Thai Festival, and more...

Bailey and her kratong

4/5 students with kratongs and Thai apparel

Greetings, and how about some of these pictures!  We celebrated Loy Kratong, a Thai Festival the other week.  The students were able to wear traditional Thai clothing and demonstrated a Thai game during the assembly here at PCS.  They created models of kratongs to place on the "river" in the large room we met in.   Our Thai intern Kru Beau performed a dance as well.  It was a lot of fun!  In other news, the Holiday Bazaar was held this past Friday, and the Winter Concerts are this Wednesday and Thursday.  Also, this coming Friday is the Holiday Lunch.  Our 4/5B class and Ms. Saunder's G5 class will be eating at 11:15 or so......which is the earlier lunch.  This helps Kari in the kitchen get all the food put together for all the lunches.  She thanks us profusely!

Ms. Deb and the gang

The lovely Kru Beau in Traditional dress

Our own Maggie with her kratong

    Meanwhile, back in the classroom,  the 4/5 B students have been working on their new Study Groups during Lit Circle time.  We have divided up into 7 mixed groups of students from the 3-4-5 team classrooms.  For the next few weeks we are delving into the world of non-fiction text.  Each group is reading a book about the ecosystem/animal habitats theme.  We are using various strategies to collect important information.  The theme will close with an information poster scavenger hunt activity. 
      Technology and writing work have finally been connected as the 4/5B students now have Google Doc accounts to do their writing in.  We have just finished setting these up, and they should be available from home as well.   Their work is password protected and allows the students to access their writing from any computer.  
      Our Science unit on Biomes and Ecosystems is winding down now and the class is finishing up their final assessment project as I speak...oh, write....ok, type.  Theye were asked to create a poster of as much info as they could about plants and animals, climate and weather, adaptations, and overall description of 3 different biomes.  They are coming out very well. 
      Ms. Deb continues her unit on the Taino culture.  The students are learning more about the Taino lifestyle of the past and present, their language, and what life was like all these years after Columbus made his voyages to our end of the world.
      We are finishing up our third unit in 4th grade math, and will begin the next unit on 2Dimensional Geometry concepts.  Students will still need to practice their multiplication and division computation strategies and combinations as we continue through the year.
  
      Ok, I suspect that is a fair assessment of what we have been doing in the classroom.  Hope the weekend went well and see you all on Monday!
   
                                                       Mr. B and Ms. Deb