Ms. Kaley's Classroom Room 24

Hi Everyone!

I have made sign ups through Track It Forward!  You will probably be seeing a few emails come through inviting you to sign up!

I have made both 3rd grade breakfast sign ups for May 1st and May 7th.  The 3rd grade parents received those email notifications that they have been posted!  For the breakfasts, the school provides me the eggs from our MMA chickens and I make the 3rd grade students scrambled eggs.  The rest of the breakfast is up to you guys! Please sign up to contribute to our breakfast if you can.  Thanks!

May PTC sign ups are ready!  Please sign up through Track It Forward.  Once you are into the program you will click on Event Sign-Up and you will see a calendar.  Be careful to find our classroom sign up as ALL of the school will be posting their sign up sheets on these 3 days.  So far, it is just Ms. Marleen and myself already to rock and roll for sign ups.  During the dinner times there is a date where they make us a nice end of the year dinner.  I might have to adjust one of the spots once I know the date!

May Spirit Week Events! May 14th- May 18th

Monday- Store Day AND Crazy Sock Day.  We will be outside with Ms. Stef’s Class for Store Day (please provide sunblock!).  It works like a yard sale!  Students will be earning classroom dollars to use towards buying things from others during Store Day.  Students may bring in things to sell:

-Sell books and toys they no longer want, but think someone else may want to enjoy

-Sell a treat: Otter Pops, muffins, cookie, etc.  Must be wrapped up to take home

-Sell a service/craft: origami, play a game, make a craft, sell a craft etc.

Students should bring their own blanket to be able to set up their own store items and also bring a bag to do their shopping with.  We plan on being outside if it is nice out.  It could be hot so please allow them to bring sunblock, sunglasses, and hats.

Tuesday- Crazy hat or Hair Day!

Wednesday- PJ and Movie Day.  Pillows and blankets allowed

Thursday- Occupation Day!  Dress like the occupation you want to be when you grow up or any occupation!

Friday- FIELD DAY! It is also dress down day.  We have ours in the morning.  It is outside too and will be in the parking lot.  Please prepare your child for running around outside and for the weather.

Upcoming Week:

The 6th and and 9th graders are on their big field trips.  Some teachers and SPED teachers are helping chaperone and will be out of the building.  We will have Ms. Nikki’s assistant, Ms. Missy, on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

I will be leaving for Charlottesville, VA on Thursday and will be out Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday (May 7th).  Ms. Lori will be subbing for me.  Our schedule will run as it normally does.

Volunteers needed!- Friday the students will be doing Cinco de Mayo learning and activities.  I would love to have a parent or 2 come in and help make homemade salsa for snack.  If would like to help out in the morning and help the kids prepare salsa, please email me ASAP! We will also need tortilla chips donated too.  If you can’t make it, but want to help donate chips, please let me know and send them in with your child this week.  Please email me at kparsons@mariamontessoriacademy.org if you can help out on Friday or help donate food supplies!  Thanks!

DIBLES- Our end of the year reading testing has begun!  Monday (tomorrow) and Tuesday the reading teachers will be testing our students on end of the year DIBELS testing

SAGE Writing- 3rd graders will take their SAGE Writing test Tuesday May 1st.  They will have their special breakfast in the morning and then begin testing at 9am.  They will miss PE and Music this day.

I will be doing 3rd grade end of the year UURC reading level testing this week.  UURC states what reading level your child is reading at.

There will not be any Geometry/Fractions/Measurement lessons this week as each level will work on Problem of the Month with me instead.

No blog post will be posted over next weekend.  Here are some May dates to be aware of:

May 7th- 3rd grade Breakfast and SAGE Math 9am.

May 8th-May 10th- 3 3d grade students will shadow in Ms. Stef’s Upper El class for the day to see what Upper El is like.

May 10th- 3d grade party 1:30-2:30

Past Week:

Thank you to a lot of you who attended the field trip with us Thursday.  We had beautiful weather and everyone had a great time!

Every language group this week continued to work on their parts of speech with me.

1st graders worked on learning pictographs this week, 2nd graders continued to work on their graphing skills too, and 3rd graders used Tanagrams to solve fraction problems to help their equivalent fraction practice.

In cultural this week: Zoology/Physiology

Level 1s: Endangered Animals

Level 2s: The Nervous System and the Brain

Level 3s: Arthropods and Spiders

Friday- Boat building STEM project.  They loved it!

Have a great rest of your weekend, upcoming week, and next week!

Ms. Kaley

Hello Everyone!

Clark Planetarium/Discovery Gateway Field Trip- April 26th

I’m going to start with important field trip information that has been recently updated!

Jalee and I met and UTA has recently updated their train schedules.  Please read carefully as to what time your child needs to be at the UTA Train station on Wall Ave next to Union Station.

Arriving to train station in AM- Please plan on having your child arrive at 8:10/8:15am.  This will give children time to get their wristbands from their teacher and so we can make sure we have everyone.  If you are planning to come and help chaperone, this will give you the opportunity to get your ticket on time.  I will have extra wristbands for a few chaperones.  Those who plan on coming, please email me to let me know you are coming.  I will see how many extra wrist bands I have.  First come, first serve!

Train LEAVE Wall Ave at exactly 8:37am.  We do not wait for anyone who is late.  If you are late, you can drive your child to The Gateway in SLC.  We get off at the North Temple Station and we walk to the Gateway.  It is a short walk and we’ve never had a problem doing this walk.  This eliminate the need to catch the light rail.

Lunch- There are a few options for your child.  We are at The Gateway in Salt Lake City.  There are limited food buying option, but there will be 3 food trucks by the fountain.  Last year, the whole food court was under construction.  I am waiting to hear back from one of our parents to see if it is rebuilt and accessible.  We still were able to eat outside last year at other restaurants, but the students who brought money to buy food had to eat at the bigger restaurants.

Ms. Kaley’s class will begin at The Clark Planetarium.  It normally opens at 10am, but they will allow us inside a little early when we get there.  The Planetarium is free to go in.  We are not seeing an IMAX movie.  Students are free to explore the exhibits until 11:30 or a little earlier if a chaperone’s group is ready to eat sooner (recommended).  There is a fantastic gift shop at the Planetarium if you decide to give your child money for this field trip.

Our whole class will need to be at Discovery Gateway at 12:00pm.  We will be attending the roller coaster workshop from 12:00-12:30.  Please be on time back from lunch!

Students may have some limited time to explore the rest of Discovery Gateway after the workshop.  We will need to gather and leave by 1:10pm.  It is a short walk back to the train station, but it does take a few minutes to get there.  Our train back to Union Station on Wall Ave in Ogden will leave to head home at 1:31pm.  

Arrival back from SLC to Ogden-  Our train gets back home at 2:24pm.  Please pick your child up at the train station or arrange a carpool to pick your child up.  Please remember to pick your child up on time or have your carpool pick up your child on time.  Jalee and I will have our assistants with us for this field trip, but we do not leave until every child is picked up.  This makes it important to be on time and for us to see that your child gets their ride safely.

Past Week:

This past week in mixed group lessons we had the Antelopes language group work on learning homonyms and creating sentences with a few of them.  The Badgers language group did a great job learning about similes and metaphors.  The Crocs worked on their parts of speech review.  We will continue revisiting each part of speech for review for a few more weeks.

In leveled math groups the 1st graders revisited money.  I showed them some new money works I picked up at the Denver conference I attended.  They are working coin naming and amounts, but also learning to add up coin amounts.  The 2nd graders are continuing to practice graphing skills and learning how to solve differences in amounts with items graphed.  We will spend some more time on graphs for a little bit more practice.  The 3rd graders are working on a mini project for area and perimeter.  I am having them design their own house using graphing paper and they have to solve the area and perimeter for each part of the house (ie: door, windows, roof etc.).  There in class project is due to me on Wednesday.

In cultural this week:

Level 1s: Time to the 10 minute, 5 minute, and 1 minute mark.  Many first graders need practice with these last minute marks

Level 2s: Saturn and Uranus planets

Level 3s: What is a fossil and Paleontologist

We had Scales and Tale come by Thursday afternoon to present the bird show.  It was a great in school field trip to see the different kinds birds and learn what each does!

Friday- our class had music practice for the concert this past Friday and we also snuck in some Earth Day activities

Upcoming Week:

We will complete the Problem of the Month this week and also plant our plants for the April/May in class project.

Thursday is our all day field trip!  Please see above info for details

It looks like beautiful weather this week, so I’m going to do a STEM boat building challenge Friday.  We can test the built boats outside in a bucket.  The kids will learn about water displacement, sink and float review, and learn how/why large ships float and not sink.  They will then build their own boat in small groups to see whose can hold the most amount of weight.  They will only be allowed limited provided building materials and I will use fake class money too for money/budgeting skills as each material has to be “bought.”

Looking ahead:

I am out of town May 3rd-7th and also May 17th-21st.

3rd grade SAGE Writing is May 1st.  Breakfast will be made that morning.

May 7th is SAGE Math.  Breakfast will be made that morning.  I will not be there for this test, but Mr. James and Ms. Megan are proctoring the tests.  I will need more help in the morning to have the 3rd grade breakfast made and served.

I will be getting together the food items wanted for 3rd grade testing breakfast.  Ms. Leigh in the Jr. High provides us with fresh eggs from our MMA chickens.  We have scrambled eggs for every breakfast, but we will need fruit, plates, cups, drinks, and some other breakfast food(s) item.

The Last PTC will be on Track It Forward- not We Join In.  Please make sure that you get yourself signed up for Track It Forward when I get the sign up ready.  It will be new (as it is for me) and I know we are used to We Join In, so if you have any questions once I have the sign up ready, I will try to answer your questions the best I can.  Once you sign up for Track It forward it may take 24 hours, I believe, to be accepted before you can sign up.  I want to have the sign up sheet ready by the 1st week of May.

Thanks to everyone who came and attended the Spring Concert.  There will be 3 more classes of Music for this year.

Have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week.  See some of you on Thursday!

Ms. Kaley

Hi Everyone!

Past Week:

Thank you to those who came with us on our Spring Trash Pick up.  We got lucky with the weather not pouring or snowing on us!  Friday went great!  That was our first field trip on a Friday that Jalee and I have ever done.  The students enjoyed the scavenger hunts around the museum and had a blast doing the helicopter workshop.

In group leveled lessons this week the 1st graders reviewed the lines they are working on in Geometry.  The lines they are learning are horizontal, vertical, parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting.  These types of lines will then be built upon when they turn second graders and we talk about different angles.  2nd graders are working on graphing skills with bar graphs and pie graphs.  They will continue their practice this upcoming week too.  3rd graders are deciphering whether to use their area or perimeter solving skills to word problems.  This is still tough for them, so we are going to review more skills on area vs perimeter by having them “build” a 2D house on graphing paper and they have to answer what is the perimeter and area for a door, windows, a roof, grass, and the house structure they create.

For the mixed language groups this past week, the Antelopes are worked on creating their own sentences and identifying sentences’ parts of speech.  This group is working on sentences having an article, noun, verb, and adjective.  The Badgers and Crocs both worked on Homophones with knowing when to use to vs two vs too and there, their, and they’re.

In cultural this past week: Botany

Level 1s: Photosynthesis introduction and reviewed all parts of a plant

Level 2s: Photosynthesis of a plant

Level 3s: What are carnivorous plants and kinds of carnivorous plants

Friday- Those students who were with me in the morning had class meeting and we went over kind words and did a compliment circle.  This upcoming Friday we will plant the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade bean seed and go over how to record our April in class project

Upcoming Week:

This week we will have a Fire Drill at some time on Tuesday

Wednesday we will have the COW and also Ms. Rachel will be in for her monthly Botany lesson from 1:50-2:50

Thursday Scales and Tales are back!  They will bring their bird show and teach about different kinds of birds.

Friday is an early release.  Please remember that students eat lunch on early outs and pick up is at 1pm.

April 26th is our last field trip.  We take UTA’s TRACKS train and ride it all right to our destination.  Lunch will be eaten at The Gateway at their food court.  Last year it was under construction, so hopefully this year we won’t run into that problem!  Students may bring money to buy lunch at the surrounding places to eat.  This is a split field trip.  We are with Jalee’s class and both classes will take turns doing each place.  We will be going to Clark Planetarium and Children’s Discovery Gateway.  The classes will then switch.  These places are right next to each other in the Gateway’s vicinity.  We do meet at Union Station on Wall Ave to catch TRACKs.  The train platform we take is right behind the little diner.  Parents who come will buy their own ticket to ride, but I will have wristbands for the kids to ride the train for free that day.  I will check with Jalee this week on which class is starting where and to confirm our meeting time at the train station.

Parent Night Opportunity!

Helping Your Child with Handwriting Skills Parent Workshop

You are invited to attend a free handwriting training provided by our occupational therapist. This training will provide ways to improve your child’s handwriting skills this summer. Join us on May 10th in the MMA Library from 4:30 until 6:30pm.

Thanks everyone!  Have a great upcoming week and rest of your weekend!

Ms. Kaley

Hi Everyone!  There is important field trip and SAGE information below!  Please read carefully and mark your calendars!

Happy April!  Hope you all had a great Easter and Spring Break!  I’m going to start with all the important updates and reminders as we will have an eventful week back from Spring Break.

Upcoming Week:

*Please return all white colored permission slips for the Hill Aerospace Museum by Wednesday at the latest.  I have extras if your child misplaced it.

Tuesday- Class pictures and Spring pictures.  If your child wasn’t here at the beginning of the year they need to get their picture done for the yearbook.  If you wish to purchase your child’s school picture that is up to you.  Also, if you want to your child to get Spring pictures taken this is also that opportunity.  At 2:20pm our class will get their class picture done.  This is a picture that won’t need to be purchased it is for the yearbook.

Wednesday- 3rd grade parents!  This is our first SAGE testing day.  It will be the ELA test and it will be in the Library from 12:00pm-3:00pm.  Students are not timed on their tests.  Please help me by helping them understand that they can take their time and if they need breaks or don’t finish they can pause their test and pick back up on another day.  This is true if your student happens to be absent on this day.  There will be makeup dates.  The nice thing about this year is that I don’t have to proctor the tests.  Ms. Megan and Mr. James will be monitoring most of the tests so the teachers can stay back with the 1st and 2nd graders.

SAGE testing dates are as scheduled for our class:

1. SAGE ELA- April 11th 12pm-3:00pm Library
2. SAGE Writing- May 1st 9:00-12:00pm Computer Lab
3. SAGE Math- May 7th 9:00-12:00pm Library.  *I will not be here on this day.

Our class has a 3rd grade privilege and that is to have breakfast on the day of testing.  Since our first one isn’t until noon, we will focus on the other 2 tests that are in the morning.  If any of the 3rd grade parents  (or even 1st and 2nd grade parents too!) would like to help contribute to the breakfasts and help cook on those mornings, please let me know.  I make scrambled eggs for the 3rd graders, but the other items are needed for donation.  As we get closer to the May dates I will get “menu ideas” from the 3rd graders and we’ll get a sign up ready!

Please make sure you 3d grader gets a good night’s sleep Tuesday night and has a good breakfast.  Students may pack a snack to have during testing and they may bring their water bottles.

Thursday- Spring Trash Pick Up Outing!  I need a few parents to help chaperone students (email me and let me know) around the school property and nearby neighborhoods.  The Fall pick up was a great success and rain or shine we will do our Spring pick up Thursday afternoon.  If you are looking to help chaperone please be at our classroom at 12:45 at the latest.  This will give us the time to make sure both our class and Ms Steph’s class are divided and ready to go.  Groups will return back to MMA at 2:30 and put their trash bags away and restore their classrooms.

*Please pack weather permitting attire just in case!  Umbrellas, rain boots, sweaters, gloves, hats, and a waterproof jacket may be needed!

Friday- Hill Aerospace Museum day!  Please let Katie James (misskt2558@yahoo.com), our room mother, know if your child needs a ride.  We are meeting at the Aerospace Museum at 9:30am.  Those who have made carpools or are driving their own child can meet us there at the museum, but please let me know if you are choosing this option and who you have with you so I know who not to wait around for at MMA.  If your child does need a ride, please let Katie know if you have an extra seat and can take a child.  Carpools made through our room mom who need to meet at MMA need to be in the North Shore parking lot at 9:15am at the latest.  We will be out at 9:30am to make sure everyone can find their ride.  Parents, please let Katie James know your child’s ride situation by Wednesday 5pm at the latest.  This will give me the time to look over who is going with who.  Students who choose to come back to MMA after the field trip is over will be leaving the Museum at 1pm.

*Please pack weather permitting attire just in case!  Umbrellas, rain boots, sweaters, gloves, hats, and a waterproof jacket may be needed!  A sack lunch is also needed as we will be eating lunch at the Museum.

April’s Project: This project is an in class project on a seed experiment.  We will be talking about kindness and again and how there is power is kind words and negative words.  We will be testing out how a plant can grow when it receives kind words vs a control plant that won’t receive any kindness at all.  The students will be watching their level’s plant over April and partly into May.  Students will log observations and do a writing piece in the end.  This is the last project of the year!  Students who don’t keep up with their in class work on this project will have to finish up at home.

Looking at April and May calendaring: 3rd grade Upper El shadowing dates TBA.

*May Spirit week and end of school activities TBA

April 10th- Class pictures 2:20pm

April 11th- SAGE ELA 12:00-3:00

April 12th- Spring trash pick up 1:00-2:30

April 13th- Hill Aerospace Museum 9:30-1:00

April 19th- In school presentation: Scales and Tales bird show after lunch

April 20th- Early Release 1pm

April 26th- Discovery Gateway Museum and Planetarium Field Trip.  UTA train will be rode.

May 1st- SAGE Writing 9:00-12:00 and 3rd grade breakfast. Breakfast from 8:20-8:50

May 3-7- Ms. Kaley out of town

May 7th- SAGE Math 9:00-12:00 and 3rd grade breakfast. Breakfast from 8:20-8:50

May 10th- 3rd Grade Party 1:30

May 11th- Eat lunch with Steph’s class

May 17th-21st- Ms. Kaley out of town

May 18th- Eat lunch with Steph’s class

May 22nd-24th- PTC 1pm Early Outs

May 25th- Last day of school for students Early release 1pm

Have a great rest of your Sunday and upcoming week!

Ms. Kaley