Right now in Reading we are exploring the book, Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  It definitely wins as my personal favorite novel of all time to share with grade 6 students.  It has incredible themes interwoven through the book and teaches beautiful life lessons through the life of August Pullman.  In the book, one of August’s teachers introduces the concept of ‘precepts’, which he calls ‘rules about important things’.  The most recent precept that we explored together was, “Your Deeds Are Your Monuments.”  The grade 6 students had to dig deep in their brains to work through this precept and here are a few of their ideas, as well as August’s ideas about it.

Your Deeds Are Your Monuments.  What does this mean to you?  How do you feel about it?

-your actions represent who you are.

-what you do is who you are.

-what you do, reflects on to what other people think of you as.

-your actions are what you are known for.

-your choices, whether they are good or bad, will become permanent and determine what your life will be like.

-all the choices in my life will be like a statue that represents what I’ve chosen.

-it makes me want to think more about what I’m doing.

August’s response from the book, “This precept means that we should be remembered for the things we do.  The things we do are the most important things of all.  They are more important that what we say or what we look like.  The things we do outlast our mortality.  The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they’ve died…instead of being make out of stone, they’re made out of the memories people have of you.”

Keeping with this theme…today was Service Day.  Our class headed to Heritage Park this afternoon to clean up one of their indoor arenas.  We picked rocks to ensure that the horses would not hurt their hooves while competing in the arena.  Here are a few pictures from our time serving in the community.

That was some back breaking work!  Great job students!  (and special thanks to Mrs. Sampson for the timbits!)