The kids recently pointed out a couple things that are apparently bugging them as much as they’ve been bugging me. The first one has to do with our fitness program. As you know, the kids run for about 15 minutes each morning. When a student is sick or injured, parents can call the school or send in a note saying the student cannot run that day. But you know kids…sometimes they exaggerate their condition so that Mom or Dad will give them an excuse not to have to run. When we get to PE, though, and we’re playing their favorite game, they miraculously heal up and are ready to go. Know that our policy is that if a student isn’t healthy enough to do fitness, he or she also isn’t healthy enough to participate in PE. Additionally, we prefer a written note (phone calls necessitate a disruptive intercom call into our classroom). A couple of our students got together and assembled the following standards for the note (and an example, which appears at left): The note should include: 1. a date (some kids use the same excuse note over again); 2. a parent or guardian’s signature (some kids may write their own note); 3. an excuse (if an excuse is just “my child can’t run,” that is not good enough; 4. child’s name (if we don’t know who it is, that’s too bad); 5. a phone number (so we can call to see if the note is real). The kids added some consequences, too, which you can see by clicking here. Note that we cancel the fitness run for all students when the temperature is below freezing, when there is visible precipitation falling, and when the air quality reaches the “red” level.

A second issue that has been drawing groans from the kids is the frequency in which students are departing school early. Early departures cause a disruption in class, both with an intercom call and the process of gathering items the student needs to take home. We may be in the middle of a recital, a read aloud, or a science experiment when we get this buzz from the office and have to stop what we’re doing to send the student on his or her way. (Plus, often times the student doesn’t want to miss what we’re doing.) Lately, it seems to be happening almost every day, and sometimes within ten minutes of the end of the day. We know it gets crowded out there in front of the school, but we’d all appreciate it if you would try to time that doctor’s appointment a bit better. Thanks!

In class this week, the most significant item of note is that we’re now attempting to tackle multiplication with multi-digit factors, such as 67 x 4812. This is one of the toughest math sections of the year, so the kids are likely going to feel frustrated and need extra help at home. Here’s the homework for this week: Monday, Jan. 5; Tuesday Jan. 6 (#3-7 only); Wednesday, Jan. 7 (#1-12 only); Thursday, Jan. 8 (#26-39).