Classroom Visits by Authors and Scientists, Upcoming Podcasts, and our Veteran's Day Project

We will be recording our Family Project essays and publishing with podcasts in the next few weeks!

This week was full of fun in F3. All of F pod got together on Monday morning to hear again from Tom (from the Marine Science Afloat Program) to follow up on what we learned about the Puget Sound Watershed while we were sailing in early October. Kids came up with fantastic ideas of what they could do to help Puget Sound stay clean. One of the ideas is to clean up after your dog. (In fact, we learned that the very best way to handle dog poop is to put it in the toilet so that it will go through sewage treatment.)

The next day (Tuesday), kids in F pod heard from published author Nathan Kumar Scott. He read from his book Mangoes and Bananas, and shared some fascinating facts about what it means to be published.

Nearly all the students completed typing their family project this week. Thanks to all parents for helping out with getting the information available. I have been enjoying reading all of the projects. This coming week, students will be able to polish up their essay and their map and family tree pages, and work on their podcasts. That's right! Students will be broadcasting their family project with an audio recording. Only first names will be used. Each week, I will make several of them available to listen through the website. For all you public radio listeners out there, this will be a mini Storycorps project. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the podcasts, please contact me. More information and our first podcast will be coming next week!

Our Veteran's Day Project has gotten the go ahead from the Maple staff and from Paul so we're going ahead with it! We are going to involve all of Maple School by asking students and staff to bring in enough care package items for ALL of Paul's unit (175 Marines) to receive a package in time for the holidays. Many folks outside of Maple are also being asked to help out. Veteran's Day is November 11th. Please encourage your friends and family to bring in any items to Maple the week of Parent Conferences, November 13th. We will be sending the care packages out before Thanksgiving.

Lastly: Camp is coming up in about a week and a half!! Bring in those permission slips and the funds!