What a wonderful celebration today! Many thanks to our families who came in to cook with the children in B House last week and who came to join in the festivities today.
The children’s Heritage Projects turned into hats, which were no less than AMAZING! The most fun was listening to the children tell about their family customs and traditions and explain their Family Trees and where their ancestors came from. So many children AND parents found this to be a powerful activity because they learned SO much about their own family culture that they realized they didn’t know before beginning the project.
ENJOY the pictures and have a peaceful, fun and safe holiday together with your loved ones. The recipes of our desserts will follow, by popular demand!
Thanks to Kathy Seawell for sharing these recipes:
Sweet Potato Crisp
2 c. sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed 1 c. sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 can Eagle Brand milk 1 1/2 sticks of butter 1 box cake mix, butter recipe 1 c. nuts, chopped
Preheat oven to 325F. Line 9 x 13 pan with waxed paper. Mix potatoes, milk, sugar, eggs and cinnamon. Pour into pan. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over mixture. Sprinkle nuts over the top and pour melted butter over the top of the cake mix and nuts. Bake 50 t0 60 minute. Turn cake onto platter. Peel off wax paper. Cool completely.
Toffee Pumpkin Bars
1 box spice cake mix 1 stick melted margarine 3 eggs 1 c. canned pumpkin 1/2 c. sugar 1/2 c. pecans 2/3 c. Heath Toffee Bits
Reserve 2/3 c. dry cake mix. Combine remaining cake mix, margarine and 1 egg. Mix well. Press into greased pan. Bake 350 for 15 minutes.
Combine remaining cake mix, pumpkin, sugar, 2 eggs, and dash of salt. Blend on medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour over crust. Top with nuts and toffee bits.
Bake 350F. for 20 minutes. Cool and cut.
Foolproof Pie Crust
4 c. flour (not instant or self-rising), lightly spooned into cup 1 Tbsp. sugar 2 tsp. salt 1/2 c. water 1 3/4 c. shortening (do not use oil, margarine or butter 1 Tbsp. white or cider vinegar 1 large egg
In large bowl, stir together flour, sugar and salt. Cut in shortening until crumbly. In small bowl beat together the water, vinegar and egg; add to flour mixture and stir until all ingredients are moistened. Divide dough into .5 portions and with hands, shape each in flat, round patties ready for rolling.
Wrap each patty in plastic or waxed paper and chill at least 1/2 hour. Dough can be left in refrigerator up to 2 to 3 weeks.
We are all very excited about our B House Autumn Family Celebration that will be held TUESDAY NOVEMBER 24th from 11:30-1:00!
We will be sharing the desserts that we baked last week and share our Family Projects in a Living Museum format.
These projects went home Tuesday with a large piece of white cardboard. Hopefully you have been able to spend some quality time learning more about your own family. Everyone will get the chance to spend some time Tuesday visiting the “Living Museum” and learn about you and your family.
Here is a link to the B House Family Project. We look forward to seeing the finished ‘totems’. Projects are due Monday November 23rd. If you need an extra day, please have the projects in the classroom in the morning on Tuesday so we can display them.
HAVE FUN!
Each of the children who were present today wrote a comment in response to the CHALLENGE, (see below), which means we still need LOTS of comments from YOU!
Please help deepen the connection to the story, Thank You Mr. Falker, and leave your comments!
Click on Mr. Falker above or go to: www.patriciapolacco.com to visit the author’s site.
Yup, another old favorite! You just can’t beat Patricia Polacco’s inspirational stories for both children and adults. I went into the Media Center to pick up Thunder Cake, Meteor, and When Lightning Comes in a Jar to add a bit of literature to our Weather Study, (and The Bee Tree in ‘honor’ and hopeful appreciation of the bees that are constant guests in our piazza!), and thought, ‘Why not just do our new author study on Patricia Polacco since we really haven’t decided on anyone else yet!” – and after just one day, Patricia Polacco has already won her way into our hearts.
(We still whole-heartedly love you too, Tomie dePaola! Don’t worry! )
Patricia Polacco is an author/illustrator of MANY books, yet I love to read, Thank you , Mr. Falker to my children the most. Children of all ages can make connections to the powerful themes this story presents.
The autobiographical story is based on Patricia’s own struggle with learning how to read. She has learning disabilities, which were not diagnosed ‘back in the day’, which made her elementary years devastating because of her lack of being able to read nor do math. She was bullied and made fun of by children in her classes! Mr. Falker, her 5th grade teacher, recognized that she had great difficulties in seeing letters, numbers and words in the way that most people see them. It was he, along with a reading teacher, who helped Patricia with specific strategies that directly helped her finally learn how to read. She will always be grateful to him for teaching her how to read. Imagine! She who has had so many challenges with learning disabilities is now a highly celebrated AUTHOR of children’s books!
It was her drawings that saved her during those dark years. Even as a child, she was an exceptional artist and Mr. Falker also recognized this talent in her.
Today after reading the story, the children and I had a lively discussion about;
- bullies
- things we are good at
- things we aren’t so good at
After our session, each child began a writing piece about a personal connection they made to the story. Pretty powerful words are being expressed on paper! Who wants to share their connection?
Challenge:
Have you ever been bullied? Have you ever felt really ‘dumb’ at school like Patricia? What are you really good at? What are you not so good at?
You made my day. No, you made my year. No, you validated my whole 19 year teaching career.
Marta Richardson, our lovely violin teacher who holds a very special place in my heart, brought my violinists back to our piazza from her class. As procedure has it, the children went directly to the meeting carpet while Marta and I held back and had a quick hug and a word that well, turned into many words. You see, just being a little school doesn’t necessarily mean that the staff communicates very often. All day long is a whirlwind. I see Marta very rarely and when we do find each other face-to-face we always squeeze in a fast and furious and often compassionate conversation.
In the meantime, my keyboarders found their way back into class too and managed to somehow walk invisibly past Marta and I without either of us blinking an eye. We continued our rambling and she turned on her heels to leave as quickly as she appeared -
I turned too, to meet the children at the carpet, but stopped dead in my tracks. I realized that all was silent- all except for the sound of Peyton’s matter-of-fact voice. My breath ceased, my heart skipped a beat and there in front of me I witnessed what I think all teachers silently dream about and strive to create – all children taking the initiative to be present, resourceful and responsible for their own learning in their classroom.
Peyton was sitting in my chair, her classmates all facing her in ’story position’ while she read a story! Every single child was FULLY engaged. Holding back a flood of tears, I pulled up a seat and listened too while she finished the story (and grabbed my camera along the way).
I then tried to compliment the children on how all 23 children had just accomplished something very, very important and amazing… but I was still so stunned and in awe that heard myself just babbling away trying to string words together! Realizing that my message was not getting through to most, I reverted to drama and picked up my schoolbag and headed towards the door saying that they just proved they no longer needed ME to inspire and motivate THEM, nor facilitate their learning; they were perfectly capable of initiating the joy of learning themselves. I would just be on my way to take care of things that DID need my attention!
They got it. They beamed, they grew a couple of inches while bursting with pride and I resisted leaving for the rest of the day. Instead, we all had a run around outside, taking in the breathtaking autumn scene that the season has graciously unfolded in front of our eyes in Greensboro.
Thank you children. You make me proud. You inspire me and teach me more than I could ever teach you day after day after day. Yes, you most definitely got it. Clearly.
One very proud child said as we were heading out the door, “And we even chose a book about weather!”.
What perfect timing for all our Weather Explorations! See Newsletter for more information on what’s been spinning around in Piazza Mannino!
Click on Newsletter once, then again. Enjoy!
What a whirlwind of a week we have had doing weather experiments. We found a really cool site online that has tons of age-appropriate explorations that second graders are really excited about:
Gabe’s mom came in and did a great experiment about air with small groups of children. The experiment focused on how air takes up space, even when we can’t see it. Even though the children knew what the results would be because we had read about the experiment beforehand, they were still quite shocked when they actually did the exploration and proved the theory. First hand experiences always make such an impact on everyone! The experiment also lead to children creating very scientific drawings and diagrams of the actual procedure and results of the experiment. We just LOVE our Science Notebooks!
Thank you, Mrs. M.! You know we couldn’t have done it without you!
We had a blast today! We discovered what we already know about thermometers, what we wonder about them and asked some questions about what we wanted to know the answers too. I was SO impressed with all the thinking going on! Such creative minds!The children will just have to share some of their thoughts, observations and predictions of what they thought would happen when they finally got to dip their thermometers into the icy cold water. Curiosity, exploration and discovery took over and the children experimented in ways I never thought of, (OF COURSE!), and we all came away just a bit more excited about ‘inquiry’ and empowered with new knowledge… and a whole new set of questions! Unfortunately we never got the chance to record some of our discoveries/conclusions because we got run out of our classroom by several very annoying bees! At least we were able to share our experiences while sitting in a big group in the Media Center. We’ll just have to continue tomorrow and – well- who knows? The children might think of new explorations to do with thermometers, or ice, or temperature! What a fun way to integrate math and science and formally begin our unit of study on Weather.
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they grew a couple of inches while bursting with pride and I resisted leaving for the rest of the day. Instead, we all had a run around outside, taking in the breathtaking autumn scene that the season has graciously unfolded in front of our eyes in Greensboro.
