1. Dear Mathematicians, Welcome back! You have been gone from school for three days. Please use this valuable time to calculate (doesn’t mean to use a calculator) how many hours/minutes/seconds you have been home. We will just count the three days (Saturday, Sunday, Monday). For those students who want to earn a Knights Pledge, try to figure how your answers from the moment you left school. Hint: You can use the commutative property of multiplication and/or the associative property. Example: 5 days x 24 hours per day=120 hours 5 days x 24 hours per day x 60 seconds = 7200

2. Dear Ecologists, Which of the items below do you think will last the longest in a landfill before it breaks down? Put a tally mark next to that item. I will tell you the exact amount of time each items lasts during Morning Meeting. Then, choose one item and pretend that a person from the future(200 years from now) has discovered it. What do they think it might be used for? Be creative!

3. Dear Students Who Are as Bright as the Stars in the sky, What you just read was a simile. It compares to things, usually with the words “like” or “as”. Think of a simile that can describe YOU. (It must be kind to you, not silly, and appropriate!). For example, “My name is Mrs. Biondi and I am as busy as a bee gathering honey before a storm”. Write your simile on the card and illustrate it. Bring it to Morning Meeting. Please make sure it is colorful so we can display them.

4. Dear Editors, I was writing a story, but it was late at night and I made a few mistakes. Could you please correct them for me? Look for your name next to the mistake. Only correct that mistake and then go back to your desk. If there are only 2 people at the chart at a time, we can each get a Knights Pledge and Dimes for Charity.