Family First

It has been a busy weekend. Sadly, my family had to say goodbye to a dear loved one, my uncle Buddy. He was truly loved by all who knew him and he will be missed. I'm glad that Tom had the chance to meet him a few times before his passing. It would have been a real shame if he missed out on getting to know such an amazing person. Although many tears were shed over the course of the weekend, the up side of losing a loved one is spending time with family. I was particularly excited to spend time with family from out of town that I rarely get to see. If you live in the Merrimack Valley, you know how to play 45s. If you don't, you've likely never even heard the term before. I was raised playing the card game and it is a family staple. Uncle Buddy taught us all how to play, so it was fitting that my family held a 45s tournament this weekend. It looked a little something like this.

When you date a Blanchette, you have to learn how to play 45s. It is part of initiation. I must have taught Tom well because his team won the tournament. Below is a pic of Gramps, Tom and my cousin Matthew. 

 Even though we lost a generation, THE generation that taught us how to play 45s, we are keeping the tradition alive. After the tournament, Uncle Joe took some time to teach the youngest generation the rules. Life really does come full circle.

RIP Uncle Buddy

Now for a little school news. We've been talking about measurement in math,  Friday we covered converting units of measurement. 

This little rhyme was helpful, but the kids have a really hard time understanding this. What's funny is that a lot of the kids can tell you the answer, but don't know how they arrived at the answer. For example, they can tell me there are 48 inches in 4 feet, but they have no idea how they figured it out. Next week we will continue working on this. 

We kept plugging away at cause and effect all week. 

We sorted.... 

We read...

We wrote....

Another 4th grade teacher wrote up cause and effect signal words and had her kids cut and paste the signal words into their own cause and effect sentences or stories. She shared this idea with me and I decided to go a slightly different route and have my kids write copy cat stories of If You Take a Mouse to School or If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. 

Have I mentioned I absolutely love working with my 4th grade team? Everyone is so willing to share their ideas and we learn so much from each other. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!