Provisions for People

WHO WANTS TO THROW A PIE IN MY FACE???

Hello MSB Parents,

My class has the opportunity to help out an amazing cause, lead by one of our very own parents, Barry Cooper. Barry is calling this project "Provisions for People". This project is to assist the hundreds of homeless citizens of our very own town. The goal is to create a bag of provisions that can be easily handed to a person in need of help.

It starts with a 2 gallon size bag. Each 2 gallon bag contains the following items:
A warm pair of socks, a toboggan(hat), 1 washcloth, toothbrush/toothpaste, deodorant, bar of soap, shampoo, 1 comb, Chapstick, flashlight/batteries, hot hands, antibacterial wipes, bottle of water, applesauce/spoon, beef jerky, granola bar, cheese/crackers, peanut butter/crackers, tuna salad/crackers, pack of gum and some hard candy. Our goal is to have 50 of these ready by the 26th for us to put in the officer's cars that night. Each bag is roughly $12 for the items. They could also be tailored to include note cards with encouragement/scripture, gift cards to McDonalds etc. The bags can be made gender specific with the hygiene items as well.

Our class goal is FIFTY bags. I have 23 students, so if each child can create 2 bags then we will have 46...I will cover the extra four myself to reach the goal. During the can food drive, we did not reach the goal to celebrate with Pies in my face, so we can try that AGAIN! If we get 50 bags by Tuesday Jan. 26th, then every student that brings 2 bags can throw a pie in my face! I will announce this to the class tomorrow; I know they will be excited! This is a great opportunity to teach them about helping others in our community!

If any students in other classes would like to help and bring 2 bags, I am sure their teachers wouldn't mind if they got to throw a PIE in my face as well! smile emoticon

Tiny Humans...

Tomorrow we will begin yet another round of testing at our school.  As a matter of fact, every school in Jackson Madison County will start another round of testing.  At this point, I honestly am not sure if this is a real or practice test because they all come so frequently that it is difficult to keep up.  In the shadows of all these tests, I found myself pondering the end goal of such a system.  Why would you water-down a child to a point on a graph? Why would you strip away their name, personality, and everything that makes them amazing and replace it with a data point?

          I have twenty-two children in my classroom.  I have 10 first-graders, 6 second-graders, and 6 third-graders.  I refuse to look at them as points on a graph or a score on a test.  I could tell you amazing things about each one of them.  I could describe to you how they laugh on the playground and how they focus during our meditation time.  I could tell you which ones prefer Zumba and which ones prefer Yoga.  I could tell you which little ones might cry if their feelings are hurt and how I would make them smile again.  I could tell you which ones show outstanding leadership skills at recess and which ones dabble in the dramatic arts.  There is so much that I could tell you about each one of them, but I would never describe them as a Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 individual.  This is how the state of Tennessee would have me describe them to you.  I refuse to think of them that way.

          I became a teacher to help cultivate the minds of the little humans of the world.  I did not become a teacher to assign a label, data point, or line graph to each individual child.  In my classroom, I teach them to be good people.  I teach them to love, to learn, to be peaceful, to create, to solve, to give, and to grow.  If this is not what a teacher is supposed to do, then perhaps I should find another profession.  Tomorrow when my little 3^rd graders enter the computer lab to take another standardized test, I will smile at them and say, “Don’t worry, just do your best!”  This will be the only discussion that we have about the test, because they are more than a test score to me…..to me… they are amazing little humans.

RIFA

Dear Parents,

I very much want our class to complete a community service project before Thanksgiving!  I spoke with RIFA today and they are in NEED of POP-TOP Soup cans for their snack pack program. The cans need to be pop-tops so that students can make them on their own. The snack pack program provides food to 912 elementary age children in JMCSS.  I want to set a HIGH goal and try to collect one can for each child before Thanksgiving break!  If we meet our goal of 912, the students will get a fun reward:)  

Mrs. B

The Market

Dear Parents,

The multi-cultural projects are due by the end of the day Wednesday.  Students have the freedom to be creative and complete their project in the style that best fits their strengths.  If anyone has any souvenirs, pictures, or items from China that they would like to display in the market, please send them by Wednesday.  I had considered handing out fortune cookies at the market, until my husband reminded me that there are NO fortune cookies in China, this is actually a Chinese-American tradition.  So, I decided that it would be fun and easy to give each guest a Green Tea packet.  Every restaurant and grocery we visited in China had Green tea; it is a huge part of their culture! If anyone would like to send a pack of Green Tea, just make sure that it is a box with individually wrapped tea bags. We will probably need at least 300 tea bags or more. If every student brings one box of 20 Green Tea bags, then we would have enough :)  I do not need any parents to work our table, however parents are invited to attend the market on Friday and tour with their child.  I am very happy to be back, and we are going to be very busy learning each and every day!!

Mrs. B

Hello from China

Hello everyone:) I wanted to say hello from China:) I am sorry that I will not be there next week for Parent Teacher Conferences, but I will work with Ms. Hughes and Mrs. Robertson to compile notes and observations on each child and send this home when I return.  Make sure your 1st graders are working on reading....2nd grade work on reading and adding/ subtracting with borrowing and carrying....3rd grade work on typing and multiplication tables!!!! Please tell your children that I miss them and I am gathering some great things for our multi-cultural market!!

Contact Info for Mrs. Hughes

Contact info for sub. Virginia Hughes 
(731) 988-6009.  We are working on getting her a school email as well.

Updates

Ms. Hughes will be starting tomorrow in the classroom full time.  This will give me a chance to see how things are going for a couple days before leaving the country.  The students are doing great, working their plans, and learning each day.:)  I am so proud of them!  We have an amazing class this year!  

Reminders: Friday is Inside Out/Backwards day or spirit shirt day

Everyone has been doing great about bringing healthy snacks.  We do have some allergies in the class: peanuts, eggs, yogurt, and aspartame.

Remember that if you have time in the evenings, reading aloud and math facts are excellent things to practice!  

Also, Parent-Teacher Conferences are scheduled for September 3rd but I will not be back in the country at that time.  If I have any specific issues, I will email parents directly and feel free to do the same.  September 3rd will be a half day for students and there will be NO school for students on September 4th.