Dear Families,
This past week in Trillium we began our study of Chinese New Year and Chinese culture. As part of our discussion, one student asked “why do we learn about Chinese New Year?”. Such an excellent question! I posed this question back to the students, who had a variety of answers: we don’t know about it, it’s fun, we get to learn about dragons and parades, etc. One student replied “because people need to know about each other so they can understand each other. It helps people get along”. Another replied “just like Martin Luther King taught us!”. Listening to conversations like these give me so much encouragement for our future!
We started by looking at what makes up culture, including the people, beliefs, celebrations, stories, holidays, food, music, play, environment, and more. We read the story Ruby’s Chinese New Year, about a young girl who is joined by the animals for the Chinese zodiac to get to her Grandmother’s house to celebrate Chinese New Year. This sweet story explained the legend of the Chinese zodiac and how the animals were chosen. Then we looked up the Trillium birthdays and discovered that we have snakes and horses in class! We sent home a copy of the legend and the Chinese calendar in folders on Friday so you can look up the birthdays in your families.
We had a very fun writers workshop on Thursday morning when we were joined by the 2nd grade writers. They brought stories to share with us, then spent the remaining time reading Trillium stories and helping us with revision. This visit inspired us as writers, and our Friday writing workshop was one of our most productive yet.
Mark your calendars! The Trillium Dragon Parade will be on Friday, February 28th at 2:45. You won’t want to miss this sweet celebration. It has become a popular MRA event!
As me abouts:
What is a paper lantern?
What books are in your book box?
What are you writing about?
What are the February calendar markers?
What are the new math workplaces?