Primer March Newsletter
February 28, 2015
Notes from the classroom
Notes from the classroom:
Let me start with I can't believe we had a snow day yesterday on top of the crippling weather earlier in the week. Almost all of your homes have been transform into classrooms this week. Thank you for continuing the learning and providing the space and support to do so. Honestly, I think it was an omen for a snow day since I sent homework home on Thursday and typically do so on Friday.
This week we will not only be playing catch up but will also be adding some new concepts. Our writing and reading blocks will vier towards invitation writing and the elements needed to include for an invitation. We will take those skills and put them in action as we make invitations for our play. We are still working our way through fractions and should conclude our work before we break for Spring Break. During science students will still be learning with "Our Saving the Seas" trunk. This trunk will go back over Spring Break. Additionally, before breaking we will wrap up the Chinese New Year by hosting Upper School Chinese students. They have offered to come teach us with what they have been learning.
Academic Objectives:
Reading: Parts of an invitation
Writing: Writing an invitation
Math: Fractions
Science: Saving our Seas trunk
Social Studies: Project Groundhog and Chinese New Year
Phonics: Long vowel O patterns
Invitations to our Primer Play "Go Fish"
Trinity River Field Trip Details
On March 18 plan on students being outside most of the day. They will need long pants and closed toed shoes ( tennis shoes). Hats and sunglasses are optional. Please apply sunscreen and insect repellant to your child prior to coming to school. Lunch will be provided but please send your child with a reusable water bottle to carry on the trip.
For those parents with older ESD students, this trip is similar to a Wolf Run trip. Even if it is raining we will still go on the trip and participate in an alternative indoor program. Primer students will depart campus at 9:00 and return by 2:00. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Here is the program description. Audubon Eco-Investigations are four-hour expedition field trips, led by Audubon education staff, providing inquiry-based, hands-on nature education in an immersed setting. Program activities include guided hikes, pond study, and exhibit hall exploration. All activities relate to local ecology and habitat study and are standards based. Students engage in scientific observation, nature study, and critical thinking. Each Eco-Investigation is supplemented with pre- and post-activities to strengthen learning and extend lessons into classroom and home.
Imagination Playground
For the past two years, I have applied for a capital expenditure. Last school year the project I proposed was the new classroom furniture that you see this year. This school year, I collaborated with our acting Head of Lower School, Chelle Wabrek on an Imagination Playground. Tonight at the auction they will do a paddle raise for an Imagination Playground. I want to educate you on what this is and the benefits of having one.
Imagination Playground is an innovative building system that transforms any area into a play space to encourage learning, social development, movement and fun. This playground includes portable blocks made of lightweight and non-toxic foam. They are germ-resistant and are appropriate for both indoor and outdoor play. Storage boxes and bins are available for purchase to house the blocks. Each set of the classic block system contains enough pieces for approximately 25 children to play collaboratively. Three sets of Imagination Playgrounds to allow an entire grade to use the sets at the Lower School. The sets are developmentally appropriate for ALL grade levels.
Benefits to LS include:
The outdoor play space is limited at Lower School, and many classes share space for both recess and PE. During certain time frames, as many ten classes can be sharing the space. This many classes results in over a hundred students at “free” play within the space. To alleviate the cramped space, purchase of an Imagination Playground system would allow students an added venue for play.
Due to inclement weather, many teachers scramble to provide “indoor recess” activities. Purchase of this system would provide a worthwhile option for indoor play.
Given the proposed movement of the LS to the Merrell Road campus, the school hopes to avoid purchase of new or updated playground equipment. Purchase of Imagination Playground bring significant improvement to our play time and spaces and can be moved with us to Merrell Road. An Imagination Playground supports many of the best practices we are currently implementing in our classes at Lower School.
Imagination Playground directly supports ESD’s strategic plan and the learning objectives of our mission statement. Play with this equipment promotes gross motor skills and problem solving, builds collaboration ability and allows children to engineer and build in a realistic and fun way. The pieces allow children to build simple machines and to engineer realistic structures. Pieces can be used for props in dramatic play and children’s creative ideas can take a life-sized shape. These are the ultimate STEM play pieces!
Price includes a storage box that is on wheels and could easily be moved to different LS locations and stored in the Dining Commons.
If you are heading to the Gala tonight, I would love for you to raise a paddle in support of this exciting learning tool. If you are not attending, I will provide a link for your donate online as soon as I receive it. Thank you for you support.
Imagination playground storage
A creation made with Imagination Playground
Endless opportunities await for our students
Jumpers in Training Invitation
Does your child like to jump rope? Join us on Tuesday, March 3 at the Lower School gymnasium to work on jump rope skills with Mrs. Brockhagen and a few of the members of the “Just Skip It” jump rope demonstration team.
Please email Kristine Brockhagen brockhagenk@esdallas.org if your child will be attending.
Bearda
Book recommendation- "The Opposite of Spoiled" by Ron Lieber
Review take from Amazon
In the spirit of Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s Nurture Shock, New York Times “Your Money” columnist Ron Lieber delivers a taboo-shattering manifesto that explains how talking openly to children about money can help parents raise modest, patient, grounded young adults who are financially wise beyond their years.
For Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist and father, good parenting means talking about money with our kids. Children are hyper-aware of money, and they have scores of questions about its nuances. But when parents shy away from the topic, they lose a tremendous opportunity—not just to model the basic financial behaviors that are increasingly important for young adults but also to imprint lessons about what the family truly values.
Written in a warm, accessible voice, grounded in real-world experience and stories from families with a range of incomes, The Opposite of Spoiled is both a practical guidebook and a values-based philosophy. The foundation of the book is a detailed blueprint for the best ways to handle the basics: the tooth fairy, allowance, chores, charity, saving, birthdays, holidays, cell phones, checking accounts, clothing, cars, part-time jobs, and college tuition. It identifies a set of traits and virtues that embody the opposite of spoiled, and shares how to embrace the topic of money to help parents raise kids who are more generous and less materialistic.
But The Opposite of Spoiled is also a promise to our kids that we will make them better with money than we are. It is for all of the parents who know that honest conversations about money with their curious children can help them become more patient and prudent, but who don’t know how and when to start.
Upcoming Events
- February 28- ESD Gala 6:30 PM-12AM at the Granada Theater
- March 3- Happy Birthday Henry S., Jumpers in Training & Yoga Skype Make up
- March 6- Library Day and Chinese students from Upper Campus visit
- March 11- Happy Birthday Mrs. Hogan
- March 13- Happy Birthay Charlie
- March 9-March 13 Spring Break
- March 18- Primer to Trinity River Audubon field Trip