Just a reminder that the students have a Report due on Tuesday, January 20th.  They were given the papers for this assignment on Monday.  Please let me know if you have not seen these papers come home yet.  This report has three parts:  a research paper, a map, and a timeline.  It is all clearly detailed in the papers they received.  If you have any questions about this assignment, please let me know.

Please see the attached flyer about our upcoming Arts Night at MMA!  All student who will be participating in playing music or drama club will need to be at the school no later than 6:30 PM to prepare.  I hope to see you there!

Arts-Night-Flyer

Our class will be doing their SAGE writing test on Thursday, February 4th.  To help prepare for this test, we will be doing a lot of practice on www.utahcompose.com.  Each student has an account set up and they began practicing at school.  I wrote their usernames and passwords down for them and begged them not to lose them!  Hopefully they still have them.  I can not stress to you enough how important it is that your child practice this EVERY DAY!  They will be given time in class to work on it, but it will not be enough.  Each student began writing a free choice essay this week just to get a feel for how the program works.  Only two students finished and submitted their essays.  I have now added a new essay assignment for each grade level.  It should show up when they log in to their account.  They should have this essay completed and submitted by Friday.  I would highly recommend exploring the site with your child and looking at the lessons and other resources that are available to help them improve their writing.  The students should also submit their essays and then take the time to go back and try to correct their mistakes to improve their scores.  They will likely need your help and support with this.  I understand that it is hard to find the time to do this every night.  With Utah Compose, IXL, spelling city, and the SAGE Formative practice that all need to be done on the computer, there just isn’t time to do all of these things in class.  If your family has limited access to a computer, or doesn’t have internet access, please let me know and we can make arrangements for your child to have extra time with a computer at school.  I really appreciate your help and support with this!

Kirsten

Our 5th Grade (and new 6th Grade) students have a field trip scheduled for Thursday, January 29th to JA Biztown located at the Discovery Gateway Museum in Salt Lake City.  This is a wonderful learning opportunity and the students always have a great time!  To find out more about the program, please go here:  http://ja-utah.org/programs/jacity/

So far, I have had two parents volunteer to go with us.  Yeah!  It would be good if we had at least one more, so please let me know if you would like to come.  Just so you are aware, the parent volunteers will be helping the students run their businesses, so expect to be busy all day!

I will be sending permission slips home at the beginning of the week, so be looking for those!  These papers will have all of the information you need about time, place, transportation, cost, etc.  As always, if you have any questions, please let me know!

Hello!

As you know, I have moved our spelling practice to an online program located at www.spellingcity.com.  It went really well for many of the students this week!  However, I noticed that only about 9 of the students actually got on and took their spelling test.  Its not too late!  They can still get on this weekend before I get the new list up for Monday.  They should all know their login information, but you can e-mail me if they forgot and I will send it to you.  As I said before, with limited time and computers, the students will need to spend a few minutes working on their spelling at home each day.  I set up specific assignments for them to do each week.  You can also print their list at home for extra practice.

Thank You!

Kirsten

Just a reminder that the International Festival for Upper El is tomorrow morning from 9-11!  Parents are invited to attend and enjoy all of the projects.  If your child did not bring in their project today, they need to be sure to bring it tomorrow or they won’t be able to participate.

I also wanted to share with you how amazing your children were today.  We had the most beautiful, peaceful work cycle this morning.  Everyone was working quietly and productively and there was such a peaceful feeling on our classroom.  We also put up a little tree in our classroom this week.  The children are using it to acknowledge kind deeds and give compliments to each other.  When the want to say something nice about someone, they write it on an ornament and then put it on the tree.  We are hoping to have a tree full of beautiful decorations and compliments by the end of the week.

I also wanted to let you know that I sincerely care about your children and I want them to be happy and comfortable while they are at school.  If you ever have a concern please talk about it with me.  I can’t do anything to resolve any issues that may arise if I don’t know about them.  Your children are amazing.  It is an honor and a privilege to be able to teach them and spend time with them.  I value your input as their parents and I know that your children are best served when we work together to ensure their success.  Please e-mail me at kgonzales@mariamontessoriacademy.org if you have any questions, comments, or concerns that I can address.

Thank you for all you do!

Kirsten

Hello there!

Just a reminder that the continent/country reports are due tomorrow!  This has been the due date all along, yet some of the students seemed surprised.  We have talked about this assignment nearly every day since I gave it to them.  I told them that if they can have their packets done by tomorrow and their display here by Wednesday, then I would accept that.  Here are the packets, in case your student lost theirs…

Continent Research

Country report

Also, your students have decided that they would like to do a gift exchange on Friday.  If you can, please send a gender neutral gift that costs $5 or less to school with your students on Friday.

Remember that this Friday is an early out day and school will get out at 1:00 PM.

All of the 6th graders have Singapore math assignments to work on this week.  We have ended up with a few different groups with different assignments, so ask them what they are working on.

Thanks for all you do!

Kirsten

Hello!  Just a reminder that our Nutcracker field trip is on Monday!  We have enough certified drivers to transport all of the students back and forth.  Yeah!  Thank you so much for all of your help!  We will be leaving the school between 11 and 11:15 and returning by about 2.  The students are to come in their best dress for the theater.  They do not have to be in dress code, but they should be dressed nicer than dress code.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank You!

Kirsten

Here are this week’s spelling words:

Green:  eat, ear, read, dream, speak, meat, clean, team, near, treat

Blue:  astronomy, besides, crater, degree, diameter, gaze, gravity, reflect, telescope, universe

Orange:  cable, cathedral, convey, device, freight, landmark, method, rod, shaft, structure

Yellow:  anticipate, bankrupt, brief, brisk, budget, compete, complicate, effect, err, factor, fad, gripe, knack, leisure, unique

Red:  abject, advocate, atrocity, commemorate, dialect, dire, elite, enhance, flagrant, languish, mute, raze, reprisal, turmoil, wreak

Wednesday, December 17^th–