Day 70 - Courage- A Gift to Mrs. Heffernan from a thankful parent says it all

Day 69- Shared by Mrs. Grant

Dear Teacher

In Teacher and Child, noted psychologist Haim Ginott includes a copy of a letter that a principal sent to his teachers at the beginning of each new school year.

Dear Teacher,

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness:

Gas chambers built by learned engineers.

Children poisoned by educated physicians.

Infants killed by trained nurses.

Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates.

So I am suspicious of education. My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns.

Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

Day 66- Who was Mozart? Yuseff Grade 4

Please check out this link!
http://youtu.be/zu1gCXqojNQ

Day 68- Frankie T. Grade 4- The Immigrant Experience

The immigrant experience- We had a guest in our classroom today.


We learned about the history of immigration. "I was in the journey over group. We got bags and my bag had the statue of liberty. I learned that when the immigrants saw the Statue of Liberty, they knew their journey to America was over."

Day 67- The Musgraves- A Simple Thank You

This morning we received numerous notes of thank you for keeping the Hood School students safe. The Musgraves sent in coffee for their teachers and explained to me that it was a simple thank you from them to us for keeping them safe. They reported that "we are happy that we have such a safe school."

Day 65- Ms. Calvo- Band Instructor

 

Proud Performers - On Thursday Dec 13^th, the Hood Chorus, Beginning Band, and 5^th Grade Band Performed in their first concert of the year!  The Chorus, Directed by Mrs. Ruth Clark, opened the concert with the Star Spangled Banner, followed by Don Gato which is a funny song about a beloved cat that came back to life after suffering a terrible fall.  They also sang Do Re Mi Fa, Tender Sheperd, Walking in the air, The Sleigh, and Winter Fantasy.  The students had to learn some tough harmonies for a few of these pieces, but they sang them with beautiful tone and confidence.  It was obvious that this group has tons of talent.

The 5^th Grade Band played second and they have all worked very hard for the past few weeks to prepare some difficult music.   Under the direction of Miss Jillian Calvao, they performed two classic marches – March Militaire and School Spirit – followed by Riverbend Rhapsody and Auld Lang Syne (AKA the New Year’s Eve Song).  Through this music, the students learned challenging rhythms, tempo changes, and stylistic differences between musical genres.  As such a small group, each student had no choice but to perform their part 100% in order to put it all together correctly.  That can be a lot of pressure for any musician at any age, but they all stepped up to the challenge and handled it well!

The last group to perform was the Beginning Band.  These students have only been playing their instruments for about 10-12 weeks and this was the first time they have ever performed as a band in front of an audience.  It is exciting to see the Beginning Band’s transformation throughout the fall, and they did a fantastic job on all 4 of their concert songs.  They played Mozart Melody, Jingle Bells, and My Dreydl, which were all from their book.  The grand finale of the performance was when the 5^th grade band joined the beginning band on stage for the last piece entitled St. Nick’s on the Housetop.

Mrs. Clark and Miss Calvao are both very proud of their students and what they were able to perform.  The next concert for each group will be the All-Town Concerts at the end of April and beginning of May. 

Day 64- How Children Succeed Bookstudy Quote from the group

"Work Hard.Be Nice"

 http://www.joannejacobs.com/tag/paul-tough/

Day 63- Susan Crockett- Student in Mr. McKay AIC Course

 "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be a victim. Accept no ones definition of your life, but define yourself."

Day 62- David Biedrzycki- Visiting Author & Illustrator

More to follow

http://www.davidbiedrzycki.com/Home.html

Day 61-We Can Be Very Different and Still Be GREAT Friends- Alexis, Joelle & Caitlin

Click the link below:
http://youtu.be/t1POQvCButE

Day 60- Riordan- Geocaching Student

Geocaching Class #4

After watching a NASA video on how GPS receivers work. There are 29 satellites that orbit the earth that enable you to find your exact location. You only need 24 to find your location. This helps you find geocaches.

Day 59 The Student Council annouces....

It was 20 years ago yesterday that the first text message was sent. It was Dec. 3, 1992, and Neil Papworth, an engineer working in the UK, sent the world's first short message service or SMS. It read "Merry Christmas."
But while most are entering their prime at age 20, the text message might just be past its glory years.
 


The History -- In More Than 160 Characters
Papworth,  hit the send button on that first text. At the age of 22.
But, of course, it turned into something very big "Years went on and people were able to start to send text messages. It took quite a few years of it to take off," Papworth said. "But by the 10th anniversary it was fairly big”

And it became even bigger than that. In 2010, the International Telecommunications Union reported that 200,000 text messages were sent every minute and 6.1 trillion texts were sent worldwide.

Day 58- Ella M. & Daley The Pilgram Visits Grade 3

Today we had a guest from Plymouth Plantation in our classroom!

We learned alot from our guest! He comes from England. He is different than us because he was from a different culture. He wore different clothing, he greeted us in a different way and if people from his time didn't go to church, they could get arrested because it was the law that eveyone needed to go to Kings church in England.


 

Day 57 Joey & Samantha Grdae 5

Today we were learning how to play the piano. We learned learned how to play the under 3 and over 4 as a keyboarding technique.