Thursday 1/16

The rest of our organisms arrived :)

Millipedes, pill bugs, tree seedling and moss

Ask your child how we made our terrarium. 

We had a wonderful class discussion about the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

I read aloud Martin's Big Words. We also watched the Brain Pop videos on MLK and Rosa Parks. 

In Open Circle we talked about teasing and recognizing our differences.  The kids are working on a class book.  

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Dear Family:

Dealing with teasing was the topic of a recent Open Circle lesson. We talked about how it feels to be teased and how to help someone who is being teased. If you do not like to be teased, one way to try to stop a classmate from teasing is to use words to tell the person to stop. Students were reminded that mean teasing and bullying are “Double D” behaviors and are not acceptable. Students were encouraged not to tease others if they can see that the person being teased does not like it. 

At home, talk to your child about being teased and teasing others. Share with your child a time you were teased and it was okay. Share a time you did not like being teased. Discuss some ways your child can help people who are being teased. Encourage your child to be sensitive to the feelings of other children.

In a recent Open Circle, we learned that there are both inside and outside differences in people. We can see outside differences, such as hair color or height. But we cannot tell just by looking at someone what their interests, skills, feelings, and talents are. To find out what a person is really like, you have to get to know him/her. 

At home, have a conversation with your child about the differences in people that we can see and cannot see by just looking at them. What are some things that people wouldn’t know about you by merely looking at you? Talk about some ways your child can get to know other people in school.

Literature Connections

Here are some books that relate to the topics we discussed in Open Circle. 

Havill, Juanita. Jamaica and Brianna. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
Best friends learn that teasing one another is hurtful.

Henkes, Kevin. Chester’s Way. Greenwillow Books, 1988.
Chester and Wilson gradually accept Lilly as a new friend, even though she has so many different ideas and interests.

Keller, Holly. Farfallina and Marcel. Greenwillow Books, 2002.
A caterpillar and a gosling become friends despite their physical differences. 

Ross, Tom. Eggbert, the Slightly Cracked Egg. Putnam Juvenile, 1997.
Eggbert discovers that he is not the only one with an imperfection and that it is OK to be “slightly cracked.”

Wells, Rosemary. Timothy Goes to School. Viking Children’s Books, 2000.
Timothy meets all kinds of children when he goes to school. Claude, for example,
is perfect at everything and loves to tease Timothy. When Timothy meets Violet,
he finds a good friend who helps him cope with Claude and others like him.