Monday, March 14, 2011

The Big Wave

In light of the current tragic situation in Japan, we took a break from our usual reading schedule today. We talked about the earthquake and the tsunami this weekend. Most of the students were pretty well-informed about it,but we clarified some things. I then shared with them some things about the 1923 quake which leveled Yokohama. Pearl Buck used this earthquake and the tsunami which followed it as the basis for her 1948 book The Big Wave. We read a selection from this book and took time to talk about how people deal with great tragedy. The boy in the story has to deal with the loss of his family, and many, many people in Japan at this time will be dealing with that as well.

On a lighter note, we practiced some of the scenes and the choreography that the students learned last Thursday with our guest choreographers. We also worked on learning to multiply and divide decimals in math. Students were dismissed at 2:00 pm so that fourth grade teachers could have some time to begin work on report cards.

Homework:  (1) Write the spelling words 10 times each and write a sentence for each one. The words are equation, hospitality, awesome, glance, and extract. (2) Do the study questions for "The Big Wave". For the letter be sure to have date, greeting, body, closing, and signature. The body should be about two full paragraphs. (3) Do pages 322-323 in the math book. Also do "Symbol Acrobatics" on the back of the answer sheet.

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