Thank you all for the thoughtful and generous gifts last week. The pail that arrived today will make Shy smile! :)

The children told me that you truly enjoyed the Mother's Day gifts yesterday. They were 100% designed, organized, created, and thought of by your children individually - every color, word, song, and arrangement was selected and designed alone. Hooray! If I ever got something like that, then I would be so touched. Thank you to those who send messages to me! :) :) :)

Now you know why we had oral presentation (sharing) opportunities three Mondays in a row. It was purposefully planned to make them as comfortable as possible when the real recording day (last Monday) arrived. It worked thanks to all of your preparation and help at home! You didn't realize there was a bigger purpose, but you were the recipients of the dedicated time. The video clips in your child's first official self-created movie really captured how most share with comfort. :) The planning began over a month ago and turned out better than imagined. Thank you!

This morning, we reviewed math concepts with buddies with the emphasis on talking through strategies and the process of elimination. Later, the groups who had not performed their various versions of "Jack and the Beanstalk" had the chance to do so. Watch your child's app as the performance featuring your child will pop up some time this week (when I squeeze it in).

The butterflies are happily enjoying their customized habitat. A few are quite clever and escape once in a while. :) We saw some very large, beautiful butterflies while enjoying popsicles in the Reading Garden right after lunch today.

Reading groups are focusing on reading to learn, learning to take notes (words and phrases only-no sentences ever in notes), learning how to study (really! - how to study notes), and deep comprehension to process the cycle of how something becomes something else (chosen by reading groups - varies). We are incorporating the icons of depth and complexity in preparation to teach the other groups about what we are reading and learning.

Your child played a dictionary hunt game this afternoon with Tyler's mom. It was the first time for some children, since we have access to other resources of unlimited definitional ability. They focused on using guide words, locating words with quick abc order use, identifying the part of speech, and syllabication found in dictionaries. The unanswered question was how they could learn the definition of a word if they didn't have the five pound dictionary. :) A big discovery was their continuous search for a word that was not included (milkweed) and why it wasn't there (limited space & children's dictionary). Times have sure changed quickly! When was the last time you went to look in a dictionary? :) : ) :)

Tomorrow we will resume our testing schedule with math. We are all excited!