12/4/12
Dear RiverRun Families,
Last week we finished the book Premlata and the
Festival of Lights, by Rumer Godden.
This was a perfect book to illustrate this week’s Writers’ Workshop
discussions on stories having beginnings, middles, ends and problems which need
solutions. As I read their stories, I
could see that many children have fantastic beginnings, but have difficulty
coming to conclusions. Premlata and
the Festival of Lights allowed the children to identify the problem in the
story (poverty) and how the story reaches a happy ending (the family receives a nice place to live, a
good job is given to the mother and the family’s benefactor even provides hope
for the future as he sends the children to school).
We also started to read The Arrow Over the Door, by
Joseph Bruchac and are now looking at how the author began his story,
introducing the characters and the setting, and is now developing the
problem. Stories are now being written by the children
for the Authors’ Tea. The date of this
gathering will be announced as we get closer to publication.
As we near the end of the year 2012, we have been working
hard on learning the Months of the Year.
We talked about how the tracking of time has changed over the years;
some tracking time according to the Sun, others the Moon. This is been a good follow up to our
discussions on the Sun and Earth.
On Tuesday, Dan ( Luke’s father) came to set off rockets
built by the Upper El. We went out to
watch them blast off and the kids loved it.
Some of the rockets were taken by the wind and are stuck in trees. We hope to eventually see them again.
Next week we will be seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Troy. As usual we will take the public bus. If you haven’t sent in the permission slip
and money for the play please remember to do so.
On December 19th we would like to gather as a
community in the evening and have dinner together. We are working out the details for this and
will pass information on as we solidify plans.
Have a pleasant weekend,
Amy
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