Thursday, October 4, 2007

Another very busy day in class for your Explorer. Every Thursday I do a 2 hour lesson on Philosophy and Art which the students love and look forward to each week. Today I started my "Philosophical Inquiry" to accompany the book Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery. I read chapter one from the book. The questions you might want to ask your child tonight are "which sentences are Harry's and which ones are Lisa's?" Harry's sentences always begin with "All" and Lisa's always begin with "No". Harry "discovered" in the first chapter that sentences such as "All Golden Retrievers are dogs" is true; yet when you turn it around "All dogs are Golden Retrievers" is false. Now, Lisa has another idea of "No eagles are lions" which is true and turned around, "No lions are eagles" is also true, not false as Harry's turned around sentences had been. It was a fantastic discussion about how excited Harry was with his discovery and my question of the day, "why do you think discovery causes excitement?" Some other questions I posed to the class to ponder include: Does Lisa find a "counterinstance" to Harry's rule? What is it? What does the word "resentful" mean and do you think Harry is resentful of Lisa's observation? Why do you think Harry found it hard to thank Lisa? Do you sometimes find it hard to express your feelings to your friends, even though you want to very much? Have you ever discovered something that made you very excited? To this last question, one student replied, "Yes, Philosophy Class!"





Remember:


PIZZA FRIDAY TOMORROW!!

Yummy!!!!!

Dash Point Stream Study is tomorrow afternoon. My thanks to those parents who have offered to drive. Mr. G. and I are still in need of a few drivers. Please feel free to contact the school and let Miss Joslyn know that you are available! Many, many thanks! We are so appreciative of your support!

All Explorers are to have this week's Wordly Wise completed and their Antarctica packet for Social St. completed as well. The spelling word definitions are due on Tuesday.

Navigators: If you have not already completed the Australia packet, then it is due tomorrow.