Happy May 5B! It has been a beautiful and warm week here! The trees are blooming and the class can't get enough of being outside. The only downside: ticks are appearing. One student even found a tick crawling on another student's face on Monday during lunch! Ticks are one of the only things I'm grossed out by, so I'm hoping they stay outside the classroom from now on! I have heard (and can see from my already over-flowing calendar), that May is a busy month here at Friends, and one that will go by quickly! We have two field trips coming up, the overnight, the Spring Concert, and Grey and Blue day. When do we have time for class??? Don't worry! We still have a few math units to get through (multiplying and dividing decimals, percents, and graphs and probability), a book to finish (Journey to Topaz), and the continuation of our study of government. So we will be BUSY in 5B! Journey to Topaz We began Journey to Topaz this week, a book that is near and dear to my heart. Growing up in California, learning about Japanese internment during WWII was a core part of my elementary curriculum. When I moved to Massachusetts I discovered that a lot of people had not heard of this piece of American history. The class was quick to make connections to other times in American history when a group of people are feared or blamed when someone of the same nationality, ethnicity, or religion does something that causes harm to the United States. As they read the book, I expect them to become frustrated with this piece of history. One of the main reasons I appreciate studying history is to look for patterns, but I also believe that we can learn from and improve upon mistakes we have made. For example, we read an article about the Executive Order that President Trump passed in early 2017 banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. I expect the class to see that sometimes we do not learn from our mistakes, and I hope that they also connect this book to the school mission to be a responsible citizen who promotes honesty, commitment, and respect for others. On Thursday the class read an article about Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American man who went into hiding instead of being detained and sent to an internment camp. The article does a good job of connecting recent political events (Arab American immigration in 2017) to Japanese internment. Several students were surprised that history had repeated itself so closely. They were also surprised by the conditions of the camps (which we will be learning more about), and that the government would treat its American citizens this way (about two-thirds of the Japanese people put into concentration camps were born in the U.S.) Teaching! On Monday Sidney taught us how to make origami cats. They were a big hit (even though the class is primarily dog people!). On Tuesday Austa taught us how to pass a soccer ball. I was mostly a swimmer in high school, and I never really learned how to pass a ball properly. I learned a lot! And my feet got pretty muddy, too :) On Thursday Phoebe taught us how to draw a wave! Most of us would have loved a wave to wash over us this week as it started to heat up! Ratios We concluded our Ratios unit with a test of sorts. Because we shortened the unit, I shortened the test. Students had only 8 problems to solve, and I pasted them around the room so they could get a little movement while solving the problems. They thought it was a pretty great way to take a test :) Grandfriends Day It was so wonderful meeting so many Grandfriends on Friday! They had Morning Meeting with us, played Zoom Eek and Night at the Museum, then went off to Science, and concluded the day with Found Poetry. For the poetry activity we used pages from books we have read over the course of the year to create poems. We made sure to get many photos, and you can find them all on the Photos tab. Best,
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