We've been buzzing with activity!

Yet another wonderful week on Wizards Team! The Governor just released new guidance on Friday based on the increase of COVID cases in Vermont and we encourage you to follow it because now that we have had all of the kids in the building 4 days a week we want to keep it that way! It benefits them so much to be at school with their peers. As you will read below, we get so much accomplished in a week that it would be a real bummer to go remote! From team building to menu division to effective communication, they are learning and applying so many skills in a day! AND they are HAPPY to be at school! So let's all do our part to keep safe so we can stay in school.

Conferences: The Zoom link will be emailed to families the day before your scheduled conference.

Science: We have been working on exploring the interactions among living things. Students were introduced to the controversy of the wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park and are building food webs to determine the role of wolves and the impact of their reintroduction to the food web.

Wizards T-shirt design: Wizards t-shirt design voting took place the week after the election to support our discussions and learning around the importance of voting. We announced the design contest winners and it was super cute when the kids cheered. More info on T-shirts to come!

Language Arts and so much more!!!

I'm not even sure where to start! When I look back over the last week or so, I'm in disbelief at how many different things we fit into a day! Having the added study hall time has helped with this.

On Monday my "cousin" came for a visit to host the All You Can Read Book Buffet. Students got to sample a variety of books to choose from for our next novel study. If you didn't hear about my alter ego, ask your child about Tanya Rae...

Our overarching questions for this novel study are...

1- How does literature change our perspective about ourselves, others and/or the world?

2- How do characters change over the course of a novel? What causes them to change?

I had 12 different books they could choose from all with the theme of developing empathy. Each main character faces adversity of some sort. Students might relate to the characters and better understand that they are not alone in their experience OR they might learn about the difficulties that others face which will give them a better understanding and perspective of the challenges of others.

Students will be working with partners to read, take notes, lead discussions, and do projects for the novel they chose. Enthusiasm was high when they received their "To-go bags" on Thursday. In fact, almost every partnership agreed to start reading their novels over this weekend rather than waiting until Monday!

Mindfulness:

Students watched this Ted Talk about the benefits of mindfulness so that they have a better understanding of why we are going to be teaching these skills more explicitly.

Identity Work:

We just finished the novel Restart which is about a middle school boy falling on his head, getting amnesia, and then trying to figure out what kind of person he was versus who he wants to be. (He was a bully before his accident and a decent person after his fall.) So now, we are beginning a unit on personal identity. Students will be exploring who they are through a VARIETY of activities from interviewing family members about how they got their name and what their ancestry is to family traditions. If you think that activities and conversations about their identity/family could raise any particular negative emotions for your child, please let me know.

Courageous Conversations:

Below are agreements developed by Glenn Singleton that support dialogue around difficult topics. We use them in our work as educators involving racial and social justice. This week the students worked in groups to deconstruct and gain a better understanding of the agreements listed below. These agreements will guide us whenever we discuss books, history, and current events. You will notice the theme of compassion and social justice are a thread that runs through just about every topic I teach over the next two years. Technically I'm the "Language Arts" teacher on team Wizards, but I think really I should be referring to myself as a Humanities teacher instead since I weave all the disciplines together.

Here are Singleton's agreements for courageous conversations...

1-Stay engaged

2-Experience discomfort

3-Speak your truth

4-Accept and expect non-closure

5-Suspend Judgement