Hello Everyone,
Another awesome week has passed. The kids are all settling in as are the teachers. We are continuing with our grace and courtesy lessons and figuring out how things work in the classroom this year. As I told the students today, we need to practice things, like putting away our shoes, the right way so that we will learn to do it right. We’ve enjoyed the cooler weather this week so we can have a more pleasant recess and also enjoy lunch outside.
One thing I failed to mention in my first couple emails is that we give the kids at least 30 minutes to eat lunch. Right now we are giving them 35 to 40 so they can get used to having a time limit on their lunch. We have talked about how we need to stay seated at lunch and eat, since many of the kids like to get up and wonder. We have also encouraged them to eat more than talk as we have noticed many kids are not getting very much eaten because they are so busy talking. Thank you for sending extra food for the kids to eat as snack. Now that we are moving into individual workcycle, the kids are picking their own snack times and are allowed to eat snack at their cleaned up work space.
We have continued with our great lessons this week. We did the black timeline, which teaches about the cooling of Earth and coming of life on Earth. We also got to explore the Giant Timeline of Life. It is a beautiful work that shows the progress of life on the earth in wonderful illustrations. The students were then able to work on their own timeline of life. This week we will start our cultural lessons and start learning about history. This goes right along with the great lessons.
We loved seeing our friends that are doing distance learning this week. We read my favorite picture book with them, You Are Special and played the game, would you rather so we can get to know each other a little better. We will continue to have live stream sessions weekly.
I want you all to know how appreciative I am to you all for making sure your child comes to school with a mask. Sometimes the kids forget, and that is okay. We do have some extra classroom ones for when that happens. I would like to emphasize that masks are more effective when they are clean. Some students are sucking on them and this will saturate the mask allowing air particles to cling on and this creates a dirty barrier for your child. Please take a look at their masks daily to keep track of if their mask is soiled. We want to keep your children as safe as possible. Thank you for supporting us with this important endeavor.
Up until now, I have been standing outside in the morning to greet the children and wait with them after they get picked up. Since our class has a door to the outside, starting Tuesday I will no longer be waiting outside. I will be in the classroom watching from the windows waiting to greet the children as they come into the classroom. Please remind your child to exit your car and come directly into our classroom. I will, as always, still be outside with the kids as they are being picked up from school.
As always, stay healthy and stay safe.
Jalee
Our crayons from The Crayon Box That Talked
Empathy Shoes
Maria Montessori Timeline of life
Stars from the book On the Night You Were Born