MKG Messenger January 10, 2020
The Principal's Office
Happy New Year!!!! This school year seems to be flying by!!! As we head towards the second half of the year we continue to focus on our goals of improving our writing, reading and math skills. I am excited to see the growth that our students are making!!!! Our Character Strong word of the month is honesty:
Honesty: living truthfully in your words and actions and thoughts!
Honesty is a lot more than just telling the truth – it is also about thinking and acting in a way that feels consistent, kind, and sincere. What do we do with honest thoughts that aren’t very nice? How do our actions in Honesty help or hurt our relationships. Over the course of the month, we will talk about people from Emily Bronte to Jackie Robinson who lived out Honesty in their words and actions. We discover new games and techniques to make us more honest competitors and more thoughtful friends. It will be a time of challenging, but rewarding conversations – thanks for being a part of them!
Upcoming Events:
January 14, 2020: PTA Meeting 6:00 - 7:30 PM
January 17, 2020: Early Release, 1:00 PM Dismissal
January 20, 2020: No School, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Project Lead the Way
Grade 1
First graders this week have been working on getting back into our classroom routines after the break.In ELA, we are continuing our study of folktales. We are focusing on stories that have the fox as a main character. The children are giving their opinion of the fox as a positive or negative character. They are also writing opinion pieces. In math, we are working with balanced equations and deciding if an equation is true or false. In science, we have started our unit on sound. Students are learning how sound is created and how it travels.
Grade 2
Happy New Year! Grade 2 students were treated to a visit by International Storyteller, author and performer, Len Cabral on Wednesday, January 8th. Mr. Cabral engaged and enthralled all of us with his stories about the “Gunny Wolf”, “Old Man Winter” and how the rabbit got his short tail! We are grateful to our PTA for providing us with funding to have Mr. Cabral visit. His tales are the perfect way to wind down our ELA Unit, “Hand Me Down Tales from Around the World”.
Grade 3
Grade 3 students are busy learning about traditional folktales. Fables, fairy tales and myths come from cultures all over the world but teach universal lessons. Students are describing the characters in the stories they read. They are discussing character traits, character feelings, and how characters change and evolve throughout the story.
Mrs. Cornell’s class continues to work on an engineering challenge of building ramps. They are learning about force, motion, friction, and gravity.
Grade 4
Our fourth graders have returned from winter break motivated to tackle the increased expectations of the new year! In math, we are working with factors and multiples as well as identifying prime and composite numbers. We continue working on applying strategies to solve word problems. As readers, we are learning to identify narrator perspectives. Our study of immigration, aided by many wonderful read alouds, has enabled students to see themselves as part of an amazingly diverse community in which we learn to accept and celebrate our differences and have inspiring conversations about our shared history as Americans. As writers, we continue to build stamina and apply strategies to revise and edit our work. We continue to build and solidify a sense of community within the classroom and grade level. This is evidenced by many daily examples of kindness and inclusion during academic instruction, specialist classes, and recess.
Grade 5
Students in fifth grade have been working hard with division skills. The skill includes dividing decimals by decimals. They continue to persevere and work through our ST Math program. The program supports the foundational principles of math concepts and is presented in an activity based format. We continue to build our reading and writing stamina working within the balanced literacy approach, hopefully instilling a love of reading and writing that will grow and last. Students have been working through the development of characters and how they interact and change in a story working towards theme and understanding the author's purpose. Some students are working in developing their own character and stories.