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First Research Project and Other News

Aug28

Happy Friday!  We finished out our first week with full school days and your kids are doing great!  Learning how to plan and manage time has been the focus of this week’s morning activities, while observing and learning to distinguish the difference between facts and inference has taken place in the afternoon.  Your kids know a lot of facts about the teeth of T-Rex!  I’m impressed.

We have been doing a lot of writing with our observations and morning dictionary work, so if your kids are complaining of sore hands, it’s for good reason.

We began our first in class research project this afternoon with the reading of From Lava to Life, a story that supports our second Great Lesson, The Coming of Life.  You will find a description of the project here, Time line of Life Research Book Project , along with the rubric for scoring.  This will mainly be an in class project, due Friday September 4, but so many of your kids were excited to get started that they brought it home to work on.  If your students brought home their rubric, you will notice the total points possible is an error.  It states 50 pts, while the total should be 55 pts possible.  I have corrected it on the link.

As per our classroom management plan, your children should have brought home their weekly work evaluation form completely filled out for you to sign.  This must be returned with them on Monday.  Please ask them about this evaluation, it is a key tool, along with their planners, to see the progress they are making and to get an idea of the work they are doing each day in the classroom.  We have spoken a bit about goal setting (with many more discussions to come) and how specific goals are much more meaningful than a general goal of say, “work harder”.  We are talking about setting SMART goals as a tool for success in the classroom and out.  If your child has written “work harder” or “get a lot done” as their goal for next week, now is a great time to have a conversation with them about setting goals that are specific and measurable.

Finally, before this post becomes even longer, our school’s annual 5K Race for the Redwoods is on September 19 with a pancake breakfast to follow.  All proceeds from the race and the Pancake Breakfast support our 6th grade trip to the Redwoods!  This is an amazing experience that is worth every bit of your support.   Come support our school community and get to know each other!  In addition to a registration form for the race being sent home with your child, you can find additional copies at the following link.  Race for the Redwoods Registration

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Amity

 

 

Update Week 1.5

Aug25

We successfully navigated our way through the first week of school and are off to a good start for our second week.

During our first week we did a lot of team building and activities that helped everyone get to know each other.  Our class is slowly coming together and friendships are being made. Even our most shy students are beginning to make connections with their classmates.   As we begin our modified work cycle, we will continue building our class culture.

This week we begin our great lessons.  You can read a post that I wrote about the great lessons here.  Our class did something a little different this year to begin our study of the great lessons.  Your children decided to become teachers of the first great lesson to our lower elementary peer mentor class.  Several students presented the lesson and afterward we went outside and they facilitated experiments and demonstrations for the younger students.  Ms. Holly’s class was completely engaged!  Well done, little teachers!

Today Ms. Holly is hosting another great lesson for our class.

We are beginning a modified work cycle with returning students carrying on where they left off last year, and new students beginning to learn routines and procedures for choosing work, getting it checked and turning it in.  Because we are going slowly to ensure success, you will see their planners gradually begin to fill up as your children learn how to plan their day.  By October 1, they should be planning their work day all on their own.

 

Important Dates and Back to School Reminders

Aug8

We are now a little over a week away from the start of a new school year and I wanted to send out a few reminders.

  • If you had a child in my class last year, be sure that they have completed their summer homework.  The homework is due the first day of class.  For a reminder of the homework please take a look at the original post.
  • Please be sure your child has prepared their school supplies according to the instructions previously posted.  Having these supplies ready to go will get us off to a great start!  You can revisit the list and the preparation guide here.

Important Dates:

  • Thursday, August 13- Montessori 101 for Parents 6:30-7:00
  • Thursday, August 13- Back to School Night (parents) 7:00-8:00
  • Friday, August 14- Student Orientation, Level 4/ new students 2:00-2:45
  • Monday, August 17- Friday, August 21- First Week of School Early Out 1:00 (Please make arrangements for your child to be picked up at this time)
  • Thursday, September 3- 6:30 pm 6th grade parent meeting regarding student volunteer hours, committees and 6th grade commitments
  • Saturday, September 19- 8:00 MMA 5k, 9:00am Pancake Breakfast (great volunteer opportunities for both parents/ students- if you are interested in volunteering for either of these events please email Teara Galbraith at tearagalbraith@gmail.com

Back to School Night:

Please plan on joining me and Ms. Kari for back to school night on Thursday, August 13 at 7:00pm.  I will be going over my classroom management plan with you as well as answering any questions you might have.  There will be an informative session called Montessori 101 at 6:30 if you are new to our school.  There will be a playground supervisor available to watch your kids so that you can be distraction free during this presentation.

New Student Orientation:

Ms. Kari will meet your children outside of the school on Friday, August 14 at 2:00.  Please drop them off at the curb, following the guidance of our parking lot attendants.  This orientation is for 4th level students and any student new to our school.  Orientation ends at 2:45.

Feel free to email me with questions at arockwell (at) mariamontessoriacademy (dot) org

 

School Supplies and Supply Preparation

Jul13

School Supplies 2015-2016

*Please read the school supply preparation letter before labeling supplies.

White 2” 3-ring Binder (Working Binder)

White 1” 3-ring Binder (Portfolio)

25 page protectors (to be used for student portfolio)

2 pkgs wide rule notebook paper (one will be placed in the working binder, the other will be held in the classroom supplies until needed)

2 pkg dividers (5 subject with pockets)

2 wide-ruled composition notebooks (black)

1 five-subject notebook (any color)

Low-profile clip board

2 pkg Ticonderoga Pencils (Must be Ticonderoga please.  Other pencils are not the same quality and the lead breaks easily)

1 pkg 24 colored pencils

1 pkg water colors

1 pkg of 4 multi-color vis-a-vis wet erase-markers (fine point)

1 highlighter (any color)

1 small bottle Elmer’s school glue

Scissors

Pencil box

2 boxes Kleenex

Handheld pencil sharpener (optional, but helpful)

1 flashdrive  (optional, but helpful)

1 roll paper towels (optional, but helpful)

1 container Clorox wipes  (optional, but helpful)

 

*School Supply Preparation

Ms. Amity

2015-2016

The school year is about to begin!  I’m so excited to have your kids back in class.

Prior to the first day of school, your child will need to prepare their school supplies.  The only items that should be labeled with your child’s name are listed below, everything else will go into the classroom supply cupboard for later use.

Please assist your child in following the directions below.

Working Binder

  • Create a spine label with your first and last name (we will make covers for the binders during the first week of school)
  • Place 5 dividers in your working binder
  • Label a tab for Language, Writing, Handwriting, Math, Cultural
  • Behind each tab place approximately 25 sheets of paper

Portfolio

  • Place 5 dividers into portfolio
  • Place 5 sheet protectors behind each divider
  • Create spine label with your first and last name (we will label tabs and create cover as part of an in class activity)

Pencil Box

  • Label with first and last name and Rm. 24
  • 5 sharpened pencils
  • Colored Pencils
  • Pencil Sharpener
  • glue
  • Flash Drive
  • Highlighter
  • Scissors

Thank you for assisting your child in being prepared for the first day of school.  Having these items ready to go will help our class get off to a great start!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Homework

May28

Because I feel strongly that children, and adults for that matter, need to practice what they know in order to retain it each of your kids will have summer homework.  A letter was sent home with your child on Tuesday outlining the expectations.  This homework is due the first day of school, August 17.   I am sharing the letter that was sent home with your children in this blog post.  The links provided in the post are only ideas for practice, your child may choose any way they would like to practice as long as they log the date, activity, skill practiced and amount of time spent.   If you need the passwords for the scholastic sites, please email me.  They were provided to your children in the printed letter, but I did not include them in this post for obvious reasons.

In addition to the required reading and math I will be unlocking all essays on Utah Compose for your children to practice as well.  I highly recommend your children practice their writing this summer.  Writing in Utah Compose will give them instant feedback and allow them to revise their essays to improve their writing skills.  We will be spending a lot of time writing next year and practicing this summer will give them a jump start for next school year.

Summer Homework

Summer is here and so are those long lazy days that seem to zap your brain of everything (or at least a lot) you worked so hard to learn this year.  In order to avoid losing too much of that hard work, you will have summer homework.  Now, don’t worry too much, it won’t take up your entire summer break.  In fact, it will take about 20 minutes a day.  What fraction of the time you are awake will this homework take?  Let’s turn that into your first math problem of the summer.

Let’s say you sleep for about 12 hours a day this summer which gives you how much awake time?  That’s right, 12 hours.  How many minutes are there in 12 hours?  A number sentence for the problem would be the number of minutes in each hour (60) multiplied by the number of hours (12).  12 x 60= ?  That’s easy to do in our heads if we remember our magic zeros from the grey tower.  12×6=72 then we add a zero because we wanted to multiply by 60.  The answer to the first part of our problem is 720 minutes in 12 hours.

But we aren’t done yet.  Remember the question we are trying to answer.  What fraction of the time you are awake will this homework take?  Let’s turn the information into a fraction.  20 minutes of homework out of 720 minutes you are awake is a fraction of 20/720 (for you 5th and 6th level students let’s write that in simplest form by dividing your fraction by the highest common multiple, which happens to be 20= 1/36).  That fraction converted to a percent (I’ve done it for you since you will learn that skill next year) is 2.7%  That’s less than a nickel of your time if you think of it in terms of money, heck that’s less than 3 pennies of your time.

See how we turned the amount of time it would take for you to do your homework into a fantastic word problem?  FUN!!

Summer Homework Assignment Due the First Day of School, August 17th.

10 Hours of Math Practice – IXL, Workbooks, Cooking, Gardening, Lemonade Stand are a few ways you can practice your math skills.

Dynamath – http://dynamath.scholastic.com/

Scholastic Math – http://math.scholastic.com/

IXL – https://www.ixl.com/signin/mariamontessori

2 Book Reports – Read to books of your choice with a minimum of 100 pages at your reading level.  Complete a summary of each book complete with book title, author and number of pages.

 As always, if you have any questions please let me know.