Ms. Kaley's Classroom Room 24

Happy 2016!  I had a funeral last weekend, so sorry to not post.

Hope you are having a nice long weekend! The kids came back to school ready to go.  This past week it seems they are falling into that antsy in your pantsy time of year.  Emilee and I are really maintaining the grace and courtesy of our classroom, with some students, and are still going over reminders and procedures to keep everyone still working as a team community.

Past Week:

We had our first round of computers this past Monday.  Our school is now offering a whole computer cart to go to a classroom for an hour and half.  We used that time to take the mid year math assessment, 3rd grade practice fraction SAGE test, and MyOn.  In February, I have signed us up to have it once a week.  I will take 2 grade levels at a time to work on: writing/SAGE skills with 3rd graders, typing/writing skills for 2nd graders, and reading skills with 1st graders.

In group lessons:

Level 1s: answering the 5 questions (who, what, where, when, why in a story)

Level 2s: answering the 5 questions (who, what, where, when, why in a story)

Level 3s: Topic sentences, answering the 5 questions (who, what, where, when, why in a story)

In cultural lessons: Zoology

Level 1s: Reptiles

Level 2s: Manatees and Dugongs

Level 3s: Mollusks and Clams

Upcoming Week:

Tomorrow, Tuesday 1/19 from 7-8: Do you know of someone who wants to know what Montessori is?  Maybe wants to send their child to MMA, but needs to know more?  Here is the chance!  From 7-7:20, have someone who would be interested, come and learn the basics of “What is Montessori?”  After the presentation, each Lower and Upper teacher will take a few parents to their rooms to give a quick tour of the classroom and then answer one on one questions.  Arrive a little earlier to watch a slide show and get a parking space!

I mentioned that our classroom does a Science Fair and a lot of the students are super excited.  I mentioned it will take place in March, but some students have some BIG ideas they want to explore.  If your child is talking about or seems to be more into science, have them start exploring 🙂  We will start going over that project in February.

I’d like to do a classroom Valentine’s Day party.  If you have any ideas or want to help, let our room mother, Jaida, know.  Right now, we haven’t planned anything, but will be in talks about it soon!

Winter Gear:  Some students are not coming to school with much cold weather gear.  Students go outside for recess.  Please make sure your student has boots, gloves, and a coat that keeps them warm.  Mondays are still PE days.  Please make sure your child has sneakers too to run around the gym in on Mondays.  Boots can be uncomfortable (so the kids tell me).

That should be about it.  If anything else comes up, I’ll give another post!

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Cheers!

Ms. K

We had a great time at the ballet on Monday.  Hoping your child enjoyed it too!

We finished up as many individual lessons as possible the rest of the week.  This coming week is so full of holiday activities that there won’t be any regular lessons going on.  Let’s take a look at this week so that everyone who is planning on coming in this week will know what is going on.

Monday:  Holiday Store and Holiday Baking

8:15am- Students will get their store items that they are selling all set up in our room.

8:35am- Circle time to go over store rules and choose jobs for the week

8:50am- Pledges and then Holiday store begins!

 *Please send a bag with your child so they can carry all the things they want to buy from other  students.

9:30am-  *A few 3rd graders will make gingerbread dough with Ms. Kaley.  Ms. Emilee will watch over store.

*A few 2nd graders will make the sugar cookie dough with Jaida, our room mom.

*A few 1st graders will make peanut brittle with Michelle

11:00am- Holiday store ends and cleaning up begins.

11:30am-12:00pm- Recess.  A few students can stay in to help roll out dough and cut out the shapes

12:00pm-12:30pm- Lunch

12:30pm-2:00pm- PE and Music specials.  Cookies can be baked while recess and lunch are going on and  while students are off to specials

1:30pm- Fire Drill!

2:00pm-2:40pm- 2nd and 3rd graders decorate their cookies.  1st graders can help break up the peanut brittle

3:00pm- Dismissal

*Jaida is bringing: mixer, sugar cookie decor and some ingredients, baking supplies

*Ms. Kaley is bringing: mixer, gingerbread ingredients, 1 baking tray, baking supplies

*Michelle is bringing: peanut brittle ingredients and supplies

* please remember to send your child with ingredients/supplies that were signed up for!

Tuesday: Holiday Feast

Morning: Christmas cards for one of our first grader’s family members.

11:15am- Set up for feast starts

12:00pm- Holiday feast!

1:00pm- Holiday feast ends and clean up begins.  If you want or plan on checking out your child after our feast, please just let me or Emilee know if you are taking them.  Hope to see most of you there!  Please sign up for food and attendance if you haven’t!

Afternoon- cultural- Botany

Wednesday: Upper El International Festival

9am-11:00am- Upper El International Festival.  Everyone is welcome to come to see their projects!

Afternoon- cultural- Botany

Thursday: Lower El International Festival

Morning- Go over International Festival project boards for how to present.  Get our room set up.

11:00am-11:30am- Recess

11:30am-12:00pm- Lunch

12:00pm- Clean up from lunch and any food for projects to be set up

12:30pm-2:30pm- Lower El International Festival

Friday: Junior High International Festival and EARLY OUT (1pm dismissal)

9:00am-9:15am- Dance with Ms. Emily

9:15-9:30am-German Silhouettes with Mr. Rob

9:35am- Small art project with Anna’s grandpa, Mr. Will

10:15am-10:30am- Bead making with Ms. Lisa and Me. Casey

10:30am-10:45am-Chinese calligraphy with Ms. Fallon

10:45am-11:00am- African recess game with Ms. Marie

11:00am-11:30am- Work on art project

11:30am-12:00pm- Lunch

12:40pm- Recess

12:40pm-1:00pm- Dismissal- Have a wonderful Christmas holiday, a fabulous New Year’s, and safe traveling to all of our families!

Holiday Concert!

This Thursday is our Holiday Concert.  I’ve seen the office post A-M goes at 6pm, but I’m looking at Ms. Connie’s email and it says:

Last names A-L go at 6:00pm

Last names M-Z go at 7:00pm

Each performance should last a half our or so 🙂  I hope to see our kiddos come and sing!  I will be going to the 6:00pm performance.

Holiday Feast Attendance and Sign up:

Please don’t forget to sign up to come to our feast, make food, or help bring in supplies!  It is December 15th at 12:00pm.  Right now, just a few supplies are signed up for, but we have no food.  Here is the link again:

Holiday Feast Dec. 15th

Holiday Baking!

December 14th is our Holiday Store and baking day!  Some supplies are still needed.  Here is the link for those supplies!

Holiday Baking!

Hello Everyone!

Every month the teachers meet for a staff meeting.  December’s meeting happened last night. MyOn became a topic of discussion.  Our school signed up for MyOn as a resource for our students to have more access to books in hopes to improve reading outside of school.  There are still students in all of our classes that have not even logged into MyOn.  Please help us out in having your student get onto MyOn a few times a week.  I have made assignments for each level to do, but also to have students enjoy all the thousands of books that are on there.  They have books starting at the PreK level and it goes up to 6th grade.  All of our students are fully capable of having a book being just right for them through MyOn.

Our hope is to have all students be logged in by Friday.  MyOn works with any smart phone/ipad/kindle etc. device.  I’ve been told it doesn’t need a wifi signal to work!  So, if you don’t have internet at home, but your child has a device that can run MyOn, they can still enjoy the program.

If you need your child’s login again, I would be more than happy to help you with that.  Everyone’s password is “books.”

Always feel free to email me if you have any questions or comments.

Happy reading!

Here are the International Festival Europe choices for our class:

Kennedy- Ukraine

Tiffany- France

Nicholas- Germany

Sophia- Ireland

Peyton- Italy

Aiden B- Switzerland

Romeo- Transylvania

JayCee- The Eiffel Tower

Lucy- Paris

Dustie- Animals of France

Aidan L-Turkey

William- 1 Indian tribe of Europe

Jayce- Greece

Lydia- Iceland

Arianna- Norway

Stevie- Spain

Ashley- Finland

Tae-Lynn- Romania

Cael- London

Ethan- Yugoslavia

Daxton- Oslo

Karsten-Portugal

Anna- Estonia

Ella- The United Kingdom

Bridger- Sweden

Naomi- Austria

Kylie- Red Deer in France

Alden- Hungary

Kailyn- Czech Republic

Michael- European main dishes (food)

Past Week:

We had a great week.  Everyone is excited for December and came back from break ready for more.  I have all students filling out there own work chart, even first graders.  Start checking in with your child on what they are accomplishing on their own.  Some students are working on many works per day and some are working on more intense choices.

This past week we had a net safety assembly on how to be safe on the internet.  Each class will be “certified” by doing some activities in our classroom.

In cultural: Zoology/Physiology:

Level 1s: Amphibians and Life cycle of a frog

Level 2s: The eye and the ear

Level 3s: Annelids: Earthworms and leeches

Friday: STEM Christmas tree challenge

Upcoming Week:

The Nutcracker on Monday the 7th: Monday we have the ballet field trip!  Please pack a lunch for your child.  We will go over the history of the Nutcracker in the morning, have an early recess/lunch, and then get ready to go at 11am.  If your child chooses to dress up nice for the ballet, the dress code can be skewed some.  Nice dresses do not have to have a collar.  If your child is not going to dress up, then dress code applies.

Tuesday the 8th: 3rd grade practice SAGE Writing test!  I will be with 3rd graders in the Library on Tuesday morning.  Please pack them a snack and their water bottle.

Looking to Next Week:

The week of Dec. 14th is busy!

Monday the 14th: is Holiday Store Day!  Store will be right away in the morning.  Levels can begin baking  towards the end of the morning and into the afternoon.  Our upper elementary class partners this year, Ms. Stef’s class, have their feast on Monday at lunch.  I did tell Ms. Stef that we might in and out to use the oven.  Here is the sign up for helping bring supplies for baking and wrapping paper!

Holiday Store and Baking Supplies!

Tuesday Dec. 15th:  Our classroom feast will begin at lunch time (12:00pm).  If you are needing to come in to drop off food or want to help, please come at 11:15am.  Ms. Stef’s class is going to leave out the tables and chairs, so we’ll have just our food to set up.  The tables are round and are pretty large, for anyone who has round table cloths.  Here is the sign up:

Classroom Holiday Feast Food/Supply sign up AND Attendance 

Wednesday Dec. 16th: is Upper Elementary’s International Festival.  We will be visiting each upper el from 9-11:00.  Anyone is welcome to come!

Thursday Dec. 17th: is Lower Elementary’s International Festival from 12:30-2:30.  Anyone is welcome to come!  I will post the list of what student’s chose this coming week.  Naomi and Kylie were the only ones who didn’t know what they wanted to choose and need to choose a Europe related topic by next week.  Practically the whole class each chose a country to do.

Friday: An art project with Mr. Will (Anna’s grandpa) and Junior High’s International Festival activities. Friday is an Early Release day!

Have a great upcoming week!

Cheers!

Ms. K

I made a mistake on the times for the Holiday performance on the 10th.  The times should be:

1st group- 6:00pm

2nd group- 7:00pm

Sorry about that! I wrote it down wrong!  Thanks, Lori!

Happy almost December.  Crazy, right?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  Thank you to those parents who came to help out Friday for our project afternoon.  It was a squirrely day throughout the school and also busy, so we didn’t get to have 1st graders finish their interviews.  We will have 1st graders finish up tomorrow (Monday) after PE and Music.

December Events!

December is super busy with important things happening:

Permission slips for the ballet are due by December 4th.

The Nutcracker Ballet is Monday December 7th.  Please have your child pack a lunch that day.  We will have an early lunch and recess that day.  The bus comes at 11:00am.  We will be back at MMA by 2:30 for regular pick up.  Since we are going to a nice theater performance, it is asked that students wear something nice.

December 8th– 3rd grade practice Writing Test in the morning.  Have your 3rd grader pack a snack and have their water bottle.

Holiday performance!  Our lower el classrooms attend a once a week Music class.  Ms. Connie, our music teacher is putting on a nice holiday performance on the evening of Thursday December 10th.  If your child’s last name is between A-L- those children will sing at 7:00pm.  Those last names between M-Z will sing at 8:00pm.  Come support your child’s hard work and get a chance to see them sing some holiday songs they have been working hard on!

Cookie Baking and Holiday Store!  On December 14th, our students will get to shop and sell in our classroom store!  We do this activity at the end of the year in May, but our students love it so much that we added another!  Students in our class have been earning money for this store day.  For selling, they may bring gently used books, toys, and games.  Baked goods, flowers, crafts, and small services (painting nails, hair chalking, etc.) also make great store set ups.  This is a great opportunity to have your child shop for their siblings, friends, cousins, themselves or anyone else!  I would love to have a few helpers to help show students how to wrap a present if they are buying for someone.  Let me know if you would like to help that morning.  Holiday store will start at 9am.  Also, on December 14th, I think it would be nice for each level to make cookies for our December 15th Holiday Feast!  After our store morning, each level can take turns making cookies and decorating.  If you want to help students make cookies please let me know as soon as possible.

Class Holiday Feast!  Our classroom would like to invite your family to our annual feast on December 15th.  It will begin at 12:00pm and go until 1:00pm.  Any parents wishing to help with food or set up are welcome to come at 11:15am.  We have the South Kiva reserved.  A link to sign up for food will be posted this week.

MMA’s annual International Festival is December 16th-18th!  This wonderful and festive event is 3 days long.  Upper El’s festival will be on the morning of Wednesday the 16th.  Lower El’s festival will be on the afternoon of Thursday the 17th and Junior High’s will be on the 18th.  Our continent for the festival is Europe!  Students will get to choose what their focus will be on.  This week, I will go over instruction and students will need to pick their focus by Friday.  Students will get chances to work on their report in class, but students should also work on it at home.  If your student needs to work on their poster or board in class, please send them with their board to work on.  If your child would like to put together a PowerPoint together, that works too.  Students who wish to do a PowerPoint will need to bring their own flash drive or external hard drive to save their work.  Parents and families of students are more than welcome to attend the festival!

Volunteering: If anyone would like to help with reading or spelling this week or the upcoming weeks in December, please let me know!  You guys are great!

Cheers!

Ms. K

Hi Everyone!

Past Week:

This week we began an activity that we usually do at the end of the year for Spirit Week, but the kids love it so much and have requested it to be done more that I found it to be a win-win with the holidays approaching.  The activity is called “Store.”  This first round is Holiday Store.  Students earn and owe money based on things they do and don’t do.  Some earning/owing opportunities are whole group and some are individually based.  The kids really enjoy it, plus is helps enforce grace and courtesy and time management/focus when working.  The kids are in charge of their own money.  If they give “the bank” (the teachers) their wallet then we will make sure your money is safe.  Students can also exchange money using $1, $5, and $10 bills.  So, if your child is coming home and talking about earned money or owing, that is what they are referring to.

Permission slips for the ballet went out Friday.  The papers are red and bright green.  Only a few students left theirs on their desks.  Those who were absent Friday will get theirs when they come back.  With Thanksgiving Break coming up in a week it would be great to get these permission slips back ASAP, so I have time to collect them, mark them, and give to the office.  I need to have the slips in on Dec. 4th!

Group lessons:

Level 1s: Polygons and their sides, Noun introduction, Rhyming

Level 2s: Complementary and Supplementary angles introduction

Level 3s: Triangle review

In cultural: Botany

Level 1s: Food Chain Introduction, Land and water food chains

Level 2s:  Pinnate and Palmate leaves

Level 3s:  Types of calyxes, The petals of a flower: Gamopetalous and Polypetalous

Friday: Simple Machines for science

Upcoming Week:

Volunteers: Please let me know if you would like to help with Spelling Tests or Reading for the upcoming week!  Having a spelling volunteer has been great, so I can focus on more lessons!

November home projects are DUE on Friday the 20th!  Studio runs all morning and ends at 11:30am.  We eat lunch at 11:30 and are lined up to go outside by 12:10ish.  We are outside until usually 1pm, but this upcoming week is Library for us from 1-1:30.  I would love to have the rest of the afternoon be focused on projects.  Since 3rd graders are doing a family recipe project, they will share first and everyone will get their plate of food of each recipe and eat while presentations begin.  A question that came up was if parents could come help and I said, “yes, of course.”  or if the parent could help tell more about the recipe, that is fine too, however, if you are coming in to help say more about the recipe, the majority of the report needs to come from the student 🙂  If you want to drop off any food, you can bring it in while we are at the library.  Crockpots and warmers are welcomed as well.

Snack for next week is Sophia!

Have a great weekend and upcoming week!

Cheers!

Ms. K

Hey Everyone!

A few of you have emailed me regarding wanting to come to the ballet with us.  Since the ballet only had space for each class to have 1 chaperone I know that puts many of you out.  However, I asked Jalee if any of you wanted to come if it be possible to buy separate tickets.  She said yes, but if you want to come to buy them ASAP.  You would call Perry’s Egyptian Theater in Ogden.  I can’t guarantee the theater will put you next to your child, but we’ll see what happens!  Let me know if you call and get a ticket 🙂

Thanks!

P.S: November home projects are due NEXT FRIDAY!