Happy Winter Break!

This week the Esprit Team participated in Differences Awareness Day.  We listened to a panel of three people share with us about their disabilities.  Heidi, our first panelist, shared about her experiences being visually impaired.  Abby, our second panelist, shared about her experiences living with Autism and ADHD.  Our third panelist, our own Mr. D., shared about living with Cerebral Palsy.  When they were finished sharing we had an opportunity to ask them each some questions.  Later that morning we participated in disability simulations.  Be sure to ask your child about these simulations.  It was a wonderful experience for everyone.

Esprit has worked hard all week to finish our book projects and our non-fiction writing pieces. This morning Miss Deb's class shared their projects and writing pieces with Vasanthi's class and received many compliments about them.  This afternoon the Esprit Team enjoyed a Publishing Party to celebrate all the hard work we have done.  Miss Deb and Miss Niles' classes got together and shared their writing pieces with each other.  The celebration continued with popcorn and a short movie afterward.  Please be sure to have your child share their writing with you.  We have some excellent writers on the Esprit team!

We will begin new units in Math and Literacy after the Winter Break.  Our math unit will focus on multiplication, division and area.  Our writing unit will focus on adapted fairy tales and we are very fortunate to be working with the Flynn for this unit.  We will have four mornings with a Flynn artist who will help us retell fairy tales through acting and story boarding.  This will help us get to know the fairy tales very well so we can adapt them with our own writing.  In reading, we will be doing character studies using the book Because of Winn Dixie.
Have a terrific winter break!
Deb and Jenn