Pink Group (beginning sound only): yo-yo, zoo, vest, yell, zero, van, yarn, vase

Red Group (beginning blend only): thumb, wheel, thorn, whistle, think, whale, thimble, whip, thirteen

Orange Group (beginning sound or blend only): pig, lamp, plus, pot, log, plant, pin, leaf, plug

Yellow Group: cat, hot, fit, mat, pot, hit, sat, got, fit, that

Dark Green Group: lots, note, done, wax, safe, have, drip, wipe, gum, dune, mule, race

Green Group: might, quick, why, write, bright, sky, rise, quit, flight, right, since, shy, white, try, sight, twice

Blue Group: watch, small, thought, wash, salt, bought, swap, chalk, stall, fought, almost, talk, cough, wand, brought, calm

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.

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!