The Election

Our day began in the auditorium listening to fifth graders running for Student Council offices speak to us. The students were quite articulate. And as they answered questions in the “town hall” format I found myself wondering why our adult candidates cannot directly answer questions and speak courteously like our children do. A little sad, isn’t it?

A couple of the students running, I am proud to say, are room 19 alumni.

After we listened to the speeches, we return to the room and worked some more on the Literacy Periodic Assessment. The students did the rough drafts of the “memorable recess” story that is the required writing prompt. Since their recesses are seldom if ever memorable, we worked on making up and interesting but believable story with a problem and a solution, a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The students went to Mr. Pratt for history. After lunch, we read the last story of the week in Treasures, and we started on the regular and normal way to do double digit multiplication. It is such a relief to finally get to the standard algorithm. It is so much easier than these other ways of doing the problem even if they supposedly are better for demonstrating comprehension.

We did mixing as usual, and then the students went to the California Dance Institute class. The pictures below were actually from last week’s class, but help give an idea of how the program works.

One of the really great things about CDI is that there is always a musician there to provide live accompaniment. Usually it is a pianist, but sometimes a drummer comes instead.

The field trip to Olvera Street is tomorrow. We will be leaving at 9:00 am right after library. We have several parents accompanying us, but more are always welcome. For parents accompanying us, fare is 1.50 for each section of the trip. Since we will be doing both the 16 bus and the Purple Line, that will be a total of 6.00. Bus drivers do not make change, but the machines at the subway will. Students received special day passes from the MTA.

Please make sure that the children have lunch, and that their names on the lunch bags or boxes.

Homework: (1) Review spelling words. (2) Do “Two Digit by Two Digit” pages 146-147 in the math book and “Food for Thought” on the back of the answer sheet.