Amish and iPods

Today we finally finished the last regular day of testing. Hooray! The first couple days were not bad, but it has dragged on way too long, sort of like a visit from a relative you don’t really like that much. We’re glad to say goodbye to this guest for another year. A few people will be doing makeup in the next couple days — children who were absent either a whole day or during the first part of the day — but most everybody else is done!

Today we continued to look at the “Amish” story. Students did a “double bubble” thinking map to compare and contrast their lives with the lives of an Amish child. You can see one of these maps above. We added a little bit of art to this by requiring the children to draw instead of using words on the maps. The children then took the ideas from these maps and wrote first and final drafts of a compare and contrast paragraph. A few children will be finishing these up as homework tonight.

We had library as usual and we also did some softball after lunch. The children are getting good at softball. Special thanks to Friends of Third for getting us a couple batting tees and catcher masks.

Speaking of thanks, we would also like to thank the many people who donated to our class basket. We’ve definitely got the most talked about item in the country fair. Everybody wants to get our iPod Nano and the iTunes gift cards.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the “Amish” study sheet. (3) Do the Multiplying with Money worksheet. In addition, a few students need to finish the thinking map and the paragraph.