After Conferences

It's strange, but a full day feels less exhausting than a half day. I guess that's because we as teachers have our breaks for recess and lunch and there are no conferences to worry about.

Not that conferences did not go well. I enjoyed meeting the parents; well, 24 of 27 with a couple yet to come. I learned some good things from them about the children, and I hope they learned some things from me, too. In a couple cases I really surprised them with good news!

It was a very pleasant day. We did some follow-up work for the "Salt" story in Open Court as well as doing our Independent Reading and Writer's Workshop. We watched a sweet performance of How the Grinch Stole Christmas done by the third graders in room 17 (Mrs. Caruso). We practiced a bit for the music assembly on Thursday. We also worked on learning a dance that we will do tomorrow as part of the Dance for Heart assembly on the yard. A few of the boys were embarrassed by this, but they relented after I showed them how it is partly based on basketball moves (and threatened them with the loss of every privilege under the sun).

Homework is a little heavy today, but will be lighter tomorrow.

Home Studies: (1) Do "Expressions with variables," Math, pp 168-169. (2) Do "Equations with variables," Math, pp 170-171. (3) Do the Unit Two Spelling Review wordsearch. (4) Do the Unit Two Vocabulary Review crossword. (5) Do the "Explorers" and "Historical Maps" worksheet. (6) Do the "Settling Alta California" study guide.