Letters From Malawi!!!!!!!!

Can you say.... WOW! Did we really do all that in one day? Answer: Indeed we did! Holy cow, we started with our morning meeting and skipped right into handwriting and word study, when we were pleasantly surprised by some very special visitors, Karen and Steve Hardy from the Educate Malawi organization. We were deeply touched, blown away, really, by the thoughtful words and photos that they brought back from our pen pals in Malawi! This global outreach project was worthy enough... but then, 2nd and 4th grade decided to turn it into a service project, and not only learn about conditions in Africa, but get actively involved. That's where "friendship pins" come in! Our friendship pins raised... unbelievably... a little over $200.00 dollars! What??? Seriously... talk about school support... those pins cost about a dime, maybe a quarter. We clearly, sold many many pins and had amazing support from our school community! Well done Sunderland Elementary! To put it into perspective, Steve Hardy mentioned a bag of cement costs about $15.00, so we have significantly contributed to the floor of the school they are building in Malawi! We have helped put a floor in our friends school! Humbling, when you think about it... the effort and energy going into the pleasure of having a "floor" in your school! I could not have been any prouder of these students than I was today!
Thanks to Karen, Steve, and Educate Malawi for offering us the opportunity to get involved (and that didn't come from me, it came from our own 2nd grader Mary, and 4th grader Rachel)! Impressive!
When our feet finally landed on the ground after celebrating our letters and contribution with Karen and Steve, we got back to business! Writing workshop, again, was filled with science and learning more about the Earth, Moon and Sun! Students wrote more scientific facts in preperation for our fact books project which begins tomorrow!
It was pocket day in math today, and count pockets we did! Teaming numbers together to make our adding easy (finding "friendly numbers... doubles, addends to ten) and discovered we had 60 pockets today. We practiced more double digit subtraction with borrowing (and sometimes NOT borrowing) and enjoyed a cool smart board lesson showing how we borrow from the tens, and bring "it" to the ones! Emma, our new student teacher, helped lead a fun, interactive follow up lesson to borrowing/regrouping, and we LOVED it! Did I mention, we even got some gardening in today as well, cleaning leaves out of our second grade bulb garden and making observations of our new sprouts! We ended the day reviewing some geometry in the computer lab with symmetry pictures, and "slides", "flips", and "turns". Now I call that one full, fun, productive day! One of the best ever... and that's just the way we like it!