origami. Friday the classroom was full of students making elaborate three dimension unit origami shapes. Check them out the next time you are passing through our room. They are quite impressive.

Susan continues Shakespeare work with the class. Finishing a biography of Shakespeare, wrapping up character collages and having the children write interesting facts they learned throughout the past weeks. They have begun practicing the songs for the play with Helen.
The big excitement this week was the arrival of lots of new books. On Monday we put out the books for everyone to see and every day this week we have squeezed in quiet reading time. This class loves to read and would happily sit for hours if I let them curled up with a good book.

We were also excited to see the signs of spring weather and be outside this week. Please send your child to school in layers so they can adjust to the ever changing temperature. The backyard is still muddy from the melting snow so appropriate footwear is also important along with a change of clothes for any mud mishaps.

YOUNGER CLASS

Spring is in the air! It’s been so nice to get outside the last couple of days. The kids have been so happy to be able to run around without all of their snow gear and get outside for more than just lunch time. They have been playing outside before school, at snack, at lunch, and after school. They had phys ed outside yesterday, and we even had a chance to do some chalk drawings on the map top.

Our time in the classroom has been filled with Shakespeare and the Elizabethan time period. Last week we had briefly discussed Elizabethan history. We then spent some time looking at Elizabethan fashion. On Monday, Kim and I pulled out all of our fabric, and the kids began choosing what they wanted to use to dress their body outlines. We then started dressing the body outlines with bodices and skirts and doublets and “puffy” short pants. We had so many great fabrics that the kids had a really hard time choosing! One child had so many pieces of fabric selected that she couldn’t even carry it all!

We have also broken into small groups to begin researching Shakespeare and different aspects of Elizabethan life. Each group will read about their topic and find 5 facts. Then they will draw illustrations to go with what they have researched. Our topics include: children, toys and games, food, fashion, theater, Shakespeare’s life, and Shakespeare’s plays.

The little class has already begun practicing for our whole school play. They now know two of their songs, and are learning a chant. They are working on their sonnet lines as well. We will also be helping with the scenery by collaging or painting an image of the Globe Theater.

Our next newspaper is now in production. The children are writing articles for it and will add to it in the next couple of weeks. We should be sending it home by the end of March.

The children continue to work on math skills and activities, as well as independent reading.

Tomorrow we have our trip to the Algonquin Theater to see “Henry and Mudge.” It should be fun. We have read some Henry and Mudge books so that everyone knows the characters. Thanks in advance to Sara for driving us so that Susan can continue work on the play, and to Megan for chaperoning.

OLDER CLASS

So many things to say! Congratulations to E on your acceptance to High Tech High School. I know you are thrilled and so are we. Also, I would like to officially welcome C as a new student in the older class. I hope these exciting, positive developments follow us to the end of the year.

We had a good trip on Tuesday to the Tenement Museum. It was made perfectly enjoyable by the input from my chaperones and in particular by Steven who took us to one of his bagel shops for a warm place to eat and a buttered bagel and hot chocolate. On the trip we walked a little over 60 blocks which is about 3 miles. We had a good meal at the Indian restaurant, and we were their only customers except for one other person. The restaurant was small and just after we were seated we were greeted by a full view of a fire truck and firemen undoing their hoses right outside the front window. Our meal lasted two hours and the staff was amazingly welcoming and gave us rice pudding and even Indian tea as an ending to our meal. However, at the end of the trip I did have to talk with my students about appropriate behavior for the city. It was not that they were bad but they did not listen when I asked them to stop hopping, giving someone a “flat tire” (stepping on the back of their shoe), going in and out automated doors, and things like that. A few students came to mind Tuesday night as I was thinking about the day, so Wednesday I asked if anybody thought their behavior was inappropriate and all of the students I had in mind raised their hands. Their assignment for last night was to talk with their parents about this.

I would also like to share my thoughts on why my class this year is taking more time than I sometimes expect to do an assignment. My educational analysis of this is that it’s one of the best things that could happen because to me it shows that students are involved and invested in the work we are doing. Here are a few examples: On Friday we read an article on stress from Scope Magazine. We read the stress article in group session after Rosalie sent in an accompanying professional article that she had found on teenage stress. We read both articles by passing them around and I pointed out that now we also know the reason for percents and fractions as they punctuated the professional article. I also asked individuals in the class to share with us their stress level, if they didn’t mind telling me, with zero being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Most of the class was a three with the next group being six and a few students being eight or higher. I decided not to pursue this any further at this moment but I am sure we could’ve talked for quite a long time about this and maybe we will in the future. Another example of this occurred as we were doing work to prepare for our visit to the Tenement Museum. Of the many exercises that we did, there was one in which the class was supposed to pose as the immigrant family in a photo. They were to study the photograph and do the same stances as well as the same facial expression. But of course before we could do this, people started running to the closet to find costumes. J was the first to lead this pack. If my class was going to do their reenactment of this photograph and the poses, it had to be done right with all the trimmings. I hate to think what this means as far as how they will be in making and finding costumes for our Boisterous Bard play. Also, on Monday we watched the Macbeth animated film, and then followed that later in the afternoon with a 60 some page book created by a teacher and her students with writings and drawings as well as the text of the story written in prose. We passed the book around and each person read two pages taking delight in the student additions. They loved what the student said who were between the ages of seven and nine and couldn’t help but mention the different spellings for words that they thought were quite funny. They also wanted to show all the drawings the students made of the different characters in the play. This whole exercise took about an hour because they were so involved and excited about what they were sharing and enjoying the entire process.

Our Macbeth study continued with the class reenacting the play from a 17 character, 10 minute funny version of the play. Previously we had used these mini versions for Julius Caesar and for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We also shared a cartoon version of Macbeth and watch the first 40 minutes of a two hour movie on Macbeth.

As part of her continuing independent project E did a book review on the book Looking for Alaska written by John Green. Her review was informative and told us about the characters and in particular about how she thought John Green often presented his female characters as metaphorical beings. These reviews have added so much to the class.

Our schedule this week also included pillow art, the pi chain, history work, amazing facts and extensions, a trip write up, phys ed, math work, reading partners, and the starting of our new group reading book Star Wars.

Today I had a little discussion with my class about the things they are concerned about, that they think about, and that they are interested in doing in the next few months. I asked everyone how old they were and realize that with a large group graduating next year we are going to see many maturity changes from now till then. I plan on having several more follow up talks with them about their lives in general. I have really enjoyed this group this year, but I know they are going to get older and that together we are going to have new things to experience and learn. I always like to know what my class is thinking about and I think parents do also, so that will be the focus of an upcoming parent meeting that I will schedule before the end of the year.

MIDDLE CLASS

Students have been busy working on Doodle for Google designs and also writing in 50 words or less how their drawing expresses the theme “If I could invent one thing to make the world a better place ….” Each child has created a design and written description but a parent must sign the attached form to give permission to enter the contest. (It is up to you whether or not you would like your child’s entry to be submitted.) Please see me if you have any questions. Thank you.

YOUNGER CLASS

Despite having many children out sick this week (we only averaged 11 children each day!), it has been a very productive week. We have begun our new project on Shakespeare’s life and times. This project is beginning with tracing around each child. These body tracings were measured today. And tomorrow we will look at Elizabethan clothing so that the children can start to dress their bodies in period clothing. We have also had a discussion about what was going on in that time period. We discussed Queen Elizabeth I. This led to a discussion about presidents. During this discussion, one child told us that he is related to President Obama! But, then decided he wasn’t sure. It’s always interesting where children’s thoughts go! We will be exploring different aspects of Elizabethan times over the next few weeks. This will include clothing, food, music and dance, children’s games and toys, etc.

We worked quite a bit on math related activities and games this week. We revisited some concepts that the kids were working on before break. We also worked on geometric shapes and combinations. And of course we worked on measurement with our body tracings.

Each child spent time reading independently and with me and Kim this week. Some children started an alphabet book to practice letter sounds and writing letters. We also journaled about our bird presentation.

Last week the older class made a book series for the little class. They are based on the Bob books that the little class has been reading. The older class did an incredible job on these books. The little class loved them! Each little classer wrote a very nice thank you note to the older class for these great books.

I want to say thank you to Z’s Grandma for the donation of some non-fiction books to the classroom. They are much appreciated, and I know the children will love them.

Hopefully everyone will be well from here going forward!

OLDER CLASS

As I have said several times, the older class this year loves to have contrasts in their learning. This group seems to get an enormous amount of energy from these projects. An example of this occurred this week with E finishing her reading of Fahrenheit 451 and our making of Bob books. Fahrenheit 451 is a very sophisticated book and E has done an excellent job of reading it to us (except for the time when she was away and we read the book by passing it around the class). It was written 60 years ago and it is amazing how Ray Bradbury was able to predict this future world. As E read parts of it I kept thinking I was in a current action movie, particularly the part in which Montague torched Beatty and then made a run for his life. She has taken full ownership of this project including decorating the walls with pictures that the students had colored of the original illustration of a fireman from the first edition of the book. Contrast this with the students making Bob books. Many of my students have written stories with Bob as the name of their imaginary character, so when I walked through Robin room and saw the beginning reading series books listed under Bob books, it gave me an idea. Robin has five boxes of these simply written books with each box containing about 10 books. I asked her if I could borrow the books and give my student a project of writing their own books for the younger class. The classes’ books are delightful using the same cover format, the same simple storylines and drawings, and the same use of colored highlights. We even took one of the boxes apart, traced it, and made our own boxes to hold our books. C and E volunteered to decorate these boxes and they did a wonderful job. On Thursday, students will read their books to their younger class reading partners and then we will donate these books to the younger class.

Our history project is well under way with many students going into depth on their research. Sara and I have worked with many students on a one to one basis, and I have really appreciated parents helping their children with this work. In my last bulletin writing, I listed three reference books we were using and the number of books we have found since then has tripled those reference materials. When I was working with E, who has ancient Rome as one of her pages, we found an entire book that had a hundred different facts about Rome. I told her that it would take at least six pages for her to cover even a portion of that material for our class book. I am hoping that this is the kind of information and involvement that I will get from every student in the class and then that we can share this information with people who have looked up other things. The first person to present her pages will be H because her research on the earliest time period covered in the book.

Helen did her annual review of music material covered for the year by using the format of the game show, DO YOU WANT TO BE A MILLIONAIRE. As always it was a lot of fun because Helen made up her own questions, used a device that produced applause and bussers, and had prizes for the entire class. She also incorporated items from the show like call a friend using two plastic cups connected by a string.

Our schedule also included math workbooks, reading with the younger class, and amazing facts and extensions.

Susan read a 100 page quick biography book on Shakespeare. It provided a lot of information, much of which the students already knew, so part of it was a review and acknowledgment of what they had learned so far this year. On Friday, we will start our next Shakespeare play which is Macbeth. I will show the 25 minute animated version. We have many varied resources for our study of the play, including a two hour BBC version on YouTube. J had asked if we could watch a 30 minute documentary on the finding of the remains of Richard the Third, and I put that into the schedule for Thursday. J also found a Lego book in which they used the blocks to illustrate four Shakespearean tragedies. This is a beautifully produced book with full-color pages.

On Friday we will be starting to do some research on the tenements of New York City to help us get ready for our trip. All I keep thinking is what an exciting year this is!

We will take the train to Penn Station. We will walk 35 blocks to the Tenement Museum. On the way we may stop at FIT to see a new exhibit by graduate students on the history of the leather biker jacket and its impact on current fashion. We will have lunch before our appointment. Our visit will include a talk about people who live in tenements and then a visit to an actual apartment where an actor will greet us and talk to us about her life and family. We will leave the museum and head back to the village where we will eat at the Ghandhi Cafe. We will stop at Washington Sq., Park on the way. After dinner we will take the subway back to Penn Station. We will get Krispy Kreme donuts and wait for the train to take us back to Middletown.

MIDDLE CLASS

We have been busy working on Doodle for Google designs. This year’s theme is “If I could invent something to make the world a better place it would be….” The class brainstormed world problems then discussed what you would need to invent to improve the situation. We have looked at current inventions being worked on and breakthroughs in scientific research. We are watching the PBS series Making Stuff and various TED talks that highlight innovations in science and design. We looked at various everyday objects and tried to think how we might repurpose them and what attributes make them suitable for that purpose.

We read The Lorax in connection to possibly applying for a grant being offered through the Lorax Project to “spruce up” the library. The children also made drawings of how to create comfy reading spaces on the loft and floor.

Thank you to all the parents who attended graduate night. As always it was wonderful to see our graduates. They do such a great job of sharing their experiences and answering questions so openly and honestly.

Please make sure your child is dressed for the weather as they really want to be outside at lunch and snack.

YOUNGER CLASS

As I sit to write today’s bulletin, I have just watched my daughter, my first born, pull out of the driveway for the first time by herself. I have been driving with her for a year, and I know that she is a good driver, and is ready, and I’m not feeling worried. But the emotional piece of watching her leave was harder than I thought. Although a child’s life is full of steps of independence, and therefore steps away from parents, this by far feels like the biggest. In another year and a half, she will leave for college. As cliché as it sounds, enjoy every minute with your children; the time truly does pass by in a wink.

The class is very excited to have parents come to view their bird project. They have all worked incredibly hard, and I am as excited as they are for you all to see what they have accomplished. As the email invitation stated, our bird project presentation will be tomorrow. Please let me know if you will be able to come. And if you cannot come, please let your child know so that they are not waiting for you. Grandparents, siblings, etc. are welcome as well.

We have begun preparations for our whole school play, The Boisterous Bard. The children have watched a parts of the video of the play that was made 10 years ago. This has given them an idea of the role that the little class will play. They have started rehearsing a couple of songs that they will be singing. Each child will also be given a line from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets to memorize. I will let you know if there is anything that you need to do at home with your child as we go forward.

We started our new project today. It is a project centered on Shakespeare’s life and times. We will look at the clothing, music and dance, children’s lives, food, theater, etc. The children have been so interested in learning about lives of the past through our reading of the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie series), so I thought learning about people’s lives from another time period would interest them.

With today’s bulletin is a copy of the DVD of our Midsummer Night’s puppet show. A huge thank you to L (in the older class) for putting together our video. And another thank you to Debbie for donating the DVDs for me to make copies. We hope you all enjoy it!

Also attached to the bulletin are the questions for our next show and tell that I told you all about in a recent email. I think it will be interesting, and hopefully something that you will enjoy doing with your child.

I look forward to seeing parents next week as we wrap up conferences. And tomorrow for our bird presentation.