Congrats to to our winning History Jeopardy group, which consisted of Sophie Q., Peyton, Giovanni, and Ana. They prudently wagered their winnings and correctly responded to the Final Jeopardy item, “When the Jamestown settlers took Pocahontas to London, they gave her this English name.” (Ask your child for the correct response). Kudos to all the students for presenting a strong Jeopardy competition. They also seemed to have done a good job on the history test that followed the next day.

Congrats to the Coca-Cola Crew and the Doughnuts, the top two teams in our classroom floor hockey tourney. They’ll play for the championship on Monday (the 23rd) at 10:00 a.m.. The school tourney, meanwhile, starts on Friday with an assembly for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at 12:45. We’ll be watching the first two games of CPE’s Sportsmanship Floor Hockey Tourney at that time.

More congrats, this one to Yuri for winning a lead role in the Crater Performing Arts play, “Mary Poppins.” Yuri will be playing Jane, the child lead in the story. Yea, Yuri! Yuri’s also playing Abe Lincoln (believe it or not) in our class play, “A President’s Day Dream,” which we hope to perform the week of March 2nd. We’ll continue to work on our plays, including “The Secret Soldier” and “Tearing Down the White House,” this week. In addition to reviewing their lines each night, students should be developing their costumes, which need only be enough to distinguish one character from another. Yuri, for example, might simply be sporting a stove-top hat and a beard. Yuri, by the way, is also running a drama club for our Friday afternoon club time in class. Other clubs include a crocheting club (Kara’s), a knitting club (McKenna’s), a science club (Alyssa’s), a drawing club (Rayden’s), and a history club (JB’s). The student-created and student-led activities give our kids a chance to develop their leadership, collaboration, and teaching skills while pursuing areas of personal interest. Friday’s first-day effort went decently well!

Students are expected to finish their independent chapter book by Thursday morning this week. They will also be editing and revising their latest Perfect Paragraphs, working on dialogue sentences with the speaker at the beginning, looking closely at the American Revolution in history class, and learning the traditional algorithm for long division. Here’s the math homework for the week: Monday, Feb. 23; Tuesday, Feb. 24; Wednesday, Feb. 25; Thursday, Feb. 26.