Today was a cold and rainy day in NYC. Thankfully we were all indoors most of today except for walking from the subway to school and back and that Heidi and I both had our umbrella's!
It's hard to believe but in 3 weeks from today we will all be home and back in MN. We all cant believe how fast time is flying here and we definitley want to make every second count that we have left here!
Something that we have found to be unique at Dwight compared to our other school's is that at Dwight the students go on field trips for every unit of inquiry that they have. We find this interesting because at our other schools, they maybe go on 1 or 2 field trips a year. An advantage that more field trips have is that the students have a real life connection to what they are learning about in their unit of inquiry. For example, today Heidi's first graders went to a place called Poet's House. While they were there they looked at Emily Dickenson's first works, had a couple poems read to them and wrote some of their own. Heidi said that this field trip was benefical for the students because they had the opportunity to experience a couple poetry readings which will help them as they move forward in their poetry unit. She said the student's were very engaged and eager during the field trip. We all have seen how field trips during units of inquiry benefit the students because they connect what they learned on the field trip to what is going on in class. They also continually go back and revisit that field trip experience during future classes.
Now something to think about however is the issue of missing class time for the field trip. Most of the time these field trips are taking up most of the day and students are missing out on reading, writing, and math instruction time. However, since one of the main focus's of Dwight is the unit of inquiry we can all see where the field trips are important and valuable it is for students that maybe missing one day of school is ok. Just something to think about for today.
Tomorrow we have a half day at school, and then its Thanksgiving Break! We are all looking forward to having a couple days off to recharge a bit before our final 2 weeks at Dwight.
As Heidi said yesterday, we are also looking forward to Megan's mom's arrival tomorrow! And of course the Macy's Day Parade on Thanksgiving (even if we have to get up super early, it will be worth it for sure!)
Well that's all for now.
Tonight is early bed time in our room, so goodnight!
-Sarah
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