Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I always loved the time with family and friends and the fact that I was actually given the responsibility to make the pecan pie. Today we had the opportunity to celebrate a little bit of Thanksgiving at school. Students spent time thinking about what they were thankful for. One student mentioned that she was thankful for her family, especially her parents for keeping her safe and healthy. Another student mentioned being thankful to live with a dog that she could play with. All in all, every student really had a lot to be thankful for.

To celebrate this holiday, the room parents came together and put together a party. When you look at the pictures you'll realize that there was a lot of good treats to go around!

Along with the Thanksgiving celebration, today was also special because of the school assembly. Eleven students from our class volunteered to take part in a play in front of the entire elementary school. We had to present a short skit that demonstrates what it means to be adaptable. After two recesses of practice and one dress rehearsal, the kids were more than ready. They all did an amazing job and received many, many compliments. I'm planning on linking video soon so that everyone can see the video. Happy Thanksgiving!

Students worked very hard on their second published piece. They took on the challenge to ‘make their best writing even better.’ They did this by focusing on developing stories that follow a narrative story structure, and zooming in to small moments that they could write with clarity and description. Everyone worked hard on the writing process and went through revisions to make their writing the best it could be.

To read the writing and comment, there has been a change. For some reason that is yet to be understood, I cannot save any changes to the student pages. As a result, I have made a new page above (2nd Published Stories) that includes a description of each story and a individual link to each story. In order to read the writing, just select the title of the piece you wish to read.

One of the difficult parts of sharing one page is that the comment area is now shared as a class. As a result, when you leave a comment, make sure to write the name of the person who wrote the story you are responding to. The class worked very hard on these stories, so make sure to take the time and read the work and don’t forget to leave plenty of comments!

At 8:30 this morning both our class and Mrs. Merril’s class filed on to the bus to head to the Shanghai History Museum in the Pearl Tower. After finally getting to the museum, everyone broke up into small groups and each group was given a camera. While walking around the museum, students took photos of displays that represented what Shanghai used to be like. For each picture the students catalogued the information and what they learned. After completing the museum tour we walked over to the Promenade along the Huang Pu River and enjoyed the views of new Shanghai and took even more photos. All of these photos will be put to good use, starting tomorrow students will be using i-movie to put together a slide show that demonstrates how Shanghai has changed over the years.

In order for this field trip to be a success, we needed a lot of parent involvement, and I have to say that the parents came through. We had eleven parents and family members from our class alone! So to all the parents who were able to take time out of their schedule to help chaperone, thanks so much!

Anybody who has seen me since the first of November has noticed that something has been growing above my upper lip. Don’t worry, it’s only a mustache. Why, you may be asking, would you grow a mustache from scratch. You might even be thinking that it looks quite horrendous. All of this may be true. As for why I am putting myself through this, and enduring the looks of disgust from my wife, it all comes down to one thing- Movember.

Movember (the month formerly known as November) is an annual charity event held during November. At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants, known as Mo Bros, have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their Mo, raising money along the way to benefit men's health - specifically prostate cancer and male depression. As the pictures show, many teachers at SAS (mostly male) have taken on this challenge. If you would like to donate to this cause, I am here to help. All you have to do is visit my Movember website and select the donate here link, or just go straight to the donations by selecting the following link: Donate Here

Thanks so much, and make sure to check out the slide show and enjoy the parade of mustaches.

What a morning! We started off with the annual House Road Race. Elementary and middle school students came to school in their house shirts and ran and raced around the school. Everyone had a good time and made a great effort. I have the photos to prove it! This morning we also had the privilege of seeing a special performance by a couple actors who are here for the Shanghai Fringe Festival. While I unfortunately don't have any shots- the experience was memorable. Many of the 4th graders were brave enough to volunteer to go up on stage and present a character while wearing a mask. Believe it or not, in the middle of all this we actually did some teaching as well!

Once again it is that time...Math Jeopardy Time! Students worked in their groups today practicing and reviewing all their decimals. On Tuesday, we are going to have the math test. It will cover everything we learned about decimals. Areas of focus include adding, subtracting and ordering decimals to the thousandths. Good luck with Jeopardy and have fun reviewing the work from the unit.

Math Jeopardy

At 11:30 today all the 4th graders had the great luxury of going to book fair. The fair was well stocked with a variety of titles representing many different reading levels and genres. While today was our only scheduled book fair time, it is still possible for students to bring in money and stop by to purchase more books. As a teacher, I can never say no to spending money on books. I took a few shots of the 4th graders as they perused the aisles for good reading.

The Giving Tree is a project run by SAS each holiday season to help out Chinese children less fortunate than ourselves. The children have been identified by the Shanghai Charity Foundation.

Each classroom at SAS sponsors five children.  Students from that class bring in new clothing, toys, and special items to give to that child. This is a great opportunity for out students to truly get in the spirit of the season. To find more specific information about the children we are providing gifts for, click on the following link: The Giving Tree.