Ms. Jalee and Ms. Vanessa

I’d like to start by expressing my astonishment of how well our class has handled the last week of work cycle for this school year. All of the kids have completed at least 6 challenging works every single day. I am truly in awe. Such a motivated and independently working group of students. And even if someone had a bad day, they were lifted up by the positive spirits that our class room community is made of. I am so proud of them.

Field Day on Friday was a huge success. The clouds and the cold wind did not prevent our class from having had, possibly, the best day of the school year. We have practiced singing the National Anthem all year long, and our hard work paid off by Miss Connie allowing us to lead all of the lower elementary classes in singing it before the field day games began. The pride in your children’s faces was priceless.

National Anthem

Rocket Launch

Rocket Launch

Bowl Flip Challenge

Bowl Flip Challenge

Football Toss

Football Toss

Tic Tac Toe

Pass the Ring Challenge

After the Games

This coming week will be our last one for this school year. We will be participating in the kindergarten bridging ceremony on Monday, and the 3rd grade bridging ceremony on Tuesday. Thursday will be the last day of school!

The goal for this week is to clean out the lockers, clean and organize our materials, shelves and desks, and take home everything that belongs to the children. Please remember to send a bag/backpack with your children this week to make it easier for them to bring everything home.

Miss Jalee and I are looking forward to meeting with each of you and your children for the conferences. The end-of-the-year conferences will be student led, meaning that your children will present to you their favorite work, and discuss their strengths in the class room, and their goals for next year. If you have not yet signed up, here is the link to do so.

https://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/fwijs?force_regular=true

Thank you for a great year!

Marleen

Parents,

we are encouraged to use our outdoor environment as much as possible (weather permitting). Aside from gardening, we have been taking our lessons and works outside, and have been finishing up some of our projects outdoors as well. The kids have the choice of working inside the class room or working outdoors. Most kids love working outdoors, and only move inside when it gets too windy or hot. I would like to remind you to please send sunscreen with your children if they spend a prolonged time outdoors, and if you are concerned about sunburns. You may also send sunglasses with your children if that helps them with the brightness. 

We finished our class’ flag for field day. The kids had a blast coming up with the design, and decorating it.

On Friday, we learned about positive and negative space in Ms. Trudy’s art class. The kids did an amazing job implementing into masterpieces what they learned during class. And, on a side note, I have to tell you that your children continue to get complimented on their politeness and their respect for all teachers. Ms. Trudy was surprised how calm and well behaved they were for it being the end of the school year as was I. Ms. Jalee and I are lucky to have such an awesome class to call ours!

I sincerely hope you are enjoying the pictures I post. I am trying to take a variety of them to give you as much insight in our class room as possible. I try my hardest to include all kids. If you would like to have any pictures emailed to you, or if I happen to not have taken any pictures of your child at all please email me, and I will gladly do so.

Thank you for everything you have done, and continue to do for our class. You are much appreciated!

Marleen

Monday, May 16: Dress as your favorite book character (the costume may not include weapons or masks. If the costume becomes a distraction, the kids will be asked to remove it.) Please bring the book with you! We will be discussing character traits and literature that day!

Tuesday, May 17: Crazy Sock Day

Wednesday, May 18: Crazy Hair/Hat Day

Thursday, May 19: Pajama Day

Friday, May 20: Field Day (dress down; wear something comfy or workout clothes)

The end-of-the-year parent teacher conferences will be on May 24 (Tuesday), May 25 (Wednesday) and May 26 (Thursday). Please use this link to sign up, or contact me if you are unable to meet on any of these days.

Thanks,

Marleen

https://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/fwijs

I’d like to start out by saying thank you to everyone for the hugs, flowers, drinks, pictures, cards, and all the other gestures during teacher appreciation week. It truly made my week, and I know Ms. Lacey and Ms. Jalee feel the same. You all are the best parents teachers could ever ask for! Thank you!

As most of you probably know by now, Ms. Lacey needed to have surgery, and has been out since last week. We are not certain when she will be back, but in the meantime the kids and I will continue on and keep thinking about her. Your kids have been amazing, and have been making my job very easy this past week. I know that they all do their best to have perfect behavior in the mornings, which is why by the end of they day they get a little wild. I embrace this opportunity, and redirect their energy into something a little more physical and fun in the afternoons.

We were lucky that the weather has been nice which allowed us to clean out our garden plot (with Ms. Rachel’s help) on Monday. We harvested parsley and mint, and prepared the plot for our tomato and pumpkin plants.

All throughout the week, the kids presented their home projects. The interactive presentations were absolutely engaging. The kids loved learning about all the different types of birds, planets and dinosaurs. The props, pictures and the kids’ knowledge on the topics blew me away. I cannot put in words the improvement I am witnessing in your children’s public speaking. It is amazing. I can tell how hard they worked on these last home projects, and I am beyond proud of all of them!

On Thursday, we spent the afternoon outside planting. We also had a surprise visitor. Ms. Jalee brought her daughter Sloane and her baby boy Sawyer to meet the kids. We all had a great time.

Here are some important dates for the rest of the school year. Can you believe it’s already May?!

Tomorrow, Monday, May 9, we will have Kindergarten visitors. Our class gets to meet the kids who will be with us next year as level 1s.

The 3rd grade party will be this Thursday, May 12. Parents of level 3s should have received an email with a sign up sheet for donations. Please let me know if you have not received this email, and I will put you in touch with the coordinating teacher.

This Friday, May 13, we will be attending Ms. Trudy’s art class in the morning.

Next week, May 16-20, will be our annual Spirit Week. I will post specifics about the different dress ups on Friday.

Ms. Connie is presenting a Spring Choir Performance on Thursday, May 19. Please attend at 6pm if your child’s last name begins with A-K; or at 7pm if the last name begins with L-Z. I will be attending both performances, and look forward to seeing you there.

Friday, May 20 will be Field Day. I will post specifics for this day as soon as I have the information.

On Monday, May 23 Kindergarten Bridging will be held at 11am followed by a picnic lunch on the playground. Ms. Jalee will be attending this event to welcome next year’s level 1s.

3rd Grade Bridging will be on Tuesday, May 24 at 10.30-11.30am. All level 3s will be eating lunch with our upper el mentor class (Ms. Kirsten’s class) that day. Please join us for this milestone in your children’s lives. Ms. Jalee will be attending this event also.

On Thursday, May 26, MMA is holding the annual Kickball Game, and we will be handing out the yearbooks. The kids will spend most of the morning signing each other’s year books, cleaning out their lockers, and taking all papers and belongings home. If you could send your child with a grocery bag to take home all of their things that would help this process tremendously. Thank you in advance. It will also be the last day of school. No school on Friday, May 27!

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (May 24-26) will be half days. School will be out at 1pm. We have parent teacher conferences on those days. I will post the link for the sign up in a separate blog post. Please make sure to sign up soon as the slots are limited. Ms. Jalee will be joining me for the last conferences this school year as my “assistant”.

The rest of May will fly by, and I am sure the kids are ready for summer to be here. I would like to thank all of you for your kindness, patience, help, and love you have shown. The opportunity to take over as the lead teacher for a little while has given me the chance to get to know the kids in different ways than I have gotten to know them before. I am so proud of their accomplishments and their growth this school year, and I cannot wait to see everyone again in the fall.

Marleen

Parents,

I understand that sometimes we are in a rush in the mornings, and don’t have a lot of time to pack a fresh lunch. I do have to ask you, however, to please send foods that need no longer than 1 minute to be heated up. We have one microwave available for 30 students, and we reserve 35 minutes for lunch. We ask that frozen meals, easy mac, and the like please either be precooked, or not sent to school anymore. Unfortunately, with the 35 minutes we have available for lunch, it is not possible to give every child 3+ minutes to cook foods in our microwave.

Thank you,

Marleen

All throughout April we have been learning about globes, maps and continents. Ms. Lacey planned a super fun continent map art project for the kids, which we worked on on Friday, and will continue working on this coming week.

Level 1 Continent Review: Names of the 7 Continents

Level 2 Continent Review: Names of the Continents and all the Oceans

Level 3 Continent Review: Names of the Continents, the Oceans…

…and the Hemispheres

Ms. Lacey giving her Art Lesson

This coming week we will also be working on our garden plot. We need to clean it out, and prep it for the tomato and pumpkin plants that we will be planting. If anyone has gardening tools that we could borrow, we would greatly appreciate it. The more the better.

Please remember the picto-presentations are due this week. Ms. Lacey and I are excited to see the hard work that the kids invested in this last home project. I’m sure the kids are excited, too, about showing off their presentation skills.

Level 3s will have their last SAGE test (math) on Wednesday. As always, please make sure they get to bed on time, and eat healthy meals beforehand. They have been doing great during this testing process; I am so proud of all of them.

Ms. Trudy’s art class was rescheduled for Friday, May 13 because of Ms. Kaley’s theater class performances on Friday. We had several level 3s who were part of the plays, and I was happy to see some of you there. I hope you had as much fun as we did.

And lastly, there is no school on Friday, May 6!

Have a great weekend!

Marleen

Please see the attached flyer for information on the Junior High Bazaar this Saturday!

email blog announcement

Parents,

We will be meeting at the Ogden Frontrunner Station on Thursday, April 21 at 8.10 am. The train will leave at 8.37 am, and arrive at North Temple Station at 9.33 am. From there we will actually be going on the 10 minute walk to the museum instead of waiting for TRAX. We will get to the museum at about 9.50 am, I would imagine.

On the way back, we will be leaving the museum area at 1.15 pm, walking back to North Temple Station where the train leaves at 1.58 pm. We will arrive at the Ogden Station at 2.52 pm.

Please pack a lunch for your children. They will be able to eat at the museum, eat outside, or go to the food court in the shopping area. If you would like to send money with them to buy lunch at the food court, we will be happy to help them with that.

Thank you for making this field trip possible. You are all amazing!

Marleen

As a parent, I wonder what my son works on in school, and how much of what he tells me is accurate. I am sure many of you feel the same way. This week I would like to share some pictures of our class to show you what Montessorians mean when they talk about a normalized class room, and to give you a little more insight into what your children do while at school.

Here is a great video explaining what normalization is.

The past few weeks in pictures:

Washing a Rug

Pledge and National Anthem

Multiplication with the Short Bead Stair

Solar System Puzzle

Telling Time from an Analog Clock

Level 2 Lesson: Muscular System

Level 1 Lesson: Types of Mammals

Level 2 Lesson: Skeletal System

New Practice Readers (NPR) Reading Comprehension

Level 3 Lesson: Matching Arthropods and their X-Rays

Parts of the Human Body

Land and Water Forms

Multiplication Bead Board

Test Tube Division

Bead Frame Multiplication

Game: Spill Your Guts

Practicing the Use of a Dictionary

Labeling the Parts of Speech

Tracing the Continent Puzzle Map…

…to make your own World Map

We also planted our spider plant babies as part of our botany curriculum: