Valentines Day

Good Morning!  I hope everyone is off to a great start of their week. I apologize for not updating all last week- we were pretty busy!

In writing last week, we read an incredible book that really got us thinking, entitled ,"The Junkyard Wonder" by Patricia Palacco. It was a very inspiring and thoughtful true story of a girl who overcame many learning obstacles (as well as some of her "junkyard friends") to be where she is today. The kids and I discussed the book over  two periods and pulled out SO many different ideas of themes, symbolism and character development.

This was very helpful because now the kids are doing that on their own. They chose a picture book to analyze and write a literary essay. We are in the process of looking for evidence and amping up our body paragraphs. I have really enjoyed this unit- I love watching the kids pick up on hidden meanings and author's purpose.


Announcements for the week: 

This week is Kindness Week, which is an exciting time for the kids to go and express kindness everywhere they go. I am sending home Kindness tickets with the kids this week so that the kindness spreads at home. I would like to fill up a jar with these tickets and celebrate it with them next week.

There is no school on Friday, due to Staff Development Day. Which means, that we are celebrating Valentine's Day on the Thursday before. The team and I sat down last Wednesday and discussed protocol for this celebration, and we asked that the kids make it even. This means that if they choose to bring in valentines, that they bring it in for everyone in the class, and that they are only cards. NO candy, and no treats connected to it...it's a policy thing.