Friday (Wednesday!) Letter - 10.19.11

10/19/11

Dear RiverRun Families,

Your children have been working hard these past two weeks. The Farmers Museum was a great trip. In preparation the children learned some colonial music and a dance to accompany. This trip tied in nicely with our discussion of the basic needs of humans. They got to see how much work went into everyday activities without our modern conveniences.

Today the children had a lesson on the History of Light. The lesson started with primitive man and their dependence on the sun and moon and how fire changed how they lived. I was able, with a lot of effort, to start a fire using flint stone, jute, and char cloth. It took a lot of sparks to get the fire going, but it worked! We looked at the invention of the candle, oil lamp, kerosene lamp, light bulb, florescent light, LED light and talked about inventions on the horizon using solar energy. This lesson allows the children to see how these inventions changed the way we live.

Since we are going to they Hyde collection Debbie has been working with the children during art on line, color, texture, shape, and space. Some of the illustrators we will see at the museum are being used as example of these.

In physical education we are working on dribbling a basketball and the chest pass, stopping and moving a soccer ball and the underhand throw using bean bags.

The elders were just introduced to the checkerboard, which is used for learning multi-digit multiplication. At our parent education night, taking place on November 10th, I will demonstrate how to use this material. The first years continue to work on nouns and articles and the middles are concentrating on dynamic addition and subtraction.

Dates to remember:
October 21st -No school Staff training
November 8th -field trip to HMT/Shakespeare
November 10th- Parent Education Evening starting at 7 pm
November 11th -No School/Veteran's Day
November 13th - Potluck 4:00 P.M. Location TBA

swiftly slices and
slashes through the darkness
seeking and
searching for a place

suitable to light

May light shine upon you,
Amy and Debbie