The month started with our fantastic trip to Eagle Bluff. I really enjoyed getting to know all of the 7th grade students better. In addition, the learning opportunities were great. I especially enjoyed the Fungus Among Us and Pond Life classes. And a definite highlight of the trip for me was rock climbing for the very first time! I hope all of our students enjoyed the trip and took home some great memories.
This month, our Green Challenge is all about recycling, so as a homeroom, we have been saving all of our recycled items to see how much can be recycled over the course of a few weeks. During the last week of the month, we plan to make some creative sculptures using our recycled items. All of this is being done to help visualize the amount of recycled material that can be collected with a little effort, in order to emphasize the importance of recycling whatever trash we can.
We have met twice with our book buddies from Ms. Kroll’s 3rd/4th grade class. During the first meeting, we met our buddies and listened to the story Just a Dream, about the chances for a positive future for our planet if we learn to take care of it. During our second meeting, each pair of buddies drew a picture showing their concept of our world 100 years in the future, taking into account whether we care for our planet or not. These pictures will be gathered and made into a book. Our 7th graders did an excellent job getting to know their buddies and all students did a great job sharing and creating their pictures!
As a way of reinforcing positive behavior during study hall and throughout the day (in addition to giving out Hawks tickets), our homeroom is going to have “Fun Fridays” during the study hall period on Friday, for those who choose to participate (if students would rather do homework, that is fine!). Students have written down their idea of a fun activity on a card and one card will be drawn from a jar each Friday afternoon as our fun activity to do together that day. We hope to have many Fun Fridays together!
I have seen many great examples of good citizenship and teamwork in our homeroom over the last few weeks. These include students wishing our athletes luck as they head out to soccer games and cross country meets, students welcoming other students back after they’ve been out sick, and students working together on classroom jobs and helping each other with school projects. It is a great thing to see!