Spring is here!

I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break.  It is good to have everyone back.  I would like to thank all of the parents and students who made our student led conferences such a success.  I was really impressed at how much the students were able to articulate what they have been learning about.  There has been so much growth since the beginning of the year.  They class has really matured so much, especially during the past few weeks.

Speaking of maturing...

The 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th grade classes of Innovations Academy will be participating in a series of sexual education classes beginning Thursday, April 11^th.  There will be three additional classes taking place on April 18, April 25, and May 9.  These classes will be taught by an experienced professional from San Diego Youth Empowerment who has worked with Innovations Academy in the past and received excellent reviews.  

The topics he plans to cover include body changes, text messaging and sexting, appropriate touching and personal boundaries, and healthy relationships.  He will also hold a question and answer session where all questions will be screened before being read and answered.

We plan on all students participating in the classes.  If however, you would not like your child to partake in this program, please provide your child’s teacher with a note stating this desire and an additional option will be provided in place of the sexual education class. 

If you have any additional questions please talk to Bill or Alexis.  

We are going to try and complete out letters to our heroes by this Friday, April 12.  So far the students have written some great formal letters to our heroes.  I am super excited about the possibility of hearing from some of our living heroes.  As soon as we are finished with these we will be uploading them to our blogs.  In addition to the letters, our persuasive essays are also going to be posted to our blogs once final editing changes have been made.  We are becoming very great writers! Way to go fifth grade!

Also we have been continuing our study of American History.  Today we role played different characters in history to illustrate how the story of history changes depending on the perspective of who is telling the story.  We will be continuing our exploration of acting out history.  The students are very natural when it comes to acting it out! Yesterday we read a Reader's Theater play about the Declaration of Independence.  Ask your child to recite the part about, "we hold these truths to be self-evident." We have been practicing memorizing this part in class.