Week of Feb 5

Hey all,

Tomorrow we will be having a Mardi Gras Parade in celebration of Fat Tuesday. The parade will begin at 1245 so that everyone can enjoy.

We have a new member to our community. Her name is Brynan and she will be with us for the next six weeks. She is a masters student at Concordia University and will be doing her practicum in our classroom. Please introduce yourself if you see her. She will be slowly moving towards more teaching and will be teaching quite a bit in about 2-3 weeks. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Levels of Independence
We are starting a new behavior recognition program in our class similar to what they do in the 3-4-5. We will be establishing levels of independence for students from 0-4. Everyone started at level 1. The higher you go on the levels the more independence and freedom you have within the classroom and school. The idea is to reward and give more responsibility to those students who are consistently managing themselves while at the same time teaching other students who need a little more support how to manage themselves in the classroom environment.

Themes
We are in Louisiana this week for Mardi Gras and will be studying an artist by the name of Clementine Hunter. She was born after slavery but lived a slavelike life on the Melrose Plantation near Cane River in Louisiana. She died on New Year's Day 1988 at the age of 101. She is Louisiana's most famous female artistHunter painted the scenes of African American plantation life and has become wildly popular in the "folk art" style. Students will be painting in the style of this wonderful artist. Have your student google Clementine Hunter and a bunch of sites pop up.

Next week we will begin to explore the Everglades and attempt to build a replica of the environment surrounding and inside the Everglades National Park. There is a rich amount of diversity and each advising group will be working on one area of the landscape of diversity. We will be learning about the habitat and the animals that live there. We will also talk about the dangers that exist because of development to this essential resource.

After the South we will walk up towards Washington DC where we will be studying the journey of Civil Rights and explore election politics. We are hoping it ties in nicely to the primary coverage in the news right now. Students will be rehearsing and performing plays in each advising group. Our class will be doing a rendition of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

That will take us nearly to Spring Break. However, for the last three weeks before the break and Project Night we will be having groups geared towards projects for the event. I will be teaching a class on Portland Bridges. Students will be choosing groups during interviews with me for report cards over the next two weeks.

Report Cards
Oh the report card process. It is truly enjoyable for me to sit down and write about your wonderful children. Daunting, but enjoyable. Over the next two weeks I will be writing report cards, interviewing students for reflection and creating an updated learning plan with each student. We are all aiming to have report cards in everyone's hands by Feb. 19, but if you know Trillium, I would not hold us to that date. I sure hope I am done by then.

New Students
For those of you who don't know, we lost Nate to a school in Gresham at the break. We all miss him, but wish him well in his future endeavors. We are hoping he will come and visit us. That said we now have two new smiling faces in our community. Chet started last week and actually attended Trillium preschool a couple of years ago. He is a first grader. Tomorrow Abigail begins with us and comes from Texas. She has been at Vernon this year, but recently moved here from Dallas. Howdy!

Snack
Thanks to all of you who continue to contribute to the snack fund. It is great to have such healthy and fresh snacks. Everyone should thank Nephyr and Aaron for making this happen each and every week. It is a great contribution to the community.

Book Orders
I have to apologize for the book order fiasco. I think a check got lost and Scholastic has messed up some orders. I know how great these things are and how affordable. I will try to get it back up and running and get the online thing worked out. Thanks for your patience.

Homework
All of you are doing awesome on the homework. I am really appreciative to have a significant number of students doing the homework because it provides background when we talk about those things in class. Just to clarify one last time since I have said different things.
Sound homework is reviewed on Wednesday
Number Homework on Thursday
Big Word Homework on Friday
Sorry for the confusion.

Learning Plans
We are still working on our learning plans but time has been an issue. Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on one goal at a time and helping students engage more in the process of following through.