April Showers...

It is looking like a wet week ahead, which should be just fine to wash off the last dust of the winter, and send us into an event filled spring.  
For the coming week, there will be no Literacy Log homework, as all students are working hard at completing the editing and revision of their Alpha Biographies.  These have been a work in progress since September, and are going to be due in (finally) on April 30th.  
With 26 letters, we should have roughly 30 pages in our final copies.  They are to be printed on regular 8.5 x 11 paper.  Every letter/chapter does not need to have a photo or image to match, but it would be good to include images whenever possible.
In class we had guided writing lessons on writing copyright pages, back covers, about the authors, table of contents, and more, so there could be a number of additional pages.
Students have been encouraged to increase font size to at least 18 when printing.
We are hoping to send these off to be bound, so keep your eyes open for the order forms that we will send home in advance of the April 30 due date.  The cost to have this 'autobiography' of your child bound is going to be less than $12 I believe (this will be on the order form)
We have completed checklists in class, but you should check in with your child and ask them where they are in the process of completing this project.  Most of the writing should be finished, and some cleanup likely needs to be done to get it ready, and this is why we are passing on literacy logs.  Students should still be reading for the provincially recommended 20 min a day, but their writing should focus on getting their alpha biographies ready to go.
This past week we received our pen pal responses, and we sent off a reply the same day, via our Chromebooks.  We are hoping to set up a visit with our penpals in the coming weeks.  I will let you know when this will take place, as their visit last year was one of the most moving experiences of the year (and of my career).  Our pals are students from Crystal Bay, and all have exceptionalities that keep them out of the regular stream programs.  They all have several challenges, but often vision, hearing, speech, and motor control are the ones that others notice when they meet them.  Last year we were able to connect during their visit to Churchill, over snacks, various games or puzzles, and some music that our students performed on uke and guitar.  This set up our visit to their school, where we put on a mini performance.  
This time around we will likely prepare a couple of songs to sing for them, and we will be looking for volunteers to donate extra snack for that day so we can share with our pen pals.  Stay tuned for more details on when they are available to visit.
The class got deep into some three act math problems this past week.  Ask your child about surface area measured in sticky notes, or calculating floor area with goldfish crackers...
Just FYI....
School of Rock shirts have been ordered, but you can still order a poster up until the week of the show.
Buttons will be going on sale this week for a dollar a button...
The show is on May 8th, at noon and 7pm.  We are looking for volunteers to help with the walk over.  
There will be a dress rehearsal on Tuesday, May 5th, at 7pm.  We are looking for help putting up posters on this night, so if you are dropping off your child, please stick around and lend a hand...
Anyone who is looking to help out between now and the show can drop in and let me know, and I will likley put you to work with a set of students to create posters for the show.
BTW, ask your child about the 'Seen Your Citizen?' performance we had this past week.  It was really impressive.
Cheers, Ray