Ms. Kaley's Classroom Room 24

Hello Everyone!

Track It Forward ride sign up reminder:  Please remember to let me know what your child’s ride will be through track it forward.  Our field trip is next Tuesday on March 5th.  It will be an afternoon field trip.  Pick up is at MMA at the North Shore parking lot at 12:30pm.  Students will eat lunch prior to going.  We will meet at Union Station Museum on 25th street around 12:50ish. Our tours and lessons begin at 1pm and go until 2:30pm.  Pick up will be at the Museum at 2:30pm.

Spelling Bee Tuesday!  This Tuesday the 26th will be Spelling Bee day!  We have our top spellers ready to do their best for Tuesday’s Bee day.  Our spellers will be: Franky, Alex, and Jax.  Joseph is our alternate in case someone is absent or backs out.  The Lower El Bee will be from 9am-10am.  Parents are welcome to come and watch.  Parents with those students in our bee are highly encouraged to be there to support their student.

Wednesday– Class Pictures rescheduled day!  With the snow last week, we didn’t have everyone.  Again, we will try this Wednesday!  Our class and other the other lower el classrooms will attend a Storytelling festival assembly in the afternoon at 1:30pm.  Any cultural lesson we don’t get to will be made up Thursday.  WSU is also bringing us science boxes.  Our 3rd graders will work with the dinosaur box this Wednesday

Black History Month in Class Project:  This coming week is History Week for our school.  The Junior High is preparing their projects for March 5th’s presentation day, but for our lower elementary each classroom is running activities, lessons, and readings on a topic of their choice.  Our classroom will be honoring February’s Black History Month.  We have been reading Scholastics and we also did a learning on George Washington Carver (the inventor of peanut butter) this past week.  This coming week the students will get to choose an African American to learn more about.  We will hang up our classroom’s research and displays outside our classroom.

As we get into March we will honor Women’s Month.  This theme’s new bucket is Interdependence (Feb 25th-April 12th).  We will focus on cultural acceptance, peace lessons and how things we know and use have progressed over time (clothes, food, inventions etc.).  We will also move from the USA states to begin a South America study.  The last theme, Liberty and Justice for All will be a North America study.

We are reaching a stage in our curriculum where reviews will begin to take place on lessons already learned.  New language lessons pertaining to our word study and grammar towers are tapering off for some levels.  As we get into March I am going to hold lessons on poetry, figurative language, storytelling, and combine what they have learned in word study and grammar into these lessons.  Next week we will get into new writing lessons on opinions as well that will take us to the end of the year.

Have a great upcoming week and rest of your weekend!

Ms. Kaley and Ms. Misha

Yay!  We are up and running.  Welcome to our classroom blog, The Enterprise.  This is where I do weekly posts, so please regularly check here regarding any information.  I will also be giving the guidelines for the 1st home project under the Home Project tab this weekend.  Remember that the first home project will be due at the end of September.

This week we focused on The Five Great Lessons:

1. The Birth of the Universe

2. The Timeline of Life

3. The Coming of Humans

4. The History of Language

5. The History of Mathematics

These great lessons set up overview for our cultural lessons and gives the students an insight into a variety of perspectives, histories, and cultures on how we got to now.

Each day this week we focused on one of the great lessons.  Activities relating to those great lessons followed.  A favorite activity this week was on Thursday, The History of Language.  Out of the 4 choices the students chose 2.  A group wanted to go with Ms. Anna to do Chinese writing and a group went with me outside to try and make their own ink and own writing tools.

In the afternoons this week we did our first week of cultural.  Here is our schedule:

Mondays– History

Tuesdays– Zoology/Physiology

Wednesdays– Geography

Thursdays– Botany

Fridays– Science and Continent Study

PE started this week too!  PE is on Wednesdays at 1:30pm-1:55pm.

This coming week work cycle will start!  Those who have been in our classroom I will help them pick up where they left off and see if any reviews are needed.  Work cycle the first few weeks start off slow as new students and first graders adjust.  All first graders and new students have been tested in reading and I should be getting their reading placements back this week.  For new students in 2nd and 3rd grade this year I will be doing some basic placement testing with them so I know where I can start them in our shelf works.  The kids are DYING to get into the works, so I know they are excited to come in this coming week and start getting lessons.  We’ll take it step by step so quality is taught and organization is taught.  The system I take in our classroom allows for more practice.  In your child’s Language binder we have a 3 step system for Grammar and Word Study:

1. Layout the cards from the box you are working on.  We call this “Layout.”  The child must master the layout before moving to the second step.

2. “Write down.”  The child lays out the cards from the box he or she is working on.  The child is then asked to write down their layout on specifically designed paper for that box (new this year!)

3. “Sentences or Story.” Once a child has completed the write down, he or she will then pick a few words from their box and depending on their writing skills, the child will be asked to write a sentence using those words or a short story.  This allows us to see if the child can use the words in the right context.

*Something new this year will be some activities related to our Grammar and Word Study boxes.  They can be used help solidify a concept, assessing before moving on, and if some students need a change of pace once and while.

Math this year will see more activities as extensions to a lesson or work a student is on.

Jobs will start this week!

Here’s to a great year!  The kickoff has begun!  Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIA MONTESSORI

Cheers!

Ms. K