Week of January 21

This week's HOMEWORK
Number: 12 or 60
Turn in Wednesday
Sound: CH as in CHANGE or CATCH
Turn in Thursday
Big Word: O P R I E S M M O C
Turn in Friday
Theme: Students should ask their parents questions about what they do for the community and write about it. They can draw a picture of you helping or working instead or in addition.
Turn in anytime

Do as much as you can or as little. I expect they can at least finish one of the assignments.

Hello all,

Class is going wonderfully and I am hoping to start having more pictures of student work and activities on the blog. Any help you can provide with this will be wonderful. I could give you the camera and have you post the pictures to the blog once a week. Students and myself will take the pictures. The students are doing some wonderful work and really getting into class projects and some are hitting their learning plans hard. We will be working a lot on our plans this week and next. Any support that you can give your student towards their plans will be excellent. Near the beginning of February we will be creating new plans.

Assessment
With report cards coming up quickly, I am busily doing assessment to see where the kids are at with their learning. Assessment will consist of many different components and not be reliant on testing. This is a key component to a successful classroom and I am working with the students to understand that they are not being judged but that my job is to teach them things they have not yet mastered. They appear excited to show off what they know. If any of you are available to take over the class for a period of time that would really help me take students and do the assessment elsewhere. If you are available, let me know.

Math Focus
On three Fridays in February and March (2/15, 2/29, 3/14) we will be hosting Oregon State University students who will be doing multiple math stations to supplement our classroom learning. The events will culminate with a Math Night on Thursday, March 13. The time has yet to be determined. It should be an exciting way for us to get the students more excited about math. Many of them are already excited and this event should challenge them to the next level.

Homework
Thank you all for really putting an emphasis on the homework this week. It was great to see the students come in talking about their work at home on their learning. As I have said before it is important for school to enter the home just as much as the student's home experiences are important to their school life. Please keep encouraging your students to work on their homework and bring it in on the specific days. Those are the days we will be reviewing the work in the class. The Big Word homework will be reviewed on Thursday, not Friday, like originally stated.

Field Trips
We will have a field trip on Tuesday, January 29th to Anansi the Spider. We will need drivers for this trip. These shows are always very exciting to the children and it should be a good time.
We will also be swimming in February one day, but I don't know which yet. It has been difficult to schedule.

Theme Unit - Community Helpers
This week we were working to create community helper projects. Students created a person, wrote about their helper, painted a puzzle, and created a diarama. These will be on display for Project Night in March. Students worked to find as many helpers as possible. The most interesting one listed on the board is "robber." After attempting to explain that robbers don't really help the community Bjorn replied, "Well, they do help the police practice arresting people." I informed Bjorn that he was right, but they have other people to help them practice.

Upcoming Unit - Mardi Gras and Southern Artists
Our new unit will begin January 28th and will focus on the southern celebration of Mardi Gras as we travel to the Deep South. We will be making a king cake (from Louisiana), talking about the slave art of Clementine Hunter, and working on educating students about Black History. I have some wonderful plays that I am going to encourage students to read and perform. We will see where it goes.

Reading Groups
With the help of Ken (a prospective teacher who volunteers during menu time) I have been more diligent about organizing reading groups. Students are put into leveled reading groups and have one book a week where they read with their group and do an activity surrounding the book. So far they have been working well. It is really helpful if the students take the books home for the week and practice reading them at least one night with you. However it is important that they bring them back so they can work with it at school. The goal is to meet students where they are with their reading and provide them with books at their level. This is so they don't get frustrated with books that are too hard for them. If you are interested in leading a group let me know.

Science Fridays
All of our Science Friday events have been very successful and I hope we get more volunteers for future Fridays. The tricky thing is that every Friday doesn't have the time available for this event. I will be working to identify the Fridays we have available and post them on the big white cabinet. We do have this Friday available. If anyone is interested just sign up or tell me if it is not posted yet.

Have a great MLK Day!!!

Homework for January 18

Hello all,

I am trying to make homework more meaningful and consistent. For the next few weeks I will be asking students to attempt homework. Some may only choose one assignment a week which is fine (especially for the younger students). However, older students could probably do more. Don't stress about the homework too much but the activities are simply meant to help develop their skills and helps you, as parents, work with them on things they need to know. Here is what the homework will look like.

Sound/Letter of the week (mostly K or beginning reader) Turn in by Wednesday
Big Word (1st/2nd) Turn in by Friday
Number of the week (everyone) Turn in by Thursday

There will also be little extras that link with what we are currently studying in our theme units. Homework sheets can be picked up in the middle box on the top shelf near the entryway and turned into the top box. We will use homework during calendar time in the morning.

Thank you for your efforts in helping your students do this at home. I know life gets busy, but I really feel that homework is important for students if it is meaningful. If you ever feel the homework is not meaningful then please have a discussion with me so we can talk about other options that are more meaningful for your individual child.

Here is this week's HW

Sound of the week: B as in boy
Big Word letters: S R T N I O O L E U
Number of the week: 8 or 36
Theme: Think of five questions you would ask your community helper.

Field Trip

Welcome back! I will have a more detailed posting later. Here is pressing news.

WE NEED DRIVERS ON WEDNESDAY FOR OMSI TRIP. Let me know today if you can drive on Wednesday morning. Can't wait to see ya'll.