FA Peace Sign!

Dates to Remember

Photo Day - September 29th
Founder's Day - October 2nd 10:00-2:00.  Please remember to RSVP to the festival activites and the Gala.

September 24, 2010

WELCOME to the SBS Fifth Grade blog for 2010-2011!

This blog serves as our classroom newsletter.  I will email parents each Friday announcing updates to our blog.  For your convenience, I include the link to the blog each time so you simply have to click and arrive here.  I prefer the blog format for our newsletter because I can embed photographs and video of your children and they can actively participate in the blogging process.

We have had a busy and eventful beginning of the year!  As you know, we've been exploring the theme of peace since school began and our class has engaged enthusiastically and thoughtfully in this process.  We read books related to peace, discussed peace, and decided on a peace pledge that highlights our commitment to service learning.  Much of this peace work has been done in integrated groups and our entire fifth grade voted to "provide educational support to preschool" as our grade-wide peace pledge.  We have had initial conversations with preschool teachers about what that support might look like.  They told us that having fifth grade involved in teaching about social skills would be particularly beneficial to the preschool.  The fifth grade teachers brought this to our Mix It Up (integrated) groups to brainstorm.  Here are some snippets of the Mix It Up group conversation from my room:

"I would like to teach preschool how to greet us when we see them in the hallways.  They often hide from big kids, but we can teach them we're their friends too, and we can show them appropriate hello's."

"I think we could write some skits about how to join games.  Sometimes kids don't know how to join a group when they're young and that could help them."

"What about sharing?  We could teach them how to share."

"If we make up situations for them we could act out ways to work things out."

"How about if we teach them how to find new friends."

"Yeah, it could be like match making of friends - helping kids with the same interests find each other so they can be friends."

"I want to create a people scavenger hunt!"

My Mix It Up group was really excited.  One of our commitments at Friends Academy is to extend our learning beyond teaching solid academics and create global citizens.  Our Peace Day work explored peace here in our community and world-wide.  Our peace pledge moves beyond our classrooms, beyond our grade, and reaches out to students we don't often interact with.  I am really proud of the students for the energy they brought to the beginning of our school year.  Our community building - the first step in getting a school year rolling - is going spectacularly well.

Warmly,

Laura

SEPTEMBER 2010-2011

WELCOME TO FIFTH GRADE!

Happy September.  I hope you enjoy our blog for this school year.

Sincerely,
Laura