The Bell-Bannon Crew had a fabulous week delving into adventure, overcoming challenges and goal setting.   Expert, Andy Scott (Keira’s dad), came to our class and shared with us how to overcome challenges by setting goals for ourselves and taking steps to achieve them. He also helped us understand the many important aspects involved in the expedition planning process. Thank you, Andy! Throughout the week, our students were busy preparing for Hike #2. We brainstormed lists of gear, completed fitness activities, held team discussions, made G.O.R.P. and set personal goals. Our hike to Andesite Peak on Friday was the culmination and highlight of our week’s work. The day was perfect, and your youngsters were flooded with pride at their terrific teamwork and their success at reaching their goals.

In addition to our expedition work, guided reading groups began last week. The students worked hard at using their best reading strategies to help them read new texts. We can tell that they have been practicing at home over the summer! Thank you so much!  We are currently focusing on the all-important strategy of “read on.” “Read on” refers to leaving an unknown word blank and to using the context clues in the rest of the sentence to make an educated prediction about the unknown word. Please ask your child to demonstrate the use of this strategy to you. It is a tricky one!

We are still missing some book bags in the mornings. Book bags need to come back every day, or your child can’t receive a new book. Getting the book bags back every day will help your child progress through their reading and develop responsibility for their learning. We will keep the book bags at school over the weekend (so they don’t get lost on a weekend vacationJ). However, we encourage you to still read to your child over the weekend.

We would like to thank all of the parent drivers/chaperones (Stacey, Anna, Kim, Seamus, Crescent, Andy) and parents who donated GORP ingredients (Maria, Kerri, Erica). Your support is really appreciated! We are especially grateful for the diversity of volunteers so that we are all sharing in the driving and donations instead of the same families. A special thank you as well to Jenna Shropshire (Sutter’s mom) for subbing for Ms. Bannon in yoga on Friday the 21st!!

We have two fieldwork dates coming up in October. The date that is confirmed so far is October 8th. We will be going to the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center where we will be learning about our local Sierra Nevada and landforms. This fieldwork is a great opportunity to join us if you have not already. We will not be limiting the chaperones to only five people so hopefully we can have some fieldwork-hungry parents come alongJ. Kerri Flaherty, our fieldwork coordinator, will be emailing you with all the details soon. We will let you know as soon as possible about the second fieldwork date in October.

Thank you all so much for your support and for sharing your wonderful children with us!