We had another great week!  I can't believe the school year is winding down. 

Funny Sayings from Kids: One student wrote me this note: “Mr. Smith, you are the best teacher in the class.”

A student kept asking for a lemonade paper for his science project…Finally I figured out he was asking for a laminated piece of paper.

When we learned the word parallelogram this week, some students decided it was easier to say “parallel-opop” because it sounded like more like lollypop.

One student talked about moving to New York City next year.  (This student will be moving this summer, but only a few hours away—not to New York.)  Another student said, “Hmm…You’ll really like the animals there.  They have a lot of elk and deer and other cool stuff.”…I’ve never been there, but last time I watched the movies, New York City did not have any elk wandering the streets.

It’s interesting the misconceptions that I find when grading spelling tests.  One student thought that picnics were actually called “pig-nics.”

During our bullying presentation mentioned below, our visitor asked something like this, “So, if somebody bothers you, should you go say mean things and wrinkle them inside?”  One student replied, “No!”  That was an appropriate response, but then she followed it up with, “You should hate them in silence.”   

Special Activities: We continued swimming for P.E. this week, and students absolutely love it.  It’s really helping them learn to swim.  We also had a lesson on bullying/kindness from the local police department.  In that lesson, students said mean things to “kids” made out of a big sheet of paper.  Then they said nice things and tried to straighten out the wrinkles.  It was a good hands on example of how unkind words wrinkle others inside.    

Academics: This week in math we learned the word “polygon” (a closed figure with straight lines) including hexagons, squares, triangles, and octagons.  In writing, we learned about brainstorming and began brainstorming for an upcoming project.   Our reading and spelling focus was two syllable words. In social studies, we learned about bullying as mentioned abo e.  This week for science, we practiced and prepared for our “science magic show” that we will perform in May.