Mrs. Hallford’s Class Newsletter

October 6-9

I hope everyone had a great experience at the Flint Academy Open House! I really enjoyed getting to speak with everyone who was there, as well as meeting some prospective Flint families.

Last week we finished up our study of Columbus with a written narration. This is an informal way of assessing what the students learned and retained for a given topic. I told them to write down everything they could remember about Columbus, and gave them plenty of time to do so. I was pleased with the amount of information that the class was able to recall! We are now moving into a shorter study of South America and the Spanish and Portuguese explorations there. We will focus on the cultures that already existed in South America, their interactions with European explorers, and native flora and fauna.

We have spent a week preparing for a debate on Sarah Palin, reading an article about her policies in World Magazine. We postponed the debate till Monday, so students could watch the vice presidential debate if they wanted more information. I’m excited to see what they do with this topic!

We are nearly finished with our novel, Surviving The Applewhites. I expect to finish it sometime this week, and then we will do several projects relating to the content of the novel before moving on. Since the characters in the book put on a production of The Sound of Music, and that is a major element of the story, we will be watching The Sound of Music in class. I love helping the students make connections between a novel and other media, because their awareness of the book is so heightened!

In Art we have completed some wonderful picture studies of the Santa Maria, and they are hanging in the hallway outside our class if anyone would like to take a look. I’ll send these home after they have been enjoyed on display for a while!

God bless!

~Nicole Hallford