One of the personalities of our class is a love of scary stories! I've started reading Clockwork by Philip Pullman and students are drafting their own scary story, rough draft is due Monday! I highly recommend typing them because it makes the editing process so much easier for students to manage. We have a few students who I believe are destined to be novelists and are having a hard time envisioning writing something LESS than 20 pages! They are invited to write the first chapters of their scary story. The final will be due Mon 11/5, so the stories are supposed to be short.

I handed out progress reports on Friday with instructions for students to share with you what they are missing and their plan for making it up. Please sign their reports so I know they are being responsible and checking in with you. I had quite a few stay after on Friday and worked hard to catch up. Students are invited to stay afterschool on Wednesdays for Homework Help. Can you believe there is just 2 weeks before the end of quarter? This means that on Nov 5th I will be collecting Service Journals for the first quarter projects. Students should have completed: At least 1 school or community service project of 3 hours & a full page reflection, 2 garden hours, 2-3 pages on school/home waste.

I highly recommend taking a side trip to the Tillamook Forestry Center on your next trip out to the beach. We had a great day on Thursday learning about the Tillamook Burn, Forest management and firefighting. Students also identified and compared native trees. We will use all this information in our next field study to the Hopkins Tree Farm. We will have expert foresters by the end of this year! Already students can tell me the stage of succession any particular forest we happen to be in, layers of the forest, the function of a nurse log, how plants grow for success and much more. They amaze me!

I hope you are enjoying thi cozy rainy October afternoon after a very busy week. Was Outdoor School only 4 days ago??