Ms. Jalee and Ms. Vanessa

Hello All,

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. What a wonderful couple of days we had this week with author Gary Hogg. He never ceases to amazing. He has such a positive outlook on life and on writing. He brought excitement to the kids and also to me. I feel a bit more prepared and excited to teach writing. Thanks to all who ordered books from him.

This Tuesday is the first box tops store of the year. Your child can purchase small school supplies if they bring box tops. Every five box tops will get them one ticket. If you send box tops, please make sure they are not expired and that they are cut out nicely along the edges. If they are not, your child will have to cut them before they can trade them in. Our wonderful parent volunteers cannot be expected to cut all of the box tops out themselves, so lets help them.

Please do not send something in your child’s lunch that will require them to heat it up for more than one minute. We have one microwave and 29 students in our room. Not all students bring something to heat up, but on average five or more students do. It helps the whole class out to only need short heat up times. If your child does bring something like a TV dinner that takes more than a minute to heat up, we will ask them to wait until everyone else is done with the microwave and to eat the other things in their lunch while they are waiting.

Also a reminder about dress code: Skirts/jumpers/shorts must be pleated or straight and the hemline should fall below the fingertips when are are extended down the sides of the body. Leggings must be worn with skirts/dresses. Tights/hose/leggings must be solid colors only. Legging may ONLY be worn under skirts/dresses/skorts.
This is taken directly from the school dress code hand book. We have only had a few students out of dress code a couple of times. We have let it go so far, but this week we will give the student one reminder and the next time they are out of dress code we will have to fill out a dress code report.

Thanks for all you do and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Jalee

Hello All,

Quick reminder that Monday is Labor Day and we will not be having school.

We started work cycle this week. Ms. Marleen and I were busy every morning giving lots of lessons in math and language so that all our friends would have works to choose and do. We still have a lot of lessons to give. We have also been giving assessments so we know exactly where every child is and give them the lessons and works they need to help them learn best and grow.

I did not get a chance to start cultural so that will start next week. We did give the great lessons like the history of writing and math. We also started our study on Asia today. We talked about where it is located on the map and located some better known countries. We also learned about Johann Sebastian Bach and Vincent van Gogh today. We unfortunately didn’t get time to paint using techniques van Gogh used, so we had to setting for coloring his Starry Night painting.

We also finished our first read aloud book. We read a condensed version of Treasure Island. My plan is to watch the Disney movie Treasure Planet with the kids and compare and contrast the two using a venn diagram.

Something to put on your calendars: Tuesday, the 15 will be the first box top store this year. I have created a page with the flyer for it at the top of the blog. Save your box tops and your child can trade them in for tickets to purchase things like pencils, erasers, water bottles, etc. Every 5 box tops will give them 1 ticket. Smaller things like the erasers cost 1 ticket and it goes up from there.

I hope you all enjoy your long weekend.

Take care and thanks for all you do.

Jalee

MMAflyerNEW

Hello,

We have the great privilege of having the children’s author Gary Hogg come and visit our school for two days next week. He came last year. He is so good at getting the kids excited and wanting to write. I am so excited for him to come again.

In preparation for this, we have sent home a yellow order form. You can order any of Gary’s books. The order form just needs to be back by next Thursday. Gary will bring books with him and autograph the purchased one for you child to take home. I have purchased all his books for our classroom and use the Happy Thought Golden Hawk books frequently.

If you want to know more about Gary, here is his website: www.garyhoggbooks.com.

Thanks.

Pizza Friday is back. I sent home some fliers for it yesterday, those fliers have the wrong dates. I sent the ones with the correct dates today. If you would like your child to have pizza this coming Friday, the forms and money need turned in tomorrow. You can order pizza whenever you would like, but to get the pizza for the coming Friday, the money must be turned in Wednesday morning. The proceeds from the pizza good towards the big 6th grade field trip to the redwoods.

Also, if you would like to participate in the 5k this month and you would like a shirt, you must register by Thursday. I will post a registration form on the blog tomorrow morning. The proceeds for this will go towards science in our school.

Thanks.

Hello All,

Here comes week three and happy birthday to Maria Montessori tomorrow on August 31. I am excited to share with your students about her life and work and do some activities as well.

We will be starting our work cycle this week. This means that we will be starting our math and language works and lessons. We will be expecting 3 or more works to start with and then move up to 6. We will be doing large math operations which is adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing using two or more digits. We will also be doing small operations which is learning their facts up to 20. For example 4+7=11, 6×12=72. We will also start teaching fractions, geometry, and measurement.

We will also be doing great lessons on the History of Math and the History of Language. I also plan on starting cultural lessons this week. We will start with history. Level ones will be learning about time, how long is a day, and journals. Level twos will be learning about things happening during the creation of the universe such as friction and inertia. Level threes will be learning about the timeline of earth starting from it’s creation.

We are excited that P.E. and music also start this week. We will be doing P.E. on Tuesdays. Please make sure your child has shoes that are good to run in that day like tennis shoes. Regardless of the shoes your child wears, they will be expected to participate so help them out by having them where good exercise shoes.

I have had a few parents wonder about sending peanut butter in your child’s lunches because of Ms. Marleen’s allergy. She feels that it is okay to send PB&Js with your child. However, your child will need to make sure they are staying in their seat while eating it and not wonder around as some tend to do at the beginning of the year. We are working with them all on this and also on cleaning up well afterwords to make sure that no peanut butter is left where Ms. Marleen can get it on her hands. So far, peanut butter in lunches has not been a problem. If it becomes one, we will let you know. Thank you for your concern and care for Ms. Marleen.

Looking forward to next week: we will not have school on Monday, September 7 due to Labor day.

Thank you for all your support. Please email ME with any questions or concerns. As a reminder, my email is jschofield@mariamontessoriacademy.org.

Jalee

Hello All,

Thank you all so much for your support and love. We had a great first week of school and Ms. Marleen and I are even more excited for this year. We feel like it will be a great one.

From here on out unless otherwise specified, we will have full school days. Please plan on picking your child up at 3. I also want to thank everyone for their grace and courtesy during pick up. It has definitely been going much smoother than we thought.

Thanks for all you do.

Jalee