First up, I forgot a fun part of our second week that I wanted to add here. Our classroom adjoins Ms. Shanan’s Upper Elementary classroom and her students are our assigned Mountain Lion Mentors for this year. The purpose of this program is for all students to feel more connected throughout the school and specifically for the younger students to feel that the older students are there to help and encourage them. As part of this partnership, we will be doing monthyl activities with them as well as interacting informally on a regular basis. On August 31st, we did our first joint activity where we made hats to celebrate Maria Montessori’s birthday. Dr. Montessori was a scientist, doctor and researcher, but she also liked to have fun by dressing up and particularly wearing fun hats. Each of our students got to make a “Maria Montessori hat” and decorate as they chose. We saw everything from military helmets to panda bear hats with pom-pom ears! The kids had fun getting to know their mentor and they all had a great time working together to be creative.

This past week, we had our second great lesson from Ms. Lana where she presented the Timeline of Life. We leard about the different eras of the Earth (Hadean, Protozoic, Neozoic, etc.) and which types of life formed during these eras. All of the children were enthralled with our large timeline and are excited to learn more about the different plants and animals on our planet through our weekly lessons and research projects. We also continued to get more settled into our various curriculum areas and I’m starting to see great daily math practice from the children. This week we will begin spelling assessments so that we can start spelling lists next week. We are also beginning to form reading groups as we finish reading assessments for all new students this week.

As most of you have hopefully seen, our first field trip is coming up on September 21st! We are going to Weber State to watch a Children’s Dance Theater performance. Permission slips were sent home with your student on Friday. If you did not receive one, please let me know so I can send another copy home. We MUST have permission slips turned in by Wednesday, September 19th for your child to be able to attend our field trip. We are also still looking for chaperones and drivers. Please let either myself or Natalie Monsen know if you are available to help with either of these things. We do have multiple field trips scheduled for this year, so we need anyone who is available to support or help (even if it’s just to drive your own child) to do so at least once.

Thank you again for your support!