The kids are LOVING Dudley! I just wanted to share two cute stories with you. I have been teaching in all the first and second grades. The kids put their badges on when I come into the classrooms, as some wonderful parent volunteers have been laminating, punching holes, and putting yarn in detective badges for a few weeks now. (One brave parent volunteer is cutting out Brainfocals now for the students!) While teaching the Mystery Creatures, some of the kids have been stumped, and it has worried them, so I told them just to write a note to Dudley and say that they needed help with more information. After all, sometimes we need more information, and we might have to ask others to tell us more! I have the cutest papers now with notes like, “Help me Dudley” in some of the boxes. This morning I went into a second grade classroom that loves their Thinking Class. Today’s lesson was on how Dudley loves math and how he would work a math problem. I told them that Dudley “opens” a math problem like he opens his newspaper every day and looks for a good mystery. Then he reads it and circles/underlines/highlights the clues, gathers all his information and makes notes, figures out his strategy (like use a math tool – he showed us how to use tools when he got his ladder to look in the tree and used his magnifying glass), solves it and says “I’ve got it” and then he checks and rechecks because he doesn’t jump to conclusions. This class loves to sing, and they always sing a learning song to me. Their teacher worked with them to write a Dudley song. 

D. Williamson