Michaelmas
Our Michaelmas pageant is rapidly approaching! Here are a few things to know:
- On Friday, please have your child wear black shorts or pants, and a green shirt to match the Dragon costume. The costume is a blue-green or teal color. I will send a picture of it shortly.
- Each grade is in charge of providing some of the food and drink for the fest. 4th grade has been assigned apple cider. Please send 2 jugs of apple cider with your child on Thursday, Sept. 28.
I’m looking forward to my first Michaelmas celebration!
Morning Lesson
This week, the children learned about the voyage of Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet down the Mississippi River. I told stories about the encounters they had with different groups of Native Americans. To prepare for the storytelling, I read from Marquette’s journal that he kept during the journey. He uses the word “Savages” to refer to the Native Americans. I leveled with the class and told them that I had a hard time saying that word. We talked about the connotations that word has (uncivilized, like an animal, rude), then we contrasted that with the descriptions that Marquette gives of the people he meets, who give him gifts, food, shelter, and help him greatly along his journey. Then class came up with the adjectives kind, polite, generous, and protective to describe the Illini people. The class concluded that “savages” really wasn’t an appropriate word to use to refer to Native Americans.
We also worked on making a map of our classroom. I taught them the word cartographer and we had a discussion about scale. The children measured the perimeter of the classroom, as well as the various desks and pieces of furniture, and we drafted the map on graph paper.
Finally, to go along with our study of the harvesting of wild rice and maple syrup, the students worked with Mrs. Steedman to make a delicious Wild Rice Porridge! The children really liked it, and we had enough leftovers to eat it for a few days! I will post pictures on our school’s Shutterfly Share Site, which you can access here. Mrs. Berhalter also came in and took pictures of our painting class this week, which you can find there: https://urbanprairiewaldorfschool.shutterfly.com/pictures
Parent Night
We had a very successful first Parent Night of the year! Thank you to all who came and participated so actively! I sent out the notes from the meeting via email, for those who want them. If you did not receive that email, please let me know.
Growth Mindset
Does your child ever give up on something and conclude “I’m just not good at this,” or “I can’t do this”? These responses to challenges are typical of what Stanford Psychology professor Carol Dweck calls the “Fixed Mindset.” People with the Fixed Mindset tend to believe that intelligence and ability is something that you either have or you don’t, and you can’t change that. In contrast, the “Growth Mindset” is the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through hard work and practice. I read Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset this summer, and did some work on the Growth Mindset with my students last year. I want to bring it into our 4th grade classroom and into conversations with families. I highly recommend reading the book! I will also periodically post about the Growth Mindset on these weekly updates. Here’s one for this week: Encourage your child to change their thinking by changing how they talk about challenges. Here are some examples of substitutions for Fixed Mindset sentences:
Instead of this… Say this…
I’m not good at this. What am I missing?
I’m awesome at this. I’m on the right track.
I give up. I’ll use some of the strategies we’ve learned.
This is too hard. This will take some time and effort.
I just can’t do math. I’m going to train my brain to do math.
I made a mistake! Mistakes help me to learn better.
I’m finished. Is this really my best work?
I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do this YET, but I can learn.