December 13, 2024

I hope this finds you all well and ready for the weekend. I am sure all of your schedules are quite full as this is such a busy time of the year.  It is hard to believe that we only have one week left before the December break.  

This week we drove into the celebrations of Kwanza and Winter Solstice.  It has been so much fun watching the kids connect similar traditions and/or commonalities between the different celebrations. I think they were interested by how many of the Winter Solstice traditions are now part of so many other holiday celebrations. 

I used the book Kwanza by Rachel Grack. This book contained relevant images that matched informative text in this introduction to Kwanzaa. The students learned that black, red, and green are the colors of Kwanzaa, the celebration of African-American culture. Black represents African heritage. And red and green stand for the hard times of the past and hope for the future. Next Monday each student will make a kinara and learn about the principles of Kwanza. 

Today we looked at the Solstice celebration and used two different books to gain more information about the celebration. The first book was The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson. This book is the ultimate holiday book for readers of every persuasion. The kids got to see how the science and customs associated with the shortest day of the year have formed the traditions for every major winter holiday -- from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa and Christmas.  The second book was The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper. This book "captures the magic behind the returning of seasonal light, the yearning for rituals that connect us with the generations that have gone before - and the hope for peace that we carry into the future." We will finish up a Winter Solstice activity on Tuesday morning.

First grade math (this week) continued to focus on doubles facts, seeing groups of 10 and some more, complements of 10 and for some complements of 20. All of these are working on fluency and the use for a math strategy.  This month's Number Corner focus continued to look at clocks and telling time to the to hours, 1/2 hours and 1/4 hours and 3 dimensional shapes and terms. Second grade math has been focused on measuring with rulers and non standard units too. 

NOTES:

*I wanted to thank everyone for your willingness to supply our class with some items for next week's Secret Pal celebration.  As a reminder, you don't need to do anything for the Secret Pal part of this. I have this covered. The donated items should be sent in Thursday morning. Please don't tell them that I am their Secret Pal. I am looking forward to doing this with them. 

*Next week is Test Week.  Ms. Beattie and I will be doing a variety of math and language arts tests. Please do your absolute best to have your child in class all week.  These assessments are part of our district's assessment plan and allows us to look at statistical growth since the fall.  Most of these test are done 1:1 and in order to allow this to happen, I will use the reading group time to administer these assessments. Kids will also start their final narrative piece. I call these their Golden Stories (on yellow paper) and it allows them to show me their independence with their writing and what they have learned during this unit of study. Hopefully we will finish these before Friday.  If not, the kids will finish them the 1st week back from break. 

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Mr. Young

December 9, 2024

Good Morning! I am sorry I am just getting to last week's blog now but there are a few things I wanted to make sure you were all aware of.  As I have mentioned several times this year, our social studies curriculum has us looking at traditions and celebrations and how they can be the same or look different based on culture, family, etc. The month of December certainly provides for a chance to dive deeply into this. I have decided to look at the holidays and traditions that the students might see in our community. The focus will be on Hanukkah (last week), Kwanza and Winter Solstice (this week) and Christmas and New Years (next week).  This will give the students a chance to talk about what they do, to learn from how others may do it differently and to learn new information as well. 

Last week I used the book Hanukkah by Molly Aloian. This book gives a very simple explanation of the holiday from its roots to the present-day celebrations. We used the book to have a discussion about Hanukkah and why it last for 8 nights and 8 days. The students learned to play the dreidel game and should have brought some chocolate coins home (on Friday) to talk to you about their learning.

Over the years I have done variations of secret pals in our classroom.  This year I am going to try a different version of it. This version has you having to not worry about any of it.  Instead of the kids each creating items for their secret pals, I am going to do things for all of the kids 12/17, 12/18. and 12/19. We will have a little celebration on 12/19 (in the afternoon), if you would like to donate something for the party, please sign up here. On 12/17 I will have a holiday card for each kid, on 12/18 I will have a snack for each kid, and on 12/19 I will have a small present for each kid. This will make the final week fun, allow us to tie it in to our social studies curriculum and will also connect as a class.

NOTES:

*Please remember to have your child bring sneakers for wearing inside the classroom. They can't wear their boots all day long. Also, hats and gloves are a must each day. If you want  your child to just leave a pair of shoes at school, please send them in and let me know. 

That is all for now.  I hope you have a great week.

Peace,

Mr. Young