Well, we’ve made it through the first six weeks of school!  Amazing!  We’ve come such a long way already.  We’ve built a wonderful classroom community and we are fully immersed in our learning experiences.  We focused this week on relearning some forgotten math skills, as well as learning some new math lessons.  We also began working on spelling/vocabulary and Scholastic News.  With the end of the first six weeks comes the end of Normalization.  At this point, if you would like to schedule a time to come and observe our class, please let me know.

We’ve been practicing writing a narrative essay on Utah Compose.  For those of you you might not be familiar with Utah Compose, it is a site we use to practice writing essays.  Students can use a graphic organizer, watch lessons, and type essays.  Once they submit an essay, they will receive a score as well as suggestions on how to improve their writing.  They can revise and resubmit their essay many times.  Right now, our goal is to get everyone to a score of 20 out of a possible 30.  This is quite a challenge for a lot of students, but it will become easier with practice.  Just so you are aware, there is always an essay assigned for your students to be doing on Utah Compose.  They get limited time to work on it in class, so it would be beneficial for them to spend some time at home working to improve their writing.  The login information should be written on the front page of each student’s planner.

Two weeks ago, the students were assigned their first home project.  It was originally due on Monday, October 2nd.  Although we talked about it in class multiple times, I realized that I forgot to post it on the blog, so I am extending the deadline to Friday, October 6th.  This home project is free choice.  It can be about anything that the students are excited to learn about and share with the class.  Some of the projects I have heard about are horses, Leonardo Da Vinci, special effects, Disney, and the history of dance.  I would like one page of research and information on the topic.  This can be typed or handwritten, depending on your student’s current abilities.  I would also like a poster, model, power point, or some other visual representation of their topic to share with the class.  The students will present their topic to the class.  I am hopeful that the projects will come in throughout the week so that we don’t have to try to do all of the presentations on Friday.

Have a wonderful weekend!  As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  Please use my school e-mail address for communication kgonzales@mariamontessoriacademy.org.

Kirsten