Thank you all for assisting your children in the completion of their homework of the "News-2-You" newspaper last week. You will see more of these coming home for homework in the near future however sometimes the subject matter may require more pre-teaching at school so I use those in class. This weeks unit was about the Hispanic Heritage Month which is celebrated annually from Sept. 15-Oct. 15th. Many of the concepts and language in the newspaper was fairly abstract so I made the decision to keep this one for school in order to teach those concepts. The end result of this unit will be helping the students to begin to broaden their views of the world beyond their own immediate surroundings. There are so many mini lessons that can be taught off of this one newspaper as the students will be focusing on how even though there are differences between us, we are all still human beings and that being "different" really is a positive thing as it makes each one of us a unique and valued member of our community. As middle schoolers, your child's brain, body, personality and temperament are going through constant changes and it's not quite as simple as just telling the kids they're going through "puberty". Rather than launching into a massive post of every little lesson and unit we will be covering, you will see some assignments, projects, questionnaires, etc. all pertaining to assisting your child in broadening their view of the world, themselves, the community they live in, etc. While we will continue to work on money skills, reading skills, work opportunities, etc. they will also be expanding their horizons. When the students become interested in a topic, I allow them to dictate what they want to learn while embedding countless essential skills into that topic. The students learned that one of our paras, Ms. Haire is Hispanic and therefore a personal connection was made that immediately interested the students. We spent the week learning about the Hispanic culture, locating the countries on the globe, discussing the foods, traditional clothing, dances, language, etc. Ms. Haire shared what her childhood was like and Mrs. Elfrank brought in some traditional clothing and a mini piñata which was also talked about in our newspaper. The students loved trying on the clothes, discussed wanting to make tacos for our once a month lunch (perhaps next Friday in lieu of the original PB&J plan from our knife "spreading" snacks over the last several weeks). I will send you a flyer early next week identifying the ingredient that your child will need to bring in for our "family style" lunch. We will wrap up learning about the Hispanic culture next week and begin to narrow it down closer home until we eventually reach learning about our own traditions, heritage, etc. The students will have an assignment within the next few weeks to create a "All About Me" poster that they will present to the class. This will be an at home assignment but I will send more information when that time gets closer.
We have had multiple students (& staff) out with this nasty virus that has been circulating within our room so some activities have been postponed and we won't be doing any food prep until we are all back to being near healthy. I have had 1-2 students out nearly everyday this week so we aren't yet there.
I will also be sending a flyer home with a list of dates & times for conference sign-ups. I schedule 15 minute conferences with each family but please remember this is NOT a time for us to discuss your child's IEP. These are strictly intended for just discussing their performance & academics within the class. Conference dates are Oct. 28th & 30th from 5-8pm. You will receive more information from me within the next few weeks about this.
Please enjoy just a few of the photos taken today from our Hispanic discussion while the students tried on some of the traditional clothing.
Enjoy your three day weekend and here's to hoping for a healthy, five-day school week!
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