Ms. Kaley's Classroom Room 24

Hi Everyone!

Upcoming Week/Reminder

Chili Cook Off:

This coming Wednesday is the annual Chili Cook off!  Our students will be making some chili to submit.  The cook off starts at 5:30 and goes until 7pm.  Kids under 5 are free!  It is a fundraiser for the school and there will be gluten free and vegetarian options.   If your family would like to submit a pot of chili for the contest the link is: https://wejoinin.com/sheets/WGKPP

Our students will help chop veggies and measure out ingredients while we have the laptops Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday morning will also be an assembly on Net Safety which is an Internet safety assembly.  It will be right away in the morning and go until 9:30.

Lateness:  Please make sure students are on time to school.  We’ve had a few students coming late often they are missing out on important instruction.

Community Goals:  Our students met their first community goal this week.  The goal was to achieve moments of quiet as a whole class and achieve 20 points by the end of Thursday.  The next goal is Be Kind.  We will be talking about noticing moments of true kindness.  The students will need 20 points of quiet and 20 moments of true kindness in order to get their next achievement ticket to take home.

Winter/Mid Year Conferences:  You may begin to sign up for our mid year conferences!  https://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/phhos

Water bottles!-  Our school safety committee reviewed every classroom’s emergency bag and it used to be filled with packs of water.  It made our bag incredibly heavy and the bagged water no longer was good, so they took all of it out.  It is asked that every student has their water bottle at school.  If we were asked to go to our North Shore safety spot, the students would have their water bottle which could be filled from either North Shore Pool or the Fire Dept.  It also helps our students to not leave class as their need for a drink is right in the classroom.  Please make sure your student is coming to class with a refillable water bottle, not a plastic one.

Past Week:

The students focused on Fractions this past week in their leveled lessons.  Geography was also studied in the afternoon.

Level 1s:  Continent and Ocean review and they learned our Geography game we have on the shelf.  They got to the next level which has them learning about landforms- our next big unit we will cover beginning next month in Geography

Level 2s: All about volcanoes- kinds of, parts of, how volcanoes are formed and happen

Level 3s: The water cycle- what it is and how it happens

Wednesday afternoon we had the COW.  We have the laptops again this coming week because Ms. Stef will be out of town.

The students who brought in their President Report all got to share.  They are terrific!  I hung everyones up outside our room for everyone to see.

Have a great upcoming week and rest of your weekend

Ms. Kaley

Hello Everyone!

On January 31st in the evening there is our annual Chili Cook off.  Our class and Ms. Stef’s will be making chili in the afternoon on Wednesday Jan. 31st.  Any parents who wish to help out, please email me. I am looking for 3 volunteers.  The students will get the COW again on the 31st, so while they are doing their computer assignments, students will be called to help.

President reports due FRIDAY! Jan. 26th– Students who are finished may bring theirs in early to share.  Reports are due by Friday.  Again, all project information is on the Projects tab at the top of our blog.

Class party- Valentine’s Day is approaching!  Our class party will be in the morning on Feb. 14th since it is an early release day (beginning of Parent Teacher Conferences- Mid Year).  Our room mom is working on some activities and will need volunteers to help out.  Please keep an eye out soon for her sign ups

Gala basket- The school’s annual Gala fundraiser night is Sat. March 17th.  Each classroom gets a basket theme then the baskets are bid on through a silent auction.  Our room, Katie, will be needing donations for our basket soon.  Keep an eye out for that email as well!  Thanks everyone!

Past Week:

We focused on Zoology and Physiology this week in cultural.

Level 1s:  Reptiles.  Parts of, facts about, and different kinds of reptiles

Level 2s: The tongue and how we taste.  Parts of a tooth and teeth care

Level 3s: Annelids.  Earthworm facts and built a pillow earthworm for parts of an earthworm

Level 1s and 3s focused on fractions this week while 2nd graders checked in with me on time.  A lot of our 2nd graders are struggling with telling time, so on Monday I will be holding an open lesson to review time.  Any student may attend, but it is an opportunity to review and go over it again.  Level 1s are learning to name fractions based on a picture.  So, if the picture of a circle shows 3 equal pieces and 2 are shaded gray, they are naming that fraction as 2/3rds.  Level 3s are beginning to name fractions on a number line.  This is a difficult lesson and when the directions have an explanation where they have to decode what it is asking them to do, many of our 3rd graders struggle with what they are asking.  Here is the page we worked on this week that a lot of the 3rd graders had questions about:  3rd grade Fractions on a Number Line

Upcoming Week:

Colder this week.  Have your child remember their cold weather attire for recess

Monday– Lexi’s Celebration of Life at 2:30.  Heather, I know Janessa’s was Sunday, so if you want to email me to schedule a time to do Janessa’s Celebration of Life let me know 🙂

Wednesday– COW 12:30-2:30

Friday– President reports are due!

PTC sign ups will be posted next weekend!  They begin Wednesday Feb 14th and run until Friday Feb 16th.

Have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week

Ms. Kaley

Hi Everyone!

This past week a lot of our students began the journey of recording their own work progress in their planner.  I am so proud of them.  They really lived up to the expectations and they feel a sense of pride of taking it over.

Even though the students did not have school on Friday, we were able to talk and learn about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the week and also discuss fairness- January’s character topic.  For Dr. MLK, each language group read the same passage and our Antelopes language group did listening and tracking while I read and we would stop at certain vocabulary and discuss what they meant.  Words such as segregation, color, violence, and fairness were some of the words that we went over.  The Badgers language group read the same passage, but they completed some sentences that were missing a vocabulary word.  They had to figure out which word fit the sentence and then for the last question they got to pick which one they wanted to use in their own sentence.  The Crocs group read the passage and completed the fill in the blank vocal page the Badgers had, but also there were story questions responses they were asked to complete.

The students also went over fairness.  The students left off their conversations regarding fairness about how fairness is about equality.  The students also discussed how fairness to them meant that everyone gets the same because that is equality- you get what you want and someone else gets that too.  We replaced the sentence “You get what you want” to “You get what you need.”  I showed them this picture:
This was a powerful picture to the students.  It lead to our discussion on how everyone is on a different path and has different needs, so some students or people may need a different approach then the person next to them.

Home Project: President Report- Up top in the Projects tab, I added the links to the President’s report pages.  I also sent home a physical copy this past week.  January’s home project is due Jan. 26th.

Past Week:

In cultural this past week: History

Level 1s: Learning that clocks have an hour and minute hand and what does that mean. Began telling time to the hour (A great lesson to practice at home on digital and analog clocks!)

Level 2s: The Sun and Mercury facts

Level 3s: Permian period and Mesozoic Era overview

Each grade level worked on their Geometry lessons this past week:

Level 1s: Endpoint/vertex, line, line segment, ray

Level 2s: Identifying angles given to them (right, obtuse, and acute)

Level 3s: Perimeter

Upcoming Week:

This coming week each level will work in different math areas.  Level 1s will work on fractions, Level 2s will go over time, and Level 3s: will do fractions as well.

We will do Zoology/Physiology this week

Thursday- We have a lockdown drill

Have a great extra day off and rest of your week

Ms. Kaley

Hello Everyone!

Happy 2018!  Hope you all had a wonderful break. The students came back ready to work and did a great job despite it being a short week.  Our construction team for the new junior high building is busily growing and they delivered the new Early Childhood playground on Friday.  Once that playground is put together then our students will have a chance to play on it until the new big playground is complete.

Home Project- January’s home project is a report on a past president.  Students are to begin researching which president they want to choose for their project and then I will provide a handout for them to record their research on.  Students will need to write facts about their president based on the questions that are on the handout.  For a visual, your child may do a poster, puppet, paper doll, model, diorama etc (again, this is the creative part that the student gets to pick). Due Jan. 26th

There is no school on Friday because of an all day teacher development.  That following Monday is MLK Day which is a no school day as well.

We have the COW (computers on wheels) this Wednesday afternoon

Past Week:

On Friday, we usually have out classroom meeting in the afternoon.  We began discussing fairness and what do the students believe it is.  I gave 5 scenarios and students had to decide whether they believed the situation was fair or unfair.  When there were differences in opinions we heard why those students thought that way.  It was pretty powerful.  This coming week we will continue the conversation of fairness by learning who Martin Luther King Jr was and what he stood for.  As the rest of January continues we will continue our fairness learning in understanding that fairness is equality, but how equality can look different, especially when it comes to people who learn differently or who are differently abled.

Another large part of our class meeting on Friday was the choice to take over the responsibility of planning their own planners.  About 2/3rd of the class were truly interested, so this coming week will be a new lesson in learning how to record lessons from my lesson plan and continuing the independent work they do.  This is a great practical life lesson, especially for the 3rd graders, as they will be going into 4th grade knowing how to take care of a planner and knowing that they need to plan their work from their teacher and for themselves.

We got a chance to do Botany this past week.  Ms. Rachel came in on Wednesday and held her monthly lesson.  On Thursday we had Botany in our leveled groups.  We are back to History this coming week.

1st grade parents: Your 1st grader has so far been introduced to the penny, nickel, and dime coins.  Most are working with adding pennies and nickels.  By the end of 1st grade they should know: pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  1st grade students should know their name, worth, and know some simple adding with these coins.  Coin counting and conversations at home would be great practice for them.  Also, we using the rest of year in History talking about telling time.  We will go over parts of the clock this week and begin to learn how to tell time to the hour.  They will get to practice their time during work cycle next week.  Use any opportunity to you can find to have your 1st grader practice their time to the hour on an analog clock and digital.  Continue the great sight word, nonsense, and letter work at home.  It is showing. Reading at home for at least 20 minutes in each night shows dramatic improvement in a child’s reading growth.  In our classroom, it is best homework they can do

3rd grade parents: the 3rd graders goal are to work on their multiplication facts.  Please check in with your child often and take a  few minutes of each day practicing flash cards or counting objects in groups (if they need a visual).  Most are where they should be, having completed times tables of 5s and are beyond that.

Upcoming Week:

We have rain in the forecast this coming week.  Keep providing warm attire to wear outside.

Tuesday- specials in the morning

Wednesday- COW in the afternoon and Ms Misha has to leave at 12 noon

Thursday- Ms. Misha has to leave at 10am.

Friday- No School

Have a great upcoming week and rest of your Sunday!

Ms. Kaley