Guidance

Do you like the decision-making day？你喜欢决策日吗？

1 The classroom hummed with the usual Monday morning activity. Students emptied their backpacks, signed in, did their morning math problems, and chattered about the weekend.

2 Miss Eller called the students to Morning Meeting and watched while they got settled. Finally, she said,“Happy Monday morning, everyone.” A chorus of greetings came back.

3 “Today is a decision-making day, ” Miss Eller announced. A few eyebrows went up. “Today, we're ready to start a new unit.” Miss Eller made sure everyone was really tuned in. ①“Our new unit is the natural world, ” said Miss Eller, and she wrote the words on the board. A hand went up.

4 “Where does the deciding come in? ” Zach asked.

5 “Ah, I'm glad you asked, ” smiled Miss Eller. She circled her arms wide. “The natural world includes everything around us, and everything around other people, all over the world. That's too much for us to learn about, so we need to narrow our topic down②quite a bit.”

6 Kayla raised her hand. “Does that mean we have to pick one place in the world to learn about? I pick Alaska.”

7 “That's the idea, Kayla, but even Alaska is a very big topic, ” answered Miss Eller.“We would have to narrow that down even further. Yes, Zach? ”

8 “Would a grasshopper's knees be narrow enough? ” Everyone giggled.

9 “Well, that might be a little too narrow, but grasshoppers would be an excellent topic. I want all of you to think about one thing in the natural world that you want to learn about. We'll talk about this again after lunch. Okay? ” Everyone nodded.

10 “Now, whose turn is it to do the weather chart? ” As Miss Eller started the daily routine, twenty-two busy brains were thinking up ideas.

(295 words)