Good Afternoon. I am sorry this is only coming out on Sunday, as I had a few things going on this week (outside of school) and spent the weekend in Boston. Each year my brother and I (and now more family and friends) head to Boston for the Dropkick Murphys' concert on St. Patty's weekend. It is such a fun time and experience.
I wanted to start with next week's volunteer schedule and field trip opportunity that is happening this week.
We will not have math class or Daily 5 on Tuesday of this week. So Tuesday's volunteers (Ryan and Helen) will not have to come in for those slots. On Friday, we don't have school that day. So those volunteers are off this week too.
The class will be going to a sugar house (in Moretown) on Tuesday. This is part of our science unit on the states of matter and connecting the sugaring process to it. If you would like to attend the trip (and are a volunteer that has had their background check done/weekly volunteer) you are welcome to tag along. Just let me know by Monday evening. We will have plenty of room on the bus and will leave school at 8:40. Please arrive by 8:30 and you are welcome to just come in when your child arrives for school. Kids will need to dress for the weather and they need boots. They will not need a bagged lunch as we will be back in time for that.
As I mentioned last week, I will be out of school the afternoon of March 23rd through April 3rd. The weekly parent volunteers should plan on coming in during this time. The class will be following its regular schedule.
PARENT CONFERENCES: The parent conferences will occur on Thursday, March 19 & Friday, March 20. As always, please make sure that you are on time as the schedule is quite full and I won't be able to extend conference times. Below is the schedule for next week. If you don't see your name, please sign up.
Thursday: 2:40 Stella, 3:00 (open), 3:20 Luna, 3:40 River, 4:20 Hewitt, 4:40 Emma, 5:00 Ellie, 5:20 Olen, 6:00 Vinny, 6:20 Keegan, 6:40 Elsie
Friday: 7:40 Paxton, 8:00 Elowyn, 8:20 Olive, 8:40 Beau
These conferences are in person. Your child is encouraged to attend part of the conference.
This past week the students were engaged with a variety of read alouds that I would categorize as "fun books." I chose these books (some new to me) because they seemed highly engaging and offered a nice variety. The books were as follows:
Mel Fell, Tops and Bottoms, I Don't Want to be a Frog, I Want My Hat Back, and Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Click on the links if you want to listen to these stories with your child. See if you like the same ones that your child did!
Our writing instruction had us reading two different books. First we read The Three Little Pigs by James Marshall and then we read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (told by A. Wolf) by Jon Scieszka. After reading each story, we brainstormed the pigs' arguments and the wolf's arguments. The students then had to choose a side, the wolf or the pigs and write an opinion piece about if the wolf was mean or not. The students included a hook, their opinion, support for their opinion and a closing. They each did some self editing too. These pieces are hung up in our classroom library. Make sure to check them out when you come in this week.
This week's science focus had us looking at solids and can an item be a solid if it is squishy. The students experimented with this concept as they explored some items from our classroom. They then had to record their observations and share out what they found.
The class also wrote their next pen-pal letter. This started with an outline, then the students wrote their draft and edited with an adult. To change it up, the class worked with Eric Mongeon and recorded themselves reading their letter to their pen-pal. These can be heard by clicking this link. Then next time we connect with them, we will actually have each student do a video call with their pen pal and then write a summary of what they talked about. This allows me to tie in some of our communication goals in our curriculum.
NOTES:
- I want to give a special thank you to the PTA for their support with my field trip requests. They will be funding the sugar house field trip this week and for our trip in June to visit our pen-pals.
- It looks like we will be skiing this week, please make sure your child has all of their needed items.
- Remember that there is no school on Friday.
