Ms. Kaley's Classroom Room 24

Hello Everyone!

Past Week:

Thank you for a wonderful field trip this past Thursday!  We had the most chaperones we’ve ever had for the particular field trip.  The kids had a great time!

This past week was Red Ribbon Week, an anti-drug national campaign.  We had a speaker come in Monday and he presented on loving yourself and taking care of yourself and to be a good friend to yourself and others.  Tuesday the kids received a red wristband to wear as a promise to themselves that they will never do drugs.  Wednesday an owl coloring page was distributed for the kids to color and submit for a coloring contest.  Thursday we missed out on due to our field trip, but it was tie a red ribbon to the fence day.  Friday we decorated our door superhero themed.  Our door reads “We’re too SUPER to do Drugs!  Each kid made a superhero for our door.  We didn’t win the door decorating contest, but we sure made an awesome door.

Each level received Geometry lessons this week.

In cultural this week: History

Level 1s: Days of the week/months review, made a calendar for November, Identifying past, present, and future

Level 2s: Constellations all week

Level 3s: Pre-cambrian and Cambrian life and we began writing facts on our timeline booklet

Friday we worked on getting as many projects as we could presented.  We worked on our door decorating contest in the morning and we began presenting at 9:30.  We have a handful more to do throughout out this coming week. If your child brings in their project this week they still can get some credit for doing their project.  The presented projects will hang up in our hallway to have others read.  I’ve already seen older students stop by to look and read their projects when I hung them up Friday afternoon.  The projects, so far, are wonderful!

Upcoming Week:

Tuesday is our Halloween Party!  Here is the sign up for a few more items we need for our party!

Halloween Party Supply Sign Up!

Tuesday morning we will still have early recess, PE, and then our kids are going to check out a potential new music teacher!  Ms. Rene asked if our class could be the demo class so Rene can see her music lessons.  For the Halloween party, it will be in the afternoon.  Lunch is from 12:00-12:30.  If you are coming in to help and set up, please come at 11:30am to set up.  We can eat out in the kiva while set up is happening.  I will try and reserve the kiva space for any other activities.  We can begin our activities at 12:45 when the kids are back from cleaning up their lunch and we will stop around 2:30 to restore the room.

Wednesday we have the COW and Ms. Rachel is coming in for monthly Botany lesson at 1:50.

Looking at November!

Our school does a Chili Cook off every year.  It is coming up on November 7th.  Some classrooms and individual families like to participate.  If any our families would like to participate, the chilis are submitted that evening in a crockpot.  It begins at 5pm.  Our class and Ms. Stef’s class will be cooking that afternoon on our entries.  If any of you would like to help oversee, we could take a few volunteers to help with the food prep!

The school’s gratitude feast is November 16th.

November’s Home Project focuses on family.  Each student will take home a form for you all to complete as a family.  Students’ presentations will be about their families and us celebrating the similarities and differences in each of our families.  DUE NOV. 17th.

Take care!  Have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week

Ms. Kaley

Hello Everyone!

Past Week:

Thank you for a great Fall Parent Teacher Conference!  Our early outs were busy getting in as many lessons as we could before Fall Break began.  We were able to get everyone’s Fraction lessons, math facts, and everyone’s language group in.

I checked in on our October writing prompt: Tell me a time you were scared.  1st and 2nd graders are writing and 3rd graders are typing on Utah Compose.  Utah Compose can we worked on at home as well.

1st graders got an introduction to numerators in a fraction, 2nd graders identified the fraction through a word problem, and 3rd graders began identifying fraction segments on a number line

We got our one day of Botany in on Tuesday morning.

Level 1s: Plants through the seasons.  They drew a tree going through it’s transitions through the 4 seasons.

Level 2s:  Simple and Compound leaves.  A simple leaf is a a single leaf and a compound leaves are multiple leaflets

Level 3s:  Solitary and Inflorescence flowers.  A solitary flower is one flower that grows and inflorescence are when multiple flowers are grown off one stem

Upcoming Week:

This upcoming week is Red Ribbon Week.  It a national recognition educating students on how to say no to drugs and be a healthy you.

Monday morning we will have a speaker.  Lower El’s time will be 9am-9:40am.

Tuesday: We will go over 2 more peacemakers when the students come back from PE.  We will go over, briefly, on Gandhi and the Dalai Lama.

Thursday: Back Island Farms field trip!  Please remember to meet at Black Island Farms at 9:30am.  The chaperone cost is 4 dollars.  All our students are covered.  Please make sure your child is dressed for being outside.  They can wear jeans and non collared shirts on this field trip.  They should have comfortable shoes, a back pack, water bottle, lunch, and sweater/jacket.  For those needing to return to MMA, we will be leaving at 2pm.  If you have your own child with you and you are not needing to drop another student back at MMA, you don’t have to return to the school.

Friday- No studio this day.  We will share the October peacemaker projects.  Throughout the morning and afternoon we will decorate our door for Red Ribbon Week.

Classroom reminder:  Ms. Misha and I have seen multiple students with holes at the knees in their pants.  If a child has hole on their pants, they cannot wear those pants to school.  Please check your child’s pants and if they can be repaired with a patch or sewn, then they can wear them back to MMA.  If not, please do not let them wear them to school.  Also, a lot of students need a water bottle.  This reduces our students needing to leave the classroom and to have their water needs nearby.  We keep our water bottles in our kitchen and we only have a few of them there.  Please make sure your child is using a refillable water bottle.  Thank you!

Class update: we will be getting 2 new 1st graders!  We are expecting one of them to begin Monday and the other Nov. 6th.  This will put us at 30 students.  We moved our large table outside our our room on Wednesday afternoon and rearranged some desks and shelves around to help accommodate more floor space, but also the need that some students either want or need a more personal space.  We will also be able to spread out into the kiva a bit more with our table outside our room.  This will help when it’s math facts time for a group, or when we need to cultural lessons.  Ms. Nikki and her assistants can also have the space to work at when she’s servicing students.

Thanks everyone!  Have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week!  Looking forward to seeing some of you at our field trip.

Ms. Kaley

Hello Everyone!

A reminder that Parent Teacher Conferences begin Monday afternoon.  Monday-Wednesday are early outs at 1pm.  Please make sure you have signed up as well.  Students do not have to come to ours for this conference round, but if they come with you they can sit out in the kiva or choose to join us.

I have printed out Nonsense words and Letter names/sounds fluency practice, as well as sight words up to 3rd grade and multiplication practice to give out at conferences.  You will receive a packet to take home if your child needs to work on these items at home.  Even a few minutes a day working on reading and math skills can make a drastic difference in your child’s learning.

Past Week:

Wednesday we tried out having the laptops all afternoon.  I checked in with 3rd graders on Utah Compose and then everyone worked on Prodigy Math.  The students are really enjoying the game!  There are parts in the game where your child will come across an item to buy.  This isn’t necessary at all and doesn’t effect the assignment I give them that they are accomplishing.  Your child should just X out and continue in the game.  A few minutes a day on the game helps and allows me to see if anyone needs any extra support.

Thursday we had the Utah Rotary Club come and give the 3rd graders their dictionaries.  We also had our Fall Trash Pick Up community field trip.  Thank you thank you for those parents who came to chaperone.  The kids really had a good time!  Our kids were still even looking for trash on the playground after we had gotten back to the school.

Friday we went over tattling vs an needed comment to the teacher.  We also learned about Mother Teresa.  Some students mentioned who their peacemaker is going to be.  Peacemaker projects are due Oct. 27th.  We don’t have studio that day, so we will share projects that morning.

In cultural this week we did Geography:

Level 1s: Continents and zones of the Earth

Level 2s: Tectonic plates

Level 3s: Earth’s Atmosphere

Geometry was the focused leveled math lesson this week.

Level 1s: Types of shapes (circle, triangles, quadrilaterals, curvilinear shapes)

Level 2s: Introduction to angles: their parts and acute, obtuse, right, and straight angle

Level 3s: Angles in triangles

Upcoming Week:

We will focus on work cycle in the mornings.  As far as I know, we still have PE Tuesday morning. We still don’t have a music yet.  Therefore, on the progress report, you will not see music filled out.  If other areas are blank on your child’s progress report then we have not gotten to it yet.

Our progress report is on a 1-4 grading scale.  4s are absolute mastery.  The child not only knows the content, but applies it on other areas of learning, can explain it, teach it, and have gone beyond the expectations.  Most students are in the 1-2 range for this time of year.  Please don’t read our scale as 1s=poor,  2s=satisfactory, 3s=good, and 4s=exceptional.  The way to view the scale is based on how much you child can do/remember the work by themselves and show the learning through independence.  Our scale is on the report and if you have any questions, please ask at our conference time.

We will get one day of Botany (Tuesday morning) to get our cultural in.  Fractions will also be the math subject of the week for each grade level.

There is no school Thursday and Friday.

Friday Oct. 27th is also our annual Fall Festival!  Here is a note from MAPA:

• Wristbands – allow access to bounce houses, dunk tank, and climbing wall – provided by Custom Events
• Tickets – allow access to all other events and goodies, including haunted house, root bier garden, cotton candy and more

I have printed out the biography page that each student should complete for their peacemaker project.  Parents are allowed to help their students with the writing.  This page is the writing “must” for this project.  The presentation part is the fun part to help explain who their peacemaker is/was!

Hi Everyone!

Prodigy Math is working out really well!  I had a few students try it out yesterday afternoon and it is such a cool way to check math concepts.  The area of math I assign is their task to make moves in the game.  It is an adventure game that reminds me a lot of the Zelda games!  Each math question they answer is tracked in their progress through my login.  I can see where each student is struggling and would need a review in that concept and what they have mastered.  I added more assignments so the students could have some more questions.  The program even allowed me to add a SAGE prep test for 3rd graders!  I looked at the questions and the prep questions are on point.  Please have your student be practicing this game at home.  We will also have some opportunities in class, but most of the time will need to be at home.  The areas I assigned and the SAGE prep are due on Nov. 3rd.  If students are down before that I can add more.  I really want to see where each student in (especially 3rd graders for that SAGE prep test).  I am already getting great data back from just looking at the progress last night!

-Ms. Kaley

Hello Everyone!

Past Week:

This past Monday afternoon we welcomed Ms. Rachel for her 2nd monthly Botany lesson with our class.  She talked about different biomes and how even deserts can be snowy in certain parts of the world.

We had author Gary Hogge come to our school on Tuesday morning.  He presented to the students about using “their author voice.”  He came to our class after lunch and did a class writing workshop with our students.  3rd graders then went to a 3rd grade writing workshop while the Level 1s and 2s went to recess (Ms. Misha was at her monthly assistants meeting during that time). So, Tuesday was a very busy day of presentations!

Katie James, our room mom, contacted you all about our upcoming local field trip this coming Thursday afternoon.  On Thursday afternoon from 1:00pm-2:30 we will be walking around MMA and surrounding communities to pick up trash.  Students will be put into groups with Ms. Steph’s Upper El students and a chaperone.  I am hoping to get at least 5 chaperones.  I believe we are currently at 2 (as of Saturday).  She is also looking for ideas for our Halloween class party!  Once activities are planned, then supplies/materials can be donated.  I’m planning on having our party on Halloween in the afternoon from 1:00pm-2:40pm.

Wednesday the Imagination Learning accounts were ready for our 1st and 2nd graders.  We got everyone on and they began their learning about the program.  1st and ins graders logins are their MMA student ID number and their password is also their MMA student ID number.

On Friday I discussed the peacemaker project some more with the students.  I noticed the biography page on the Projects tab of our blog wasn’t working.  For some reason, this blog site can be iffy with PDFs.  I will be giving each child a hard copy this week to take home.  Sorry about that.  I tried to reattach it, but it wouldn’t work.  I may try emailing it to everyone and see if it will load for you as an email attachment.  We will be going over our first peacemaker, Mother Theresa, this coming Friday.

Yesterday, Saturday, I came across a really cool website for our students!  I’m pretty excited about it since it was free and seems easy to use.  It is called Prodigy Math.  I loaded in each student and then Prodigy made their username and a password within a parent letter.  The website checks student’s understanding of common core math standards.  I can assign students a standard to work on within a timeframe.  Since 3rd graders are needing to work on multiplication facts, I assigned 3rd graders to work on multiplication tables of 0s and 1s.  They have until Nov. 3rd.  I’m going to have the students take home their login paper this week so they can do their work at home, but also in school when we get the COW (computers on wheels cart).  I made an assignment for first and 2nd graders too to be completed by Nov. 3rd.  I want to use this website to help see hard data on what students know.  This will allow me to give better scores on the progress reports as the year goes on.  I know many of you have asked about what can you do at home to help your child and I’m giving you resources.  Last week, I posted a sight words list and a nonsense words for beginning readers.  The sight words list goes up to higher grades, so don’t feel like the sight words list is just for 1st grade.

October’s Writing Prompt– Every month, all students in Lower Elementary will receive a monthly prompt.  3rd graders will be typing theirs in Utah Compose and 1st and 2nd graders will write theirs.  They have all month to complete it.  The prompt is “Tell about a time you were scared.”  It is a personal narrative prompt.

We focused on Fraction lessons this past week with 2nd and 3rd graders.  2nd graders worked on naming the fraction within a group and 3rd graders worked on equivalent fractions.  Level 1s are continuing to work on labeling the fraction families.  They will get their 2nd fractions lesson next week.  Everyone will get Geometry this coming week

Progress monitoring also began for students who are red in DIBELS.

In cultural this past week we worked on Zoology/Physiology:

Level 1s: Vertebrates vs invertebrates

Level 2s: Why is breakfast important?  We did a class survey and graphed the results

Level 3s: Porifera review and Cnidarian intro (sea anemones, certain corals, jellyfish)

Upcoming Week:

Please let Katie James know if you can chaperone for our Thursday afternoon field trip.  If you would like to chaperone, please be at MMA in our classroom at 12:30pm.

Ms. Nikki, our new special educations teacher/support staff will begin her role full time.  She is working on servicing students from 3 classrooms (including ours) for 2 hours in the morning (8:30-10:30).  As she gets her schedule going, students who might need more practice or support in subject areas can work with her one on one or in small groups.  Does not matter if a student needs services or not, she is there for everyone.

Wednesday is picture day!  Picture forms went out awhile ago, but if you need another one, I have plenty.  You can also wait to buy them online.

Thursday afternoon we have our field trip and 3rd graders will have their dictionary assembly at 11:15am from the Utah Rotary Club.

Ms. Stef and I were discussing the COW situation since we only get the laptops for an hour on Wednesdays right after lunch until 1:30.  Ms. Stef’s class then gets the COW from 1:30-2:30.  We discussed that the timing isn’t enough once we get everyone settled after lunch and the students login.  We decided to rate our weeks so that we each get the laptops all afternoon!  Mr. James said this is fine and other classes are doing the same.  I will talk with Stef to see if we can begin this Wednesday or not.  This will allow us to have the COW every other Wednesday all afternoon.  On the days we have the COW I will pull for cultural lessons while students are on the laptops and then they can return to their laptops after their lesson.

Please sign up for Conferences!  I made conferences their own post 🙂

Have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week!

Ms. Kaley

Hello Everyone!

Please sign up for Fall Conferences.  Students may come if they would like, but are not required to come.

My daughter’s conference is at 1:30 on Monday the 16th.  The first sign up will begin at 1:50pm on Monday the 16th.

Click Here for Conference Sign Up!

Hello Everyone!

Past Week:

This past week we began Geometry with Level 2s and 3s and introduced the penny and nickel to Level 1s.  All Level 1s are working on our penny box 1.  Working with pennies and skip counting by 5s with nickels would be great home activity to do with your child.  Almost all first graders also began learning preprimary sight words.  Some of our Level 1s are working on knowing 3 at a time and some are working on all of set 1.  Sight words are words you can’t necessarily sound out and are the most often words seen in text.  A few of you have asked, “How can I help my child at home?”  Going over sight words (for any level) and reading 20 minutes a day are the most beneficial home activities you can do with your child.  Please visit the site below to work on sight words at home with your child:

Sight Words List.  Click me!  This site also has game suggestions, flash cards etc.

3rd grade Multiplication Goal: This year, the Lower Elementary team made a team wide goal to help support our school goal of improving our student’s math skills.  70% of all 3rd graders (in all of MMA) will know their multiplication times tables up to 12s by the end of May 2018.  My student goal for our classroom is to help support this team goal by having 70% of Ms. Kaley’s/Ms. Misha’s 3rd graders know their multiplication times tables up to 12s by the end of May 2018.  This will be measured in our classroom through the use of Montessori materials, flash cards, game extensions, and through our math facts and monthly multiplication assessments.  3rd grade parents, please begin helping support our school and classroom goal by working on multiplication tables at home.  Start with 0s and then progress up to 12s.  Students are considered mastered in a times table when they can pass off on flash cards on that table in under a minute and can do a times table math facts timed test in under 5 minutes.  I will give each 3rd grade family a copy of the math facts times tables to take home to work on at  Fall conferences.

Fall Conferences are approaching:  I have the Fall Conference schedule ready to go.  Ms. Misha and I have children that attend MMA and we will need to go to our child’s conference too.  I am going to check with Ms. Jen’s schedule and then once I know my time slot I will put up our classroom’s schedule so nobody is double booked.  I should have  the schedule posted by our next post (if not before).

More help/strategies for beginning readers: I attended an all day DIBLES progress monitoring Professional Development this past Tuesday.  It allowed me to look at data and learn to make goals.  My plan is to progress monitor those students who are “red” most often.  If your child is yellow, they will get progressed monitored every other week and those who are green or blue will get progressed monitored once a month.  I am hoping this schedule will help improve reading skills.  For first graders, knowing letter names and sounds were assessed for this Fall DIBELS assessment, but by the middle of the year (January), they are required to start reading a 1st grade leveled passage.  Students who are working on beginning to read really benefit from knowing nonsense words.  Another great resource to have at home to practice with your beginning reader are those nonsense words and to review the letter name fluency.  I will try to make copies for those students to have at home during conferences, but here are my two favorites to use at home

LetterNamingFluency  See how far your child can get in 1 minute.  You can do letter name and/or sounds.  Great tool to use at home for letter practice!

NSFPracticePages  These are nonsense words.  Every month it changes.  We want to see how far a child can get in 1 minute.  Students who start are working on sounding out each sound.  The goal of a nonsense word is to read the whole word.  Very useful to use at home to help beginning readers!

Permission slip: On Friday, I distributed a permission slip.  The white paper has all of our currently scheduled field trips for the year.  If you initial on all those field trips then that one paper takes care of all the field trips for the year!  The pink paper is yours to keep!  This paper is the detail for our upcoming service project with Ms. Steph’s class. Please email our room mom, Katie James, if you would like to help chaperone.  We are only going within a mile radius around MMA, so no transportation will be needed for this field trip.  Please begin thinking about our trip to Black Island Farms at the end of the month.  Carpools, drop offs, and chaperones will be needed for that trip.  Arrival at the farm is at 9:30am.  Please let Katie know if you can drop off your own child, will be a chaperone, and/or will need a ride for your child.  Katie will receive our classroom roster that has ever family’s email.  If you need a ride for your child, she will email everyone who might have an empty seat in their car.  Those who need a ride to Black Island Farms usually meet their carpool at North Shore in the parking lot.  Some families choose to do carpools on their own because they know other families in our class and they go and pick up that student.  If you don’t know any families and need a ride for your child, North Shore is the place for pick up/drop off.  Katie, I would like to know who would like to be a chaperone for our trash pick up by Oct. 9th.  For Black Island Farms, I would like to know the chaperone list and carpool, drop off list by Oct. 23rd.

In cultural this past week: History

Level 1s: October calendar, days of the week, months by season

Level 2s: Kinds of galaxies and a star’s lifecycle

Level 3s: Overview of the timeline of life and began making a timeline of life flip book to use when we begin studying each Era and Period

Friday- Knowing that some of our common foods come from the rainforest.  Some students took home a list to play a grocery store scavenger hunt.  We also had a grace and courtesy lesson on please, thank you, and socially acceptable manners such as holding a door for someone and for gentlemen to open and hold a door for a lady.  Students also began studio this past Friday.  They all said they had a great time.  I also believe this was the smoothest running 1st studio we had!

Upcoming Week:

This coming week we have:

Monday– Monthly Botany lesson with Ms. Rachel Bush right after lunch for 1 hour.  Cultural lessons will be afterwards

Tuesday– Author Gary Hogge will be visiting again!  He will be doing an assembly at 9am.  Our students will still have recess first thing in the morning and then they will go to the assembly.  At 1pm, 3rd graders will go to a writing lesson and receive the lesson from Gary.  He focuses on using details to support your story and make it more interesting to read.  He teaches students how to substitute boring words for more details that can hook your reader.  I will most likely be attending this assembly with the 3rd graders.

Phew! That was a lot of information.  Thank you for reading and have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week!

Ms. Kaley