The Importance of Being You

Happy Monday. Welcome to a three day week. The kids had fun pretending it was really "Wednesday" today. Everyone sounds like they have some fun and relaxing things to do on Thursday and Friday--trips to the Wisconsin Dells, California, sleepovers, pajama days, raking leaves, etc.

Today was the final due date for pop up books. As the kids were putting them together, I was absolutely blown away by the quality and effort that are apparent on each page. The students had fun sitting in the author's chair and sharing their stories with the class. We will continue to share the rest of the stories this week. We are hoping to find time to share our stories with the younger students in the school. Look for our stories to be on display on a table outside our room in the coming weeks.

We had a thought provoking discussion this afternoon that integrated our literacy unit on THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND with Social Studies. We have discovered that the more we can connect to a story, the more interesting it becomes for us. In the WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND, the main character Kit has to deal with false impressions and societal stereotypes that require her to be a certain way. Today we talked about stereotypes in our society--specifically dealing with gender roles (what men are supposed to be or act like, vs. what women are supposed to be or act like). We came up with an impressive list of stereotypes that are unfortunately present in our society. Ask the kids about our list. We talked about having the courage to break down the many stereotypes our society has about men and women and the importance of being our true selves. For Wednesday, each student needs to find an example of a false stereotype that is from the media (television, newspapers, magazine ads, Internet, etc.). I am asking each student to bring in his/her example for a discussion on Wednesday. If you have questions about this, please don't hesititate to ask. Students do not need to do any writing, but should be ready to tell us what stereotype is shown.

Homework for tonight: Work on book club reading and packets, finish math if necessary, work on stereotype assignment (due Wednesday). Remember to turn in music recorder forms by Wednesday.