Our students are loving the activities and learning we are doing in conjunction with our Fun Run! Our class is up to almost $18 per lap and we have earned three class incentives that we decided on together. The first one is crazy sock day, which we will be doing as a class on Thursday (tomorrow). So if your child has a pair of fun socks they would like to wear, please let them do so tomorrow! I will also be joining in with my monkey socks.

Our second class incentive is a read-a-thon, which we will be doing on Friday. Your child may bring in ONE item: pillow, blanket or stuffed animal to use to be comfortable during our read-a-thon. I will be reading out loud to them for part of the time and they will also be able to read on their own during this time.

As we earn other classroom incentives, I will be sure to let you know what they are so that we can all celebrate together! If you have not yet enrolled your child at funrun.com to enter your pledges, please do so! If you have lost their information, please let me know and I will send it again. We will all be running Friday morning, so please make sure your student is wearing appropriate clothing and shoes to run in the gym.

Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions!

As you may have heard, our classroom has a new assistant! Ms. Patricia (Ms. Patty to the kids) began working in our classroom on Monday morning and she has been such a help and support to all of us. She has a wonderful background in early childhood education and brings a calming presence to our room.

With another adult in the classroom, some of our procedures will be changing back to what they were at the beginning of the year in order to use our time better. Some of these changes may be difficult or frustrating to the children as they transition into them, but I do feel they are for the best.

One of the challenges we have already had this week is with regard to snack. We have had “group snack” for several months now, which meant that our entire classroom stopped working and sat down to eat snack together. There were some pros to this situation in everyone got to eat and talk together and everyone was guaranteed to have snack, but the downside was that the entire rug had to be cleared of all work, it interrupted our work cycle even for the children who didn’t want to eat and made it difficult to get back into the flow of work afterward. We have now gone back to “self serve” snack in which two children may eat at a time at the snack table and when they are done, two others can join in. Overall, this is a much better system in that lessons and other work can continue without breaking the children’s concentration; however, some of our students have gotten upset that they don’t always get snack early every day. We have talked as a class and I have talked with some children individually about the fact that we don’t all need snack every day and it’s only for when we are truly hungry, but we have still had students “starving” by 10 AM, refusing to work and even crying and throwing fits about not having turn at snack when they have wanted it. When I have talked to them individually, one of the first things that comes up is that they have only eaten a small bowl of cereal for breakfast.

I am not here to criticize food choices and my own children love cereal, but I do strongly recommend making sure that your student has enough to eat for breakfast that they can be functional and happy for several hours, including protein. Cheese sticks, hardboiled eggs or wholegrain toast with peanut butter can be fast and easy breakfast options that will help our students be able to focus and concentrate in the mornings. As we settle into this routine more I’m sure we’ll be able to allow most of our class to eat snack every day, but it’s not a guarantee especially on days with art or library or other special activities.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding as our classroom navigates these changes!

We have seen so many fun, thoughtful and informative home projects this week! If your student has not been able to bring theirs in yet, there is still time. We have only been able to see about half of our class’s projects, so if your student has still not completed theirs, please send it in this week so that we can all learn from it.

Tidbits

1 – This past week we also kicked off our Fun Run Fundraiser that will be happening on Friday, February 1st. The funds raised through this race have been earmarked for field trips, so please reach out to friends or family members who might be willing to donate or, of course, you can also pledge! The average student runs 30-35 laps, so keep this in mind as you pledge amounts. I have been impressed with the brief and effective lessons that we have had about citizenship, enthusiasm and more and the children are excited for the run. It will be held indoors on Friday, so please make sure they have appropriate shoes to be able to run. We will all be running, even if we don’t have pledges.

2 – The school’s Chili Cookoff is happening this Tuesday from 5:30 to 7 pm! All-you-can-eat chili for only $5 per person and children 5 and under eat free! You can sign up to bring chili here: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/389525/event/453516 or sign up to help with set up and clean up here: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/389525/event/457150.

Thank you for supporting our classroom and your student!

Because we are prepping for our school-wide spelling bee in February, we won’t be doing our typical spelling lists and tests for the next 4 weeks. Instead, we will be using the spelling lists I sent home last week (titled SCRIPPS National Spelling Bee list) to practice during the week and then do classroom spelling bees each Friday. The classroom bees will be very simple and lowkey and allow three chances to spell each word correctly. I will do my best to make sure they are not stressful and that the children are able to learn and also enjoy the process. I will send out regular spelling lists again after February 22nd.

I sent home a list with each child in the class, but if you have lost yours or would like another copy, please let me know and I’m happy to send another one home. Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions!

This past week was STEM week and the children LOVED it! We got to see the 6th and 8th grade science fair projects, learn about caves and rock stratification as well as do hands-on chemistry, but I think the two things they loved most were the pop-up planetarium and the Scales and Tails reptile show. More than anything, we wanted the kids to come away having a new appreciation and excitement for science, technology, engineering and math, and I think we succeeded!

If your child has not yet brought in their STEM-related home project, please complete that and bring it to school this week! Our 3rd graders will be displaying their projects on Wednesday, the 2nd graders on Thursday and the 3rd graders on Friday of this week in the hallways and we have already begun showing our projects in the classroom, which has been a lot of fun! We will continue with that this week.

Upcoming Events:

School-Wide Chili Cookoff on Janaury 29th – see school newsletter for more info!

Fun Run on February 1st – more details coming!

NOTE: If you are practicing spelling at home and your child is in a group where I have written “beginning sound only,” this doesn’t always mean just the first letter. For example, this week the orange group is learning the sp, sk and sm blends. In order to get credit for a correct answer on their test at the end of the week, they will need to write the first TWO letters of the word. Also, this week I am repeating the yellow group’s word list from last week since no one did well on the test. In all cases, this was because they didn’t understand or write the second letter of the beginning sound. For example, many students wrote “qw” at the beginning of words instead of “qu.” Please let me know if you have any questions!

Pink Group (beginning sound only) – fox, can, hose, deer, fan, horn, cow, dice

Red Group (beginning sound only) – cat, hand, chair, cake, heart, chop, coat, hat, chin

Orange Group (beginning sound only) – spoon, skate, smile, smell, spear, skip, spill, smoke, skunk

Yellow Group (beginning sound only) – wheel, quilt, twin, key, whip, quack, twelve, kite, quite, twenty

Dark Green Group – chop, hole, hot, stove, come, hose, joke, rock, rose, some, broke, spot

Green Group – froze, coal, show, stock, coach, lose, Rome, long, oat, row, blow, globe, close, loaf, know, mow

Blue Group – soon, good, cool, could, groom, foot, roost, noon, hook, tool, proof, wool, fool, brook, stool, should

This week is our school-wide STEM week. We have multiple special activities every day this week including hands-on chemistry, a planetarium show and more. It should be a fun and exciting week for the children!

The 6th and 8th grade science fairs will be open for parents to walk through on Wednesday from 2:30-4 in the junior high gym.

Our STEM-related home projects are due this coming Friday, the 18th. As a reminder, 1st graders are researching a scientist, 2nd graders are working with the scientific method (can be a traditional science project) and 3rd graders are looking at laws of motion and forces and/or simple machines. Please feel free to contact me with any questions!

This past week, we focused again on reestablishing classroom norms and returning to our full curriculum. Second- and third-graders began using Steck-Vaughn as a reading comprehension curriculum and they will be focusing on the six areas of comprehension (facts, main idea, sequence, context, conclusion and inference) as they read texts throughout the year. We reorganized some of our spelling groups as well as our Dyad Reading partners and also began our second round of Math-U-See assessments. It was a busy week!

Because of all the information I need to pass along about our upcoming STEM week, I’m keeping this short and sweet!

With STEM week this week (more on that in another post), our time to practice spelling in class will be limited, so please try to practice at home!

Pink Group (beginning sound only) – tub, gum, nut, pot, tie, goat, nail, pen

Red Group (beginning sound only) – horse, shark, sock, ham, seal, shed, ship, soap

Orange Group (beginning sound only) – sun, tent, star, six, stem, stick, sink, tie, stop, top

Yellow Group (beginning sound only) – wheel, quilt, twin, key, whip, quack, twelve, kite, quiet, twenty

Dark Green Group – dish, five, gift, hike, flip, swim, nine, give, mice, spill, rich, prize

Green Group – trade, Spain, clay, nail, shape, past, glass, raise, brave, stray, grain, taste, aid, stand

Blue Group – boy, point, soil, joy, moist, toy, choice, enjoy, coin, decoy, hoist, ploy, spoil, oil, soy, joint

Hello, families! I hope you all had a wonderful winter break!

I am a little behind in sharing our classroom news, so let me back up to the week before break. We spent that week doing our typical academic work, but also threw in some fun! We did a mini-unit on “Holidays Around the World.” We learned about how Christmas is celebrated in Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands and the United States as well as Hannukah traditions. The children particularly loved learning how to play dreidel and all about the “6 White Boomers” that pull Santa’s sleigh in Australia. We also made holiday ornaments–thank you to the parents who came in to help us create them!

Our two-day week after break went very well. We reviewed our classroom expectations and spent time team building and settling back into our routines. This coming week we will dive fully back into our curriculum.

Upcoming Events

January 10th – On January 10th from 6-7:30 PM, MMA will be screening the documentary SCREENAGERS for all interested parents, students and friends of the school in the Junior High commons area. SCREENAGERS – The average child in America spends more time consuming electronic media than going to school, with many teenagers going online “almost constantly.” In SCREENAGERS, physician and filmmaker Delaney takes a deeply personal approach as she probes into family life to explores parental struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction. Through poignant and funny stories along with insights from authors, psychologists, and brain scientists, SCREENAGERS reveals how tech time impacts kids’ development and offers solutions on how adults can empower kids to best navigate the digital world and find balance.

January 11th – NO SCHOOL

January 14th-18th – STEM week – We will be having multiple workshops and activities celebrating science throughout the week, including our popular Scales and Tails presentation.

January 18th – STEM home projects are due. Please contact me if you have any questions about what your child needs to do or see my prior blog post for details.

January 21st – NO SCHOOL