Five days of family, Christmas movies, crafting, eating, and napping. I needed that! And, so far, at least no jury duty! I am ready for a good week ahead with my students! 

Before the Thanksgiving break, we were very busy! We had fun with a team-building activity (marker marionette), and we finished floats during IE for our parade tomorrow. I will be taking pictures of it; make sure you check out the creations on my Twitter feed! We also finished up Sign of the Beaver and started a unit on Animals Through Time in Science. I honestly cannot believe we accomplished so much in a short week! 

This week we will continue with our science unit, exploring how remains could end up in a watery cave. We will take a break from our module to do another Skype with a Scientist session. This time, we have a geologist that will be joining us on a video call. She is from Oregon and studies glaciers, rocks, and oceans. I am looking forward to the class being able to learn from her and ask her questions. 

In language arts, we will take a break from novels and learn about pronouns and conjunctions. This comes as a follow-up to a writing activity we did over the last two weeks. The students did an outstanding job! (In fact, make sure you read what they would have made for Thanksgiving when the paper comes home tomorrow). Since we have such solid writing skills, we will use some grammar tools to make our writing more interesting. I have no doubt this class will impress me!

I hope you had a great break yourself! Make sure you get the children to bed at their normal time tonight. And together, let's keep them focused so we can learn some fantastic things in the three weeks ahead before Winter Break!

Upcoming Dates to Know:
December 1 - Skype a Scientist 
December 2 - Girls' STEM Club
December 2 - Mystery Location 
December 6 - PTA Holiday Shop
December 16 - Girls' STEM Club
December 20 - 31 - Winter Break

Is your workplace itching for Thanksgiving Break as much as I am? I'll be honest, I have been under the weather a little this weekend, so that hasn't helped. But I find myself dreaming of the lazy day of Thanksgiving, the Christmas movies in pajamas over the weekend, and hopefully an extra day of sleeping in on November 29th. I say "hopefully" because I have been called for Jury Duty. I want to serve, but I don't want to be away from our class. We will see how it goes...

In Language Arts this week, we will be finishing Sign of the Beaver. The class has done really well connecting with the main characters. We will wrap up the novel with written summaries and a chance to write a script for one scene from the book. I love watching the children creatively show their understanding of a book. Producing videos from their scripts will be our final project. It will be a fun way to relive the book in our modern times!

In Social Studies, we will use one day this week to prepare for a fun activity planned for after the break. It is called "Mystery Location." We will be joining a class from another state on a video call and trying to guess where they are located through a series of questions we will prepare. Likewise, that class will be trying to identify where we are located. It will be fun! 

After that, we will be moving back into Science. This will be a fun break before we dive into the American Revolution in Social Studies. Our science unit is on Ecosystems. The basics of the curriculum have been covered in prior years. My goal is to push the students to explore how living things get energy and how living things affect the environment. I hope that we will still have some time in the Land Lab before it gets too cold (or white). 

Friends, please stay healthy and happy! If I don't get a chance to trade emails with you before Wednesday, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Please know that I am very thankful for your children. 

Upcoming Dates to Know:
November 25 - 29 - Thanksgiving Break
November 29 - Mrs. Hetman potentially has jury duty this week
December 2 - Girls' STEM Club
December 6 - PTA Holiday Shop
December 20 - 31 - Winter Break

I won't finish the title of this post, but you know what I am thinking about! We had to work hard to keep ourselves from decorating for Christmas today. It's easier to justify in our house since we don't host Thanksgiving here. Nonetheless, I restrained myself and just enjoyed the snow as a special weekend treat.

Since this is just the beginning of this type of weather, I will mention that students are encouraged to bring snow pants, boots, hats, and gloves to school. They cannot play in the snow unless they have the proper gear. When my daughter was at Bath, she used to keep these items in her locker during the week, bringing them home for washing on the weekends. Please note that students can keep wet boots outside our classroom or in their lockers. (Please send in a dish towel if you prefer the latter. The towel will need to stay at the bottom of their locker to keep the wet snow from boots from rusting the locker bottom.)

This week we will be starting the second half of Sign of the Beaver. The first half journal has been graded. The second half will conclude with a Clips video the students will make. I am looking forward to seeing their imaginations run wild with this assignment. Make sure you check it out when they finish. It will be in the Schoolwork app.

In social studies, the class will be presenting on six Ohio tribes this week. They will be taking notes and watching one another present or perform. I think we will continue with this social studies unit until Thanksgiving. After the small break, we will revisit science. It is easier for us to manage it this way, given that our projects are not typically completed in one day.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Email is best! jhetman@revereschools.org.

Upcoming Dates to Know:
November 18 - Girls' STEM Club
November 19 - Bath Team Hero Spirit Day/Popcorn Friday
November 25 - 29 - Thanksgiving Break
November 29 - Mrs. Hetman potentially has jury duty this week
December 2 - Girls' STEM Club
December 6 through 10 - PTA Holiday Shop (I'll update with our day next week!)

We had a great week in room 111! I think most of the excitement surrounded the "engineering of a frog" project that we did in order to wrap up our science unit on plants and animals. I will tweet photos of the frogs later this week, but I wanted to give you a preview of some of our master pieces. 

This week we are shifting gears from science to social studies. This means we will get to our lesson on timelines tomorrow. We will use our personal timelines to help us understand the purpose of these tools. Then we can use a timeline to build a strong understanding of the history of Ohio. It will be fun to learn about your child's significant events in this process. I will send home a brainstorming page for you and the children to work on Monday night. 

In language arts, we will keep reading Sign of the Beaver. We have gotten into the book that takes place in colonial times. We are learning about biases and how we cannot judge a book by its cover. I love how the children relate to the book with their section projects. Please check out the "Sign of the Beaver Journal" work located in Schoolwork on your child's iPad.

This week is our second week of parent-teacher conferences. Thank you for supporting Mrs. Coen and me by coming in late on these nights. We appreciate you ... and the meals the PTA provides! I am fortunate to have such a supportive group of parents working with me this year!

Upcoming Dates to Know:
November 10 - Class Reward - Movie Day! Students can bring in extra snacks, and Mrs. Whitmire-Rotili is providing popcorn and juice!
November 11 - Parent-teacher conferences, night 2
November 18 - Girl's STEM Club
November 19 - Bath Team Hero Spirit Day/Popcorn Friday
November 25 - 29 - Thanksgiving Break