Archive for October, 2016

Week 10

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Thank you coming to PTC this past week!  We had everyone come!

Past Week:

We spent the 3 early out days doing some social skills and some little classroom games that had them working together.  3rd graders were supposed to do their meeting with Ms. Valerie on Tuesday, but she ended up being sick that day, so we are looking to reschedule. On Wednesday we went over how we all can look and sound during work cycle and that we would do work cycle for an hour and I would just observe.  It gave me a lot of feedback watching everyone for an hour.  We’ll have a group of kids, starting tomorrow, who will need more support than others.  Tomorrow, some students will find that they will be able to choose their own work space and will have that freedom.  The others will be around Ms. Emilee and I so we can help support those students with staying on task, how to choose work, and focus on themselves.

Upcoming Week:

Monday will also be the 3rd grader’s first practice SAGE test from 10:45-12:00.  Afterwards they will eat lunch.  Their recess will be before they go into testing.  They will go outside at 10:15 with me.

Wednesday is our field trip!  Please remember we are meeting at Black Island Farms.  Some students are doing carpools with others.  I will be at the school getting the first aid pack and some name tags for our trip.  I am at the school by 7:30am.  I will be leaving the school by 8am to make it to the farm on time to do attendance and start getting everyone on the hayride.  Ms. Jalee’s class is also going with us, so if you need a carpool and you know someone in her class, please let our room mother know.

This week is also Red Ribbon Week!  I haven’t seen a schedule on any guest speakers, but generally there are a few activities such as wearing red, an anti-drug speaker, and door decorating.  It will be a busy week!

Friday’s Class Party!- Friday is our classroom party!  Alicia has sent out a few emails reminding everyone.  Our students eat lunch at 11:30am and then we should be back inside by 12:40ish to go over the activities.

November’s upcoming report!- If you’d like to get a head start, our November’s project is a book report.  The topic is non-fiction.  I am giving the choice between a person, animal, or something of historical reference (example: Gettysburg, Statue of Liberty, invention of the steamboat etc.).  Please revisit your project choices list for a new project.  DUE FRIDAY NOV. 18th.

Pre-Primer-1st grade Reading Homework will resume tomorrow (Monday the 24th).

Have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week

Cheers!

Ms. K

Week 9

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Good News!  Ms. Emilee doesn’t have to leave anymore!  Her other job is willing to work around her school schedule, so the assistant search is off!

Reminder of PTC/Home Project!- Tomorrow begins our PTC.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all early outs (1pm dismissal). I have a lot of openings for Monday and some Wednesday.  Tuesday is pretty filled, but some spots open.  Here are the parents that need to sign up still:

Kaulin

Jaxston

Brett

Lili

Anna

Michael

Karsten

Naomi

Lucy

Volunteer to help at our Halloween Party!- Alicia has sent out a sign up sheet for our parents to help out in our class for our Friday October 28th party.  If you would like to contribute in some way, please sign up!

Field Trip Approaching!-  During PTC, I will have the permission slips for our Black Island Farms field trip.  This field trip’s transportation will have you or a carpool drop off your child at the field trip site instead of getting a ride from the school to the farm.  Please be there around 8:40 at the very latest.  This will allow time for our parent chaperones to check in and get the classes onto the hayride to learn about corn and crops.  If you need help setting up a carpool for your child, please contact Alicia Thomas (our room mom).  Her email is at the bottom of our new permission slips!

3rd grade practice SAGE testing!- I just received a schedule for our 3rd graders to get a feel for how the SAGE tests will test them in the spring.  We will start with Language on the 24th of this month, Writing on the 31st, and end with Math on Nov. 7.  If a 3rd grader is absent, they can make up a test on Nov. 14th.  Our testing times for all 3 are from 10:45am-12:00pm.

This past week our class had a harder time, as a whole, giving respect to me as a teacher and with their friends.  Our 3rd graders (primarily) are having a very hard time setting good examples for friendships.  There will be a 3rd grade meeting (during school time) with our school counselor, Ms. Valerie.  She’s going to help them by working on replacing the negative they are giving each other, with more positive social skills.  I will be having those kinds of conversations with parents during PTC.  I hope your family will back me up and support in helping give our certain students the tools they need to function in a Montessori environment.  It’s going to take you and I working together to help give them support, but also come up with consequences that are supported by all.  

This coming week I will be rebuilding some of those forgotten social skills and classroom expectations.  Since we have early outs, I figured it be a great time to go back and review the expectations that are non-negotiable.  

Alicia!  We had a lot of students interested in crocheting.  Let me know when your person can be available.  Since there are so many, could she do multiple dates so we could break the kids up into small groups?  Let me know what you think 🙂

This Past Week:

A lot of our cultural/afternoon lessons got interrupted this week by having the computer cart or I was spending the whole afternoon working with students on their behaviors and needs

In group lessons:

Level 1s: What is a Personal Narrative

Level 2s: What is a Personal Narrative

Level 3s: What is a Personal Narrative

 

In cultural this week: Botany

Level 1s: Plants through the seasons

Level 2s: Simple and compound margins of a leaf

Level 3s: Solitary and Inflorescence flowers, Types of calyxes on flowers

 

Have a great rest of your Sunday and I look forward to meeting with you all this coming week!  Thanks!

Cheers!

Ms. K

 

 

Week 8

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Hi Everyone!

Assistant Change- It is sad to announce this, but Ms. Emilee has taken a full time position at her other job.  I have not told the kids yet, but I will by the end of this coming week.  If you know anyone who is qualified and would like to apply, please have them send their resume directly to Ms. Stephanie.  The position is posted on teachers-teachers.com too.  We will wish Ms. Emilee the best of luck on her new adventure!   

Mentors- This past week we had our Junior High mentors begin.  They are reading with a total of 4 students for 15 mins each and then they are helping our students with their works for the last half hour they are in our room.

PTC Sign ups!- I posted the sign up sheet for our first conferences!  Please see the post below this one to click on the link and sign up!  See everyone soon!

Project Clarifications- Okay, so to help with any confusion for our first home project, I want to go over some more details.  Their project is not a book report.  The hope is to not confine the students to one project idea, but to let them come up with their own kind of project and presentations.  Our first home project is to help them feel comfortable presenting a project by limiting the “audience.”  This month’s project is all about cultural.  Step 1: Your child is to pick from one of our cultural subjects (History, Zoology, Physiology (only level 2s do this), Geography, Botany (includes Ms. Rachel’s monthly lessons), Australia, Science (from their studio class), and Social studies (from their studio class)). Once they know their subject, they move to Step 2: Picking a lesson they have learned from that subject that has interested them.  Once they know that then (Step 3) they are able to come up with a project idea that they can do. I fully understand that different abilities are going to look varied.  When I mentioned that a piece of writing is needed, that can look like, for example, a picture labeling the parts from a lesson or some simple sentences to explain their project (more of an expectation I would get from a first grader).  However, some students may submit paragraphs or a PowerPoint.  All of these are just some examples that would meet the writing requirement.  The idea is to have the child excited about their learning and have them want to do the project.  

If they would like to replicate one of my lessons, but they get to play teacher with the explanation, then that is fine too.

Your child’s project is due the day you sign up for PTC.  So, if you signed up for Monday Oct. 17th at 4:10pm, then your child’s project is due to me on Monday Oct. 17th during school time (for example).

Please have your child keep their presentation around a max of 5 mins, so that it leaves us time to go over their other areas of learning and development.

Reading volunteers- Ms. Lori began her reading volunteering this past Thursday!  If you would like to help out our classroom with reading, please email me and let know.  Thursdays work well for Lori, so we planned on that day.  If another day works for you, I will work with you 🙂

Group lessons this week:

Level 1s: Great Barrier Reef, the beginning of what a numerator/denominator is in a fraction

Level 2s: Great Barrier Reef, perimeter of quadrilaterals

Level 3s: Great Barrier Reef, word problems, and angles in kinds of triangles

Weekly Writing: Exclamatory, Interrogative, Imperative, Declarative sentence examples

In cultural this week: Geography

Level 1s: Continent review, hemispheres and zones of the Earth

Level 2s: Tectonic Plates and Pangea

Level 3s: Layers of the Atmosphere

 

Upcoming Week:

PE and Music on Monday.  Please provide some sneakers for PE.

Wednesday afternoon will be our first Computer on Wheels time.  From 12-3 will be our class’ time to do IXL and MyOn while I pull for cultural lessons.

Lockdown drill– Also, on Wednesday we will have our first lockdown drill.  This past week the kids began discussing the clown incidents.  Friday we sat down at class meeting and I answered their questions about the clown incidents.  I told them that some people find that funny and that’s why we are seeing so much of it across our country.  I told them nobody has been killed and that they were safe here at school.  That lead us into what our drill was going to look like.  For your awareness, a lockdown drill at our school would mean that someone in the office would come over the speaker and say, “Please go into lockdown.”  We have a magnet on our classroom door that covers the locking part of our doors.  I keep our door ALWAYS locked.  A teacher would remove the magnet and shut the door.  Lights will be turned off and blinds closed.  Our language area is sort of boxed in and that’s where our students will gather.  Officer Child’s, an officer that patrols our school often, will be walking around during that time.  The idea is to make our classrooms empty.  If for any reason a lockdown was real, we would do exactly what I described.  When we are told so, each classroom has an emergency  bag with snacks, water bags, and books.  We would leave like we would in a fire drill and go to North Shore parking lot.  Each classroom has a parking space that they sit in.  This is where you would go if ever we needed to evacuate our school and parents had to pick up their kids.

Let’s end on a high note!

Fall Festival– Our annual fall festival is this Friday from 4-7.  Tickets will still be at the school on festival day.  You can visit the Maria Montessori Academy of Utah Facebook page to purchase tickets from home.

Picture Day!-  School picture day is tomorrow, Monday!  A picture order form went home this past week. I have Ashley’s so far.  You can also order them online 🙂

Take home reading homework- Homework for students reading at a preprimary-1st grade level began their take home homework.  If you forgot to turn in your folder, please send it Monday.  I print out the new homeworks and hand them out that day.  Any after that will be marked late.

*Alicia, can you email the Halloween/Fall party sign up sheets to the parents.  I’m looking through my email and can’t find the link you sent me!  Thanks!

 

Have a great weekend and upcoming week!

Cheers!

Ms. K

Parent Teacher Conference Sign Ups!

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Hello Everyone!

 

Here is the sign up sheet for our first conferences!

Your child’s first home project on a cultural lesson is due the the day you sign up.  Please have your child send bring their project in the morning so I can look at them and put them with their conference folder.

 

Conference Sign Up HERE

 

See everyone soon!

Week 7

Posted in Classroom, Conferences, Field Trips, Home Projects | No Comments »

Hello Everyone and Happy October!

We are getting a new 3rd grader again.  I want to welcome Calvin to our classroom!  Calvin will begin tomorrow.  Also, Truman started our class about a week ago.  We welcome him and his family too!

Reminders for October:

Fall Festival is on Oct. 14th.  A flyer went home this past week with the wrist band/ticket prices.  There is also a big poster of that flyer on the front of the school on the left sided window.  MAPA will be at school selling these tickets pretty soon.

PTC- Parent Teacher Conferences begin October 17th and go until October 19th.  I will have the sign up sheet posted, hopefully, by the end of this week.

Home Project- DUE when you sign up for PTC!  Your child may pick from History, Zoology (Physiology for 2nd grade), Geography, Botany, Australia, or some of the science we have done.  The project assignment is for them to pick their favorite lesson so far and give a small presentation to you at our first conference.  The presentation can be how they want it to be.  I do expect to see some writing to go along with it, but it can be in any form they want (computer presentation, handwritten, book, etc.).  For example: If you have a 1st grade student, and they really like Zoology the most, we have done living vs non-living, vertebrates vs. invertebrates, and we are starting to get into the 5 classes of vertebrates.  They can pick one of those topics to focus on.  If they liked learning that vertebrates have a backbone, they can pick their favorite animal with a backbone and tell about that animal.  They could do a report on the spine since we learned what a spine was because all vertebrates have one.  On Friday, I will gather what each student wants to do for their project and help explain to them that the project topics and presentations are up to them, but they need to tie in what they learned in cultural.

*You can help your child right now by asking them what has been their favorite cultural subject so far and if they are ready to pick the lesson, have a discussion on what they remember and help guide them to  what would make a good project for this month’s home project.

1st Field Trip Oct. 26th to Black Island Farms.  You will need to drop your child off at the farm that morning.  Drop off at the farm needs to be between 8:30-8:40.  They begin the hay ride to learn about corn crops and pumpkins at 9am.  This time will give our chaperones time to pay at the check in window and get our classes onto the tractors

 

Upcoming Week:

Reading Homework: Reading at a PrePrimer-1st grade reading level homework will begin tomorrow!  Tomorrow some of our students will be coming home with a navy reading homework folder.  It will have their weekly 1 page homework.  A purple parent letter is in the folder, along with MyOn information.  I have MyOn ready to go for our new students, so if your child doesn’t get reading homework, they will still get their MyOn info.

*Homework goes out Mondays and is DUE BACK FRIDAYS.

Reading Volunteering: Lori Stewart has signed up to help with reading in our classroom.  She will start Thursday around 9:15am.

Junior High Mentors Begin: Our 2 Junior High ladies will begin coming to our classes on their B days.  They will each have 2 students to read with as well as helping out during work cycle.  They start this Tuesday and each have a team building game to teach us, so from 10-11, we will follow their team building lesson plan.

 

Past Week:

*3rd graders received their dictionaries from the Rotary Club.

*Studio began this past Friday!

*Please remember sneakers for PE on Mondays.

 

In group lessons this past week:

Level 1s: curved shapes vs non vs both review and introduction to the penny, Ruler introduction to inches and centimeters (we will first focus on measuring to inches 1st).

Level 2s: labeling/naming fractions from pictures, coin review, quadrilaterals family review, time to the nearest 10 mins review.

Level 3s: Morning warm up help with questions they don’t know how to solve, triangles classification by sides

Weekly Writing: Types of sentences, Capitals, Punctuation

Australia: The Great Barrier Reef

In cultural lesson this week: Zoology/Physiology

Level 1s: vertebrates vs invertebrates

Level 2s: nutrition review with intro to reading food labels and plate visual

Level 3s: Cnidarian intro (Jellyfish, Sea Anemones), Parts of a jellyfish/Model, Box Jellyfish close read, Types of jellyfish

 

Snack reminder for Week 8: Jackson Carlson