Mr. J's Family Visits, Buddy Rooms, Pendulums, Writing

Today was an awesome day! My family made a surprise visit to the classroom. Kari, my wife brought Ava and Luke in to visit. Luke was a little fussy, but Ava enjoyed conversing with your kids and reading a book with Mommy to them. The students thought it was funny that Luke only wanted to be with Mommy and didn't want anything to do with me:) Later we had our buddy rooms and the kids were all paired up with first graders. I think they all had a great time. For next week Mrs. Weathers and I hope to do a science observation with the buddies on sunflowers. We hope to find around 30 sunflowers before next Thursday. If you can help out with that in any way, please let me know! Pendulums. The pendulums we made out of washers was a huge success! Our key questions was: How can you make the pendulum swing faster? The most popular variable were adding more washers and shortening the height of the pendulum. You should have your child explain to you our findings! Writing: Because of the visit from my family and the buddy rooms, we have only two stories about 9/11 ready today. Here's a little background. Emily Sussell was a sixth grade student who attended school across the street from the Twin Towers when they were hit. The kids story picks up when Emily and her mom "...left the school--just as the south tower collapsed. They ran to escape the smoke and debris." Find the links to the left to hear to historical fiction stories filling in the details of this event.