5.19.08

Dear Parents,

I can’t believe it’s already the middle of May!  

Our Hero Rock production is next week and our young thespians are hard at work perfecting their singing, dancing and acting. As you may have heard, they theme of the production is an awards ceremony for Jewish heroes.  During the evening you will meet Albert Einstein, and Menachem Begin, and hear the story of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, among others.  The music is catchy, the dancing is lively and the kids are wonderful!  We hope to see you all at our performances next Thursday evening at 7:00pm and next Friday at 10:45am.

In class we are working on our final social studies projects.  For this project, the students have each chosen a topic from California history that we have not yet studied.  They have researched their subject matter and are in the process of creating PowerPoint presentations, which they will share with the class the week of June 2.  In this way, the class will learn about 15 topics, rather than just one.  

We are moving through our last literature book, The People of Sparks.  In this sequel to The City of Ember two very different communities must learn to live together, share resources, deal with difficult citizens, and create a new reality.  It’s a truly amazing story that focuses on relationships and provides us with many opportunities to look at our lives through the author’s eyes. While there will be some written assignments with this story, most of the book will be taught through class discussion.

(By the way, the movie version of Ember is due out in November!)

We will be starting a final science project in class this week.  The students will put their knowledge of electricity to use to create a game board.  This is a fun way to see what they’ve learned during this last unit.  (I’ll let you know how it goes!)

Finally, when we have a few extra minutes, we are studying the work of Victor Vasarely, the father of Op-Art.  We are learning how to create three dimensional images on paper and how to make them “move”.  It’s an exacting, yet exciting art form.

That’s it for now.  Have a great week.

Debbi