Dear Parents,

Last week was busy with testing in Reading, writing, and Math. The kids were good about trying their best. I was very happy with the Math test.

This week we will be starting Unit 5 in Reading Street. The big question for this unit is "What makes an adventure?" This week we will be reading about smokejumpers and preparing for emergencies.

I started reading a gripping book to the class called Fever 1793 by a national award winning author, Laurie Halse Anderson. It is an historical fiction book about the yellow fever epidemic that killed many people in Philadephia in 1793, the main theme being perseverance and self-reliance. I am quite sure there will be many questions and discussions at home as well as in class about living in that time and making some difficult moral decisions. I feel that this book is rich in vocabulary, steeped in history as well as extremely engaging. We will be using it to compare and contrast that time period with what we now know about diseases and medicine, build vocabulary and review what we learned of that time period. I hope this leads to thoughtful discussions in school and at home. So far, most of the kids love it!

With the longer days and more outside activities, some of the kids seem very tired. I hope that they can get enough sleep to be bright and alert during the school day. Spring fever seems to be setting in.