During a teacher roll call meeting this week, Lindsay and I were prefaced with the question, “What are some ways we are going to teach our upcoming SEL unit: Perseverance?” Lindsay turned to me and gave me one of the biggest reality checks this year: This is the last six weeks that we have left with these two cohorts… I literally felt like crying on the spot.

I can’t even express how saddened I was realizing that this time together is coming to an end. What we have here is something truly special, and it is really, really, really tough to think about this specific dynamic ending. I say this every year, and I truly believe it every year… This truly was my favorite year I have ever taught, and my favorite class(es) that I have taught. Thankfully in my career, each year keeps getting better and better, lucky me! These kids challenged me in new ways, impressed me on so many levels, and made me laugh on various occasions… actually scratch that.. Everyday. 

So instead of battening down the hatches and preparing to persevere and instill grit through the rest of the school year (which we will DEFINITELY still do by the way!) We are going to focus on savoring these sweet moments left within the next six weeks. This is the time that we have left with these incredible humans, altogether in one place, and we are going to focus on enjoying it to the very end. :’)

What’s happening in Science:

Our beach trip was a success! Both trips were dreamy! Not only did everyone have a blast, but we found some super cool organisms, including a ghost crab, cannonball jellies, sea nettles, sea cucumbers, anemones, sea snails, and more! We came back to school ready to inquire more about the living creatures we found first hand. We will continue to investigate other living things and their common ancestors for the remainder of our diversity of life unit.

What’s up in Math?

Fifth Graders finished the end of their fourth module, reviewed for our End-of Module Assessment, and took our test today! We are all excited to close this textbook, and start fresh on module 5 on Monday!

Sixth Graders have been practicing writing and solving mathematical expressions and distributing expressions using all operations. Students are elaborating on reading mathematical expressions and learning how to use letters to replace digits. We played a fun matching game this week to match equations and expressions to their solutions! 

In Writing:

Writers finalized their tribute poems this week for The Ronald McDonald House! We narrowed it down to a final three, and voted on our favorites! Poets had a great time writing tribute poems for this charity, and are eager to find out who this year’s TCS tribute poem winner will be! Today, middle schoolers participated in a google meet with their first-grade buddy, who read them their pass-it-on poem!

Journalists reflected on the interviews that they finished this week, and are off to a great start brainstorming topics for feature articles that will be featured in our newspaper! 

Important Dates:

April 30- Field Trip to the Audubon Swamp

May 7th- Virtual Pass It On (viewing information will be sent home soon)- Half Day

May 31- Memorial Day-No School