Tuesday, April 6, 2010

After morning meeting, we went to Room 1 for an assembly called Making Friends. A woman came with different puppets to talk to us about people with disabilities. One of her dolls was blind and used a walking stick. Another was deaf and used hearing aides. The last one didn’t have strong legs and used a wheelchair to move around. We looked at photos of people who are disabled and also learned some sign language. Ms. Stern had to put a piece of wax paper over her eyes to find out what it is like to be blind. She thought everything looked very foggy and couldn’t see things clearly. Touching and hearing their voices helped Ms. Stern to identify Anthony and Dylan. When we came back to the classroom we talked more about people with disabilities. We will remember to smile, say hello, or invite people to play with us…with or without disabilities.

We counted each of the containers of mealworms again. Before vacation we separated them into 3 groups: mealworms, pupae, and beetles. We are charting our data by checking each container and recording our findings.

This afternoon we had to go outside. An announcement was made that we were having a silent fire drill. Everyone walked outside like we usually do. After a while, we started walking towards the field where we have Field Day and everyone sat in a line. Lauria, Adam, and Amanda found a worm on the ground. Ms. Stern asked us to get into groups. Each group began telling stories by adding one word or one sentence. Then we started thinking of different groups: things that are yellow, words that start with b (or other letters). After that, we played Detective. Meaghan, Sasha, Stephen, Hunter, Sarah, Amanda, Jacob, Eesha, Adam, and Ms. Stern all had a turn being the detective. After a really long time, we walked back to the school. At the end of the day, Mrs. Polansky made an announcement explaining why were outside for so long.

Lauria’s mom came to read a story to us. She read Old Turtle. We discussed the message of the story: no matter what your religion or your beliefs, everyone is correct. There is no right or wrong way to think. Stephen thought she was very good at reading. Sasha thought she sounded like a real storyteller.