We had a great week last week. We introduced work charts and students began their time during morning work cycle choosing work and getting back into the routine of work cycle.  We completed our great lessons and started into the review of many of our key lessons.  Some of these key lessons are introductory for students who are new to our classroom.  Our grammar focus was on nouns and articles.  We reviewed measurement, sliced apples for fractions, and discovered how big a million really is in relation to a unit.  We honored Maria Montessori’s birthday by studying a time line of her life.  My favorite quote of the week came during this lesson when we talked about the glass classroom (if you are not familiar you can learn a little here) and one student shares, “Ms. Brittany, that is just so creepy and stockerish!”  He had a point.  We completed our study of the great lessons with the history of language.  We spend a few days reading different versions of classic fairytales and the students concluded with their own written stories, many adapted from the classic stories.  They participated in their first authors chair for the year and it was delightful to see their creativity and enthusiasm as they shared their writing with each other.  We are continuing with our math and reading assessments and hope to have those completed in the next few days and well on our way into a regular work routine.  Along with our regular routine is our afternoon culture lessons.  We briefly started our study of zoology and wanted to remind everyone that September is here and our first home project is due by the end of the month.  Please review our home project page for guidelines.

The week of September 5th marks the start of our PE and music classes.  Our class attends on Monday mornings at 10:30 a.m.  Please make certain your child has proper shoes for PE.  This is especially important during the winter months when students attend school in snow boots.

I also wanted to make you aware, we will be spending a great deal of time in our outdoor classroom throughout the year.  Please make certain your child is dressed for the weather.  A favorite quote of mine, “There is no bad weather, just bad clothing.”   Poor air days, severe winds, hail, and heavy rain, will stop us from heading outside, but cold weather and drizzle will generally not keep us from exploring and learning outdoors.