October 1, 2012

We're in the midst of two exciting projects right now: Hispanic Heritage and Day of the Dead! Students have finished researching our country for Hispanic Heritage month, Ecuador, and are busy creating posters of famous people and writing their scripts. We'll begin filming our movie this week, and hopefully, I'll be able to post it soon.

I also passed out letters today about our Day of the Dead project. Students need to choose one relative who has passed away to honor, and they need to interview two people about the person they are honoring. The first interview is due next week on Tuesday, and the second interview the Monday after that. We'll then begin working on our paragraphs about these people. Students also need to bring in a shoebox so we can create an ofrenda, or altar, for that person, along with photographs and mementos to place in the box. We will have time in school to work on these, and I can provide the students with construction paper, feathers, and glitter, but anything else they'll need to bring from home. We'll create the altars on the 26th and 31st of October. If you'd like to see examples of projects from previous years, feel free to look at last year's blog entries!

We began to talk about the economy today in social studies. One aspect of this unit is to talk with the students about their own financial decisions. We discussed today the difference between needs and wants, and how some things we need to save to buy and some things we can buy now. We'll work in the next few weeks with tracking spending and creating savings plans. I encouraged the students to discuss with you at home something they wanted that they could save for, and it would be great if this could become something they do at home and actually save for and buy, instead of just something we discuss in class!