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

Hello All!

Thank you to everyone for a smooth field trip this past Friday.  The kids had a great time and they said they really enjoyed the workshop on simple machines.

STEM Fair Projects:  LE display the week of Jan 22nd.  Projects Due January 18th.

In January the school will host a STEM Fair display.  I talked to the kids this week on what their focuses will be:

1st grader’s projects:  Research a famous scientist and create a project about their life and what they did for science (what made them famous?)

2nd grade’s projects:  A simple science experiment that the student can do the scientific method on.  2nd graders should be able to: 1. Pick a focus (a topic), 2. Create a hypothesis for their topic, 3.  Conduct the experiment (take pictures/video for presentation display!) *include materials/supply list for experiment! *can the experiment be conducted multiple times? What kind of results happen each time, 4.  Write down observations, 5. Make a conclusion and was their hypothesis correct or incorrect?

3rd grader’s projects:  Choose between a project on a simple machine OR a demonstration that explains one of Newton’s Laws of Motion or a demonstration on how momentum or acceleration works.  3rd graders’ projects should be a display that can explain the meaning of the simple machine or laws of motion, explain why/how it works, and how it relates to real life.

Past Week:

3rd graders were excited to learn about round worms (such as earthworms).  We went over the parts of an earthworm and what they do.  We also looked at other kinds of Annelids such as leeches and how they are parasites.  2nd graders reviewed amphibians and the life cycle of a frog.  Since we have the COW on Wednesday afternoons, some 2nd graders got started on reading and researching on an amphibian of their choice.  1st graders learned what an amphibian is and learned they go through a change called “metamorphosis.”

3rd graders have now had a lesson on division with remainders (such as 67 divided by 8).  We will continue practicing this skill and then will work with a triple digit dividend and then move into division with a double digit divisor.  The 3rd graders have seen division in multiple ways with the use of our Test Tube material and also on a white board.  I’ve tied in their division into their multiplication, so they can see how the two are similar to each other.  A skill that is challenging for almost all our 3rd graders is a missing multiplier or missing multiplicand.  This is also true when it comes to division (ex. A x 6= 24 or 28 divided A= 4.

2nd graders are working towards seeing how addition and multiplication are similar.  This week they saw how when numbers go over 10 in a given place value the steps to solve in either addition or multiplication are similar on our materials.

1st graders have begun what we call dynamic addition.  Dynamic is when a given place value goes over 10 and there is exchanging that is needed.  We are starting basic right now, going up to just the 10s place.  As the skill develops they will work with addition that goes up to the thousands place.  This week we will look at subtraction and begin practicing.  1st graders will then have addition and subtraction skills to practice during the week.  After Winter break they will look at multiplication and see how multiplication and addition are similar.  Subtraction skills will also continue.

We begun an important prompt this past week.  It is the 1st summative writing assessment given this year.  After every 2 themes there is an assigned writing prompt that is used to see if they are applying the needed skills they have learned in their writing lessons.  1st graders should be able to write 3-4 complete sentences, 2nd graders should have a fluid beginning/middle/end to their story, and 3rd should apply what 2nd graders do, but be able to add dialogue to their writing.  This coming week the students are working on finishing up their drafts, edits, and revisions, and move into their final drafts.

Upcoming Week:

There is a Parent Night on December 6th at 5:30pm on how a Montessori Class runs and what expectations your child should be applying.  It will go over what makes a Montessori school different from other public schools and what student life at a Montessori school is like.  Please check out the Montessori Monday Moments that was just sent out.  The flyer is located on there.

Ms. Clarissa, our music teacher, is hosting a Winter Concert on December 17th at 5:30pm.  The flyer for the concert is also on the MMM that was just sent out.  Our child has been practicing for weeks in music class! Mark your calendars!

Please note that on December 10th, next Monday, is an early out.

This week I am going to create a sign up on Track It Forward for our annual Holiday Feast!  Our classroom feast will be December 19th at 12:00pm.  Immediate family members are invited to join your child.  The sign up will be for food.  Part of the sign up will be for each level to make something for the feast.  I should have that sign up out by the end of the week so that gives about 2 weeks of preparation.  Our feast will go until about 1pm.  Some years it has gone over 1pm by just a little bit.  The students also present Winter holidays in December from around the world.  We’ll see if we continue that or we change it up some.  Students are welcome to be checked out after the feast.

December Challenge!  Now that we are in December I have a challenge for the students!  If everyone completes their Spiral Maths, Word Works, Text Times, and writings before recess on Fridays in December then we can watch a Christmas movie in the afternoon.  Help encourage your child!  Spiral Math is only 1 column a day.  I tell the students to complete it right after circle time in the morning.  Word Work is also a few language exercises each day.  Text time is the shortest.  It is a short passage and then there are 3-4 questions about the reading.  If everyone followed the exercises then everyone would be done by the end of Thursday (All the exercises in Spiral Math and Word Work are Mondays-Thursdays).

Have a great upcoming week and rest of your weekend.  Happy December and for anyone who celebrates or that you know celebrates Hanukkah!

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