School-wide picture day is October 22nd and we’re looking forward to seeing all of their smiling faces! As a gentle reminder, students still need to be in dress code that day. If you would like them to wear something else for pictures, they can bring a change of clothing and then return to dress code after pictures are taken. Thank you!

Good afternoon, parents! I have updated Track It Forward with the time slots for Parent/Teacher Conferences. You can find it here: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/389525/events

Each slot is 20 minutes long, which should be sufficient for most meetings, but you are welcome to sign up for two if you feel we need more time to discuss.

As always, feel free to contact me at cmiller@mariamontessoriacademy.org with any questions and thank you for all you do to support your student!

Just as a reminder, field trip forms went home yesterday with all students. The form that needs to be signed includes all our out-of-school field trips for the year except our April field trip that we don’t have confirmed yet. I got some forms back today, so thank you! I need them all returned and signed by next Wednesday in order for the children to be able to attend our field trip next Friday, the 12th. As always, feel free to reach out with any questions.

Today we all created paintings for our Original Works program. For those of you not familiar with it, each student creates a piece of original artwork and then their image is scanned onto just about any product you can imagine like tote bags, keychains, coffee mugs, etc. The products I have seen are great quality and they would make fantastic presents for the holiday season. Best of all, the children love seeing their work on something “real.” I will be submitting their works on Wednesday. They will be scanned and then the original and an order form will be sent home to you on Friday so that you can see what it looks like and determine what you’d like to order.

I’ll post more about what our class did later this week, but I’m updating you now because other children in your families can also participate! You can see the guidelines here: https://www.originalworks.com/artguides/, but the main thing to remember is that we can accept almost anything on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ white cardstock. You can provide your own or I can send a piece home with your student tomorrow! I will need them back on Wednesday and I know that’s a quick turnaround, but I wanted to give you the opportunity. If you’re interested in another member of your family participating, please let me know!

First up, items of business.

1. Home projects are due this Friday, October 5th, but your student can bring in their project any day this week. If you need additional information, you can find it in the tab at the top of the blog or email me any questions.
2. Our next field trip is coming up quickly! We are going to Green Acres Dairy Farm 10:30 AM-2 PM. We have an unlimited number of chaperone spots available and our wonderful room mom Natalie is arranging rides for students who need transportation.
3. Normalization is now over and so parents and other volunteers can begin to come into the classroom. I will be in touch with those of you who have already expressed interest, and if you haven’t yet but would like to be involved in our room, please let me know!
4. We have begun a new morning routine to help us transition into our work cycle. As the children enter, they are free to either read silently or fill out their work plan for the day. At 8:45, we all go outside to run/walk a few laps around the field. The fresh air and extra movement have helped us all to have a better morning! The only downside is that we have to change our shoes another time during the day, so if your student is struggling lacing or tying their shoes, it is a great practical life activity to practice at home!
5. We have begun using Imagine Learning as a school-wide literacy program. Several students asked for their login information so they could use Imagine Learning at home, and I told them the best thing to do would be to ask their parent or guardian to email me so I can send over the information. It is a free program and a great way to reinforce reading and language concepts.

Last week we completed our Great Lessons with the Story of Numbers, including the parts of our numerical system that we have kept from the Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans and Arabs. We began spelling groups and will get a new list tomorrow that I will post on the blog in case your student would like to practice more, but this is not required. The highlight of the week for me was our first home project presentation. One of our students presented his project on the life cycle of a katydid (he also brought in one that he caught!) and it was wonderful to see him confidently speak to the rest of the class and answer questions. The rest of the class loved being taught by a peer and we all learned about katydids. I can’t wait to see the rest of the presentations this week! Thank you for all your work to prepare, support and foster learning for your student!

I have updated a tab at the top of the blog with the rest of our field trips for the year. We have so many exciting opportunities for our children this year (all coordinated by Ms. Jalee, so if you see her around, feel free to thank her for all her hard work!) and I will be sending home a permission slip later this week that includes ALL the field trips with confirmed dates and times that require travel outside the school. I will still need to send out one permission form later in the year for our field trip in April, but this should cut down quite a bit on paper and hopefully also save you some time.

Our next field trip is fast approaching at Green Acres Dairy Farm on October 12th! I am waiting to hear back about how many chaperones we can take, but I do know that we will need drivers either to meet at North Shore at 10 AM to transport students or you can meet us there at 10:30 AM. I will share more details when I have them, as well as create a link on Track It Forward.

As always, thank you for your support! I know our class is going to have a successful year with all of your help!

Just as a reminder, Monday is an early out day with school ending at 1 PM. Enjoy the extra time with your student! 🙂

We had a great time on the field trip today! A huge shout-out to our parents, grandparents and other guardians that were able to drive and chaperone the students. They loved it! The performance did get started a little late and lasted longer than expected, including me being stuck in the parking lot at the Browning Center and arriving back to school later than most of you. I apologize for the inconvenience and any concern of where your child was at at the end of the day. Your child was a good hands at the office and we are so grateful for their help. Thank you again for helping us give our students out-of-the-classroom experiences. We couldn’t do it without you!

This week we settled into another part of our classroom organization: daily work plans. Your student will continue to have their weekly work charts where they record their lessons and follow-ups so they know what they need to complete during the week and now we are working with each child individually in the morning to plan their day so that follow-up work isn’t falling through the cracks and we are better able to assist with their workflow. For our second- and third-graders, we are following an identical format to their daily work plans from last year. Our first-graders are quickly catching on and I’ve been so pleased and impressed with how much more engaged they have all been with their work.

The favorite lesson of the week was our look at the Precambrian Era. We watched a video from National Geographic about the earliest of earth’s eons and the children enjoyed it so much that we watched it again at the end of the day. Some of them requested the link so they can watch at home. You can find the video here. It’s fun and very brief, and don’t worry, we had a discussion about how the music is definitely not authentic to the time period. We also enjoyed learning about calendars from other cultures, animal phylum and fractions!

Spelling groups will start this coming week! I do not plan to send the spelling list home as spelling activities will be part of our classroom work, but if you would like to receive the list, I can send a copy home with your student for extra practice.

Our DIBELS assessments will be completed this week, so we should be able to start reading groups in the next few weeks. I have some parent volunteers to help with reading groups, but if you didn’t see that sign-up sheet and would like to be involved, please let me know!

Thank you for getting your permission slips in promptly for our exciting field trip, the wonderful chaperone/drivers we have volunteering their time and thank you to Natalie for arranging the carpool rides!

Chaperones will meet at 11:30am across the street from MMA at North Shore parking lot. We plan to be ready to leave by 11:45am. I will have a map available for all chaperones and parents to show you where to park, where our class will meet, and the building the performance will be held at.

Have a great day!

I think the highlight of the past week for all of us was our first botany lesson with Ms. Rachel. She gave us a wonderful lesson on scientists and the scientific method, an overview of plants and hands-on exploration with magnifying glasses. The children loved seeing plant textures (and so many other things around the room) up close. We can’t wait to learn from her again next month!

We also had a presentation from Ms. Nicoletta about CHAMPS, which is an acronym describing the behavior expectations in our classroom and throughout our school. CHAMPS stands for Conversations, Help, Activities, Movement, Participation and Signals and we discussed and demonstrated how to appropriately express ourselves in these situations.

Last week we finished our initial math and reading assessments. With these done, we now have more instructional time to begin spelling and reading groups. Our curriculum is still reviewing a lot from last year, but we are diving into new material more and more. It is wonderful to see the children getting excited about learning new things, especially in our cultural areas. We had some excellent work this past week on the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the Eras of the Earth and more.

As a reminder, our first field trip is coming up THIS FRIDAY, September 21st. We will be watching a dance performance at Weber State and permission slips must be turned in on Wednesday at the LATEST. I know I have received most of them. Tomorrow I will get in touch with anyone whose form I still don’t have.

As always, thank you for loving and supporting your student!