February 21, 2025

Happy Friday All! I hope you all enjoy the time with your children over the next week and a half.  For those of you who are traveling, I wish you all a safe trip. For those who are here, I hope you can get outside and enjoy the epic snow and some warmer temperatures.  

Here are a few pictures from the week.

I will see you all in March.  

PLEASE VOTE!

Peace, 

Mr. Young

February 14, 2025

Well another 4 day week has come and gone. This week the kids have been part of a residency involving African drumming and dancing. We shared a culminating showcase of the dances we learned this afternoon in the gym. The performance was recorded, and information will be posted on how to view it (from Kaiya). A big shout out to the WES PTA for funding this opportunity.

This week's read-a-louds were Guess Again by Mac Barnett, Once Upon a Time by Niki Daly, and the Jolly Pirate by Brett Helquist. All three of these books are new to our classroom library. Guess Again, is a fun book that tries to trick kids in what they think will happen on the next page. Once Upon a Time is a book that focuses on a student who is nervous to read. "When Sarie's teacher says, "Children, take out your reading books," a sick feeling grips Sarie. The words trip up her tongue and she stutters and stammers, making the children in the back row giggle. But there are two people who her schoolfriend Emile, and Ou Missus, the old lady living over the veld. One Sunday, Sarie comes across an old copy of Cinderella and begs Ou Missus to read it to her, Ou Missus says, "No - we will read it together." Sarie's confidence grows, until the day comes when the school principal says to Sarie, "You read beautifully!"

This was a great book to read with the message of persevering with ones ability to read. 

Our writing this week had the kids finishing their writing from the reading of Brave Irene. On Monday, the students brainstormed ways in which Irene demonstrated her braveness. They did this by citing specific examples from the story. The class then used this list to write a new letter to me in the form of another opinion piece. Next week we will start writing about each student's favorite toy. 

I still need the three pictures from Hewitt, Finn, and Luke.  They can be placed in this folder.

The kids had another glorious winter sports day on Wednesday. It is so great to see how this group helps each other get ready. I want to give a specific shout-out to Finn and Landen.  They are able to get ready fairly quickly and then kindly help others buckle up their boots too. A big kudos to them for their kindness and teamwork.  

NOTES:

*Please make sure to label any winter clothing your child brings in. It is amazing how large our lost and found (with unlabeled items) gets during the winter months.  

*Please make sure your child's homework bags is sent back to school on Wednesday mornings. With some kids bringing a different bag to school on ski days, it is hard for them to remember to grab it from their backpack.

*Each year I run a basketball camp at Harwood. If your child would like to attend, please email me for an application.

Peace,

Mr. Young

February 7, 2025

The kids have a snowball fight during morning meeting 

I am writing this on Thursday evening (instead of Friday) in order to use my Friday prep time to plan for next week. So it is only based on two and a half days of school and a Winter Program afternoon.  I hope yesterday's school cancellation didn't cause too much of a problem for your work schedules. I know I had to spend a good amount of time snow blowing and cleaning up the snow we did get. 

I had ordered a variety of new read a loud books over the past few weeks. I have been spending some time finding new and interesting book options. This week I read the book Claude, A True Story of a White Alligator by Emma Bland Smith and Once Upon A Cool Motorcycle Dude by Kevin O' Malley. Claude is the story of the California Academy of Sciences' beloved albino alligator, from his birth in Louisiana to his present day life in his swamp at the Academy. Claude is a celebrity alligator and the mascot for San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences. The 2nd book begins with a boy and a girl who were supposed to tell their favorite fairy tale to their class. They couldn’t agree on which story was best, so they made one up. The girl begins. She introduces the beautiful Princess Tenderheart, who had eight beautiful ponies named Jasmie, Nimble, Sophie, Polly, Penny, Sunny, Monica, and Buttercup. When a giant begins stealing her ponies, Princess Tenderheart cries all day. The boy doesn’t like the way the story is going, so he brings in a cool motorcycle dude to fight the giant and earn the gold thread that the princess spins from straw. The girl says "wait a minute, the girl can fight for her needs too!" The girl doesn’t like the way the story is going, so they end up making an ending together that both of them can enjoy—sort of.

Reading with our Classroom Buddies

NOTES:

*As some of you know first hand, there are lots of colds, stomach bugs and a variety of other illnesses in our school community. Please reinforce the idea of hand washing and trying to use tissues to clear out our noses. 

*This is the final time I will post the class list (for Valentine's) before 2/14/25. Please use this if your child needs this list.  

Wiley, Olen, Jayden, Hewitt, River, Paxton, Emma, Hazel, Elowyn, Ava, Annabelle, Amelie, Luke, Nora, Edie, Landen, and Finne

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

Peace,

Mr. Young

February 2, 2025

I hope everyone had a good weekend and found a way to stay warm but still enjoy the outdoors. Last week we continued working on identifying character traits in stories and then writing letters that used evidence from the books we used to support the identified traits. We will continue these this week and spend some time on Tuesday/Wednesday editing them.

In science, we continued looking at sound vibrations and conducted an experiment that got the students a bit excited. They were proposed with he question, could we make salt dance?  They each wrote their own hypothesis and then we set out to test them.  The kids got to see what happens to a plate of salt when a song like Pump Up the Jam is played (next to it). The kids thought this was hilarious. We then looked at what happened when loud base noises were played compared to lower ones and what they noticed. 

It was nice for the kids to get back on the mountain this past Wednesday. The kids all seem to have a great time and enjoyed the opportunity to be outside and with their friends.  I was on bus duty on Wednesday and was so impressed with the attitudes and the behavior on the bus. I mentioned to Kaiya how impressed I was.  It looks like we will get another chance this week.

VALENTINES: Valentine's Day falls on a Friday this year. We will pass out Valentines at 2:00 that day. Your child is welcome to bring in Valentines for the class but it is not required. Here is a list of the names of the members of our class:

Olen, Jayden, Hewitt, River, Paxton, Emma, Hazel, Elowyn, Ava, Annabelle, Amelie, Luke, Nora, Edie, Landen, and Finne

NOTES:

*Please make sure your child has sneakers for our PE days on Thursdays and Fridays.

*We will have the winter program on Wednesday.  Please make sure your child has all of the appropriate gear. Also, please make sure  your child brings their homework bag back on Wednesday (especially if they don;t bring their regular back pack to school on ski days).  

I hope you all have a great week.

Peace,

Mr. Young