Upcoming Tidbits:

-March 6th – Field trip to Union Station. Info on carpooling will go out shortly!

-March 8th – Gala basket donations due. Our classroom theme is making a bonfire-themed basket so possible suggestions are matches, roasting sticks, graham crackers, s’mores toppings, lighter fluid, etc.

-March 10th – Last day to purchase Gala tickets! Link can be found here: https://squareup.com/store/mapa-9/

Weekly Recap

This week flew by! The highlight for the kids was definitely our Scales and Tails Bird Show on Friday afternoon. We all learned new facts about birds (I had no idea that doves and pigeons are actually the same birds, just two different colors!) and had a great time. We also had a classroom spelling bee and selected our three contestants for the schoolwide bee.

Our 3rd graders have started using their computer lab time to practice for the Utah RISE Assessments. The practice time is for them to become familiar with the format of the test and how to navigate through it. We will continue working on this through most of March until we begin the actual testing.

Thank you for all you do to support our classroom and students!

After several weeks of spelling bee, we are back to regular spelling lists. We had our official class spelling bee today and I was very proud of everything our children have learned! Our three finalists that will be heading to the schoolwide spelling bee are Addison, KateLyn and Dash. We’re very excited for them. Friends and family are welcome to come attend the schoolwide bee. It will start at 9 AM in the junior high gym.

Here are the group lists:

Pink Group (first sound only) – lips, kick, jug, well, log, key, jump, wing

Red Group (first sound/blend only) – cheese, sheep, ham, shave, hat, shoe, chain, chop, house

Orange Group (first sound/blend only) – scarf, snap, swim, scale, snow, swing, scooter, snail, switch

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

Dark Green Group – use, jump, tube, shut, such, huge, club, rude, just, drum, put, cute

Green Group – thumb, new, due, knew, junk, do, clue, sew, flew, plump, dew, blue, truth, stew, brush, stuck

Blue Group – saw, caught, claw, taught, lawn, sauce, draw, haunt, crawl, haul, paw, vault, raw, fault, laugh, launch

*You have already received this post as an email. Please feel free to ignore it if you have already read it.

I am still without my computer (and most of my passwords, including the blog password that can’t be reset), but by the end of this week we should be back to our regular blog posts since IT has told me my computer will be fixed by then.

This past week was dominated by Parent/Teacher Conferences. Thank you so much to all of you who came and participated. I loved getting to know you better and especially watching your children shine as they showed you the work they are proud of. Since this was our first round of student-led conferences and that meant a learning curve for both me and your student, and I apologize that so many of you had to wait as we were running behind, but I hated to cut off the children as they were sharing their work. I’ll be streamlining some things to make them better for May conferences, including likely lengthening the times so that the children have time to present to you and I have time to refer my items without going over time. I will give more details on this as the time gets closer to the end of the year.

This is our last week of spelling bee practice and by Friday we will know who will be representing our class in the schoolwide spelling bee. I will send home notices with the children participating on Friday.

We are still accepting donations for our Gala basket! Each class donates a themed basket to auction off on Gala night, which is being held on March 23rd at Snowbasin Resort. The gala event is a major fundraiser for our school and we rely on the money raised to support our field trips, special events and more. Please consider donating if you haven’t already and even more importantly, please attend! It’s a fun-filled night of food, dancing and auctions!

Lastly, we will be organizing rides soon for our upcoming field trip. Thank you in advance for all your support and help with these trips. Our students love them.

Some tidbits for this week:

-Today is the Free Family Skate Night at Classic Skating in Layton from 5:30 to 8:30. Skating admission is free and rentals are between $2 and $5 depending on the equipment you choose. There are also additional activities (laser tag, bounce houses, etc.) for an extra fee. I hope you’re able to go have fun with your student tonight!
-The Box Top store will be held on Wednesday. If your child would like to participate, please send them with their box tops already cut out.
-Thursday we will be taking our class picture. Your child should still be in dress code on this day.
-Thursday evening MMA is holding a parent education night in conjunction with the Utah Parent Center. They will be reviewing Executive Functioning and how to help your child with these skills.
-Friday afternoon we have the Scales and Tails bird show, which should be just as educational and entertaining as the reptiles show back in January. I know all our students are looking forward to it!

*You have already received this update as an email. You can ignore this if you have already read it.

Last Thursday afternoon my computer keyboard suddenly stopped working and it is currently out for repairs. I am using a loaned computer, but because none of my passwords are saved on this machine, I’m having a hard time getting into the blog and a few other programs. My apologies if some communication is sporadic until I get my computer back! I do still have access to email, obviously, so please feel free to reach out if you need anything.

First up, Parent/Teacher Conferences are this week, which means all students are done at 1 PM on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Below are the links to sign up if you haven’t already.
Wednesday Conferences: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/389525/event/457854
Thursday Conferences: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/389525/event/457855
Friday Conferences: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/389525/event/457856

Please note that the format for conferences has changed. We are now doing STUDENT-LED CONFERENCES, which means that if possible your student should come with you the the conference. They will be presenting their portfolio to you. It is a work in progress and they are all far from perfect since this is our first time using them, but we feel they are an important way for the students to become more self-aware, take responsibility for their education and get the opportunity to share what they have learned and are proud of with you.
In conjunction with conferences, we will also have the book fair in the library Wednesday-Friday. Our class will be previewing the fair on Tuesday and the children will have the opportunity to make a book wish list and get excited about books! I also make a wish list for our classroom of books that I feel would help to support our learning. If you want to see any of the lists to make purchases, you can ask a volunteer when you visit the fair.

Also, this Thursday is Valentine’s Day and if your student would like to participate in our valentine exchange, they are welcome to bring a container as well as valentines for the class. We currently have 25 children in our classroom.

As for last week, we had a great week! I have been so impressed with the work the children have been doing since we got back from Christmas break. Many of them are working harder than they ever have before and they are so proud of themselves! This feeling of accomplishment is so important to the Montessori philosophy of intrinsic motivation and learning for the sake of learning. The work they are doing is paying off as I am seeing many of them progress in their reading and math levels and begin to tackle more challenging work throughout the curriculum. It has helped that Ms. Pat has been a wonderful support to our classroom so we have been able to dive more fully back into all our lessons. This past week the highlight was learning about the rock cycle and playing “Rockity Rock Rock Rock.” The children did a great job of learning the key characteristics of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and we had so much fun doing it! We’ll continue learning more about this in the weeks to come.

As always, I am so grateful for the many ways that you support your student and our classroom. Please be in touch with any questions or concerns!
Ms. Christina

Before the Fun Run, our class decided on some fun celebrations/incentives we would earn and since we did such an amazing job receiving pledges, we earned them all! I’ve included a full schedule below and put in bold the things that you as parents might want to contribute to. These are all optional and most of them we will do in class with no effort required on your part, so don’t feel any pressure!

Tuesday – Crazy Hair Day and 15 minutes extra lunch

Wednesday – Either extra recess or free time (depending on weather)

Thursday – Either extra recess or free time (depending on weather)

Friday – Movie in class (children can again bring one soft/cuddly item) along with bring-your-own-snack (children can bring in something to eat during the movie… please not anything sticky as we will be eating in the classroom)

If you have any questions, please let me know and thank you for your contributions to the Fun Run and MMA!

The past week was very exciting! Ms. Pat joined our classroom on Monday morning and has been such a help already. We had our Fun Run on Friday and the students LOVED it! Thanks to all of your support, our class earned many of the incentives we set for ourselves at the beginning. Tomorrow (Monday) will be hat day and I will let you know once we schedule other events this week.

We did our first classroom spelling bee on Friday and learned a lot about how to participate in a bee including the importance of repeating the word, taking our time decoding the sounds, needing to keep in our head where we are in the word so that we don’t repeat or skip any letters or get them out of order. We will be practicing two more times before our official class spelling bee where we will select the three members of our class attending the schoolwide bee.

In addition to our fun this week, we have also had many students out sick over the last few weeks. Please, if you notice that your student is not feeling well, let them stay home and rest. I also found out today that another Lower Elementary classroom has a lice outbreak. As far as I know, we do not have any students with lice in our classroom, but be extra aware and cautious if your student mentions any itching.