Weekly Newsletter

We will not publish a newsletter next week. We sincerely hope you have a wonderful extra long weekend!

Please be on the lookout for the packet that will be sent home regarding the dental program we will have available at school for student’s dental care. “Preventative services are essential for your child's oral health. Tooth decay can lead to toothaches, missed school, and poor grades. It is important for your child to have two cleanings a year. We can provide the following services right at school, eliminating missed school for children and work for the parents: Preventive services offered include: dental cleanings, X-rays, fluoride varnish application, placement of sealants.” (CHCFC, Mahima Thakkar)

Please reach out to me at lalmeida@mtrsd.org if you have any questions and be sure to send back the completed registration forms for your child(ren). Once we receive the forms back we can schedule a date that the program will be available at school, thank you!

This week we read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. In the story, the wind blows Leaf Man past animals, over fields of vegetables, above waterways, and across meadows. The illustrations are made from actual fall leaves. This inspired us to create our own creatures using leaves and other natural objects found outside. We collected leaves of all shapes and sizes, twigs, bark, and anything else we thought we may need for our project. Preschoolers created caterpillars, cows, hawks, pigs, and people! We also used the leftover leaves for other craft projects. We made people with leaf hair, leaf wreaths, leaf hedgehogs, and leaf monsters!

Our classroom values help us to build community and respect for each other. Those values include taking care of ourselves, taking care of each other and taking care of nature. We have extended these concepts to include taking care of our pets. To practice the skills associated with caring for animals, the dramatic play center has been transformed into a veterinary clinic. The children can make appointments, sign-in pets, sit in the waiting room, be a nurse or veterinarian who examines pets, help animals in the recovery room, weigh and measure pets and be a pet owner. There are many pets to choose from. Some of the favorites include dogs, cats, bunnies, birds, and teddy bears. The conversations are rich and filled with empathy and care. The children are practicing writing letters and numbers as they sign-in pets, make appointments and fill out prescription forms. There is such collaboration and problem-solving happening in this new center!

This week first graders began work on their “magnificent thing” for our classroom. In our EL curriculum first graders learn the steps to creating something. Step 1 is planning, which includes asking questions such as: What should I make? What materials do I need? And then creating a sketch of what you envision it to look like. Step 2 is the crafting or working step. In this step children have gathered their materials and have a vision of what they want their magnificent thing to look like. They keep working until they feel it is complete. Later in the week we will come back together to talk about the revision process.

On Monday, first graders received a surprise one month update on our cow Celestial! She has grown 3 inches and gained 78 pounds! First graders learned about jersey cows and from that information predicted what her height would be when she is full grown. These predictions were added to our adopt a cow growth chart.

In Social studies, we created a graph representing family members that have served in the five different branches of the military. 12 served in the Marines, 7 in the Air Force, 14 in the Navy, 21 in the Army and 2 in the Coast Guard. In total as a class we know 56 Veterans!

Second grade has started a research project on an animal each student picked. We are using a few websites that allow us to read, listen, or watch information about each animal. The students are gathering facts about their animal and we will use this to write a paragraph. We’ll also be creating an art project to go along with our research. The students are very excited to learn all about their animals' habitat, food, and other needs to survive in their environment. We will compare each animal and their needs. Ask your child all about their animal they are researching! In math, we have been working on expanding our understanding of numbers in the hundreds place. We have been learning about what each digit’s value is within a three digit number. We have also been reviewing and learning about new concepts in Fundations. Our most recent skill is about vowel teams, we are starting with ai and ay. They both make the long a sound when found in a word.

One of our second grade families donated bird feeders and seed for us to watch the birds through our large windows. We have loved seeing all the different varieties of birds that have visited the feeders.

If you have walked into the school lobby in the past few days, you may have noticed some new characters on display by the library windows. The third graders have been working with Ms. Wilson to design a library, and the new characters are the individuals who will use the library. Third graders were very creative designing their library visitors, and they got to share them at the All School assembly this week.

We also got to clean, peel, and chop some of our garden carrots this week. We shared them with the whole school in the lunchtime salad bar. They got rave reviews from all!

The sign in front of the school along the road is another project third grade works on throughout the year. Every week or so we change out what it should say to keep the community informed of upcoming events. This is a fun and real-world way to practice spelling, editing, and cooperation. Let us know if you ever have any suggestions for the sign!

Today third graders are charged with making twenty-four quarts of cranberry sauce for the Local Goods orders. We are first doing a math activity to calculate expenses, compare that to how much we made from the sales, and see what we have left for the classroom. We will also be writing labels for the containers with a list of ingredients. A great big THANK YOU to all who ordered from the Local Goods catalog this year!

Students finished making eye pillows to fulfill the Local Goods orders that we received this year. We would like to thank Mrs. Lilly for the use of her sewing machine, Mrs. Upright for her sewing expertise and ability to guide students through the intricate steps of this project, and anyone who ordered. We hope you enjoy your new eye pillow. If you haven’t seen our pictures on Facebook, be sure to check them out.

In other news, we are wrapping up our second unit in math. Students will be taking the post-test in the coming days to show off their new multiplication and division skills. I love how our Bridges math curriculum introduces division with remainders to students. I read aloud A Remainder of One, by Elinor J. Pinczes. In this story, there are 25 bug soldiers marching past their queen. They begin by marching in two lines, but when she spies Private Joe marching by himself at the end of one line, she demands that her army march in even lines. Private Joe divides the marchers into more and more lines so that he will not be left out of the parade. As we moved through the read aloud, students had tiles and replicated the marching bugs on their desks and then drew the formations in their notebooks. We enjoyed predicting whether Joe’s new line formations would result in even lines, or if he would still be left out of the parade. Be sure to ask your child about the exciting conclusion to the story and to summarize their learning.

Another activity that invites our wonderful students to engage in meaningful mathematical problem solving and discourse is Today’s Number. Check out the example below! :) aprew@mtrsd.org

This week, I’d like to focus on Third Grade Library and the wonderful progress these students have been making on their Storyline project. Storyline is a method of teaching and learning that was originally developed in Scotland. Storyline uses an ongoing story, shaped by the students, to integrate teacher learning goals with student interests and hands-on learning. The third grade Storyline is called (no surprise here) “The Library.” It is about a school without a library that decides to build one after an anonymous donor gives the school a large sum of money. In this story, third graders play the role of the committee in charge of planning, designing, and building the new library. The first question posed to the “committee” was who is this library for? For the past few weeks, each third grader has been creating a character, who is a student at the school in the story. Students created portraits, came up with names and ages, and wrote about their character’s interests, hobbies, and interesting facts about them. They also had to describe their characters’ favorite aspect of libraries. Third graders will use this information as the first step to planning their library. When the Storyline project is complete, students will have created characters, written a name and mission statement, and built a mini-library that will live inside the Sanderson library. That is all I know; the rest will be shaped by the students as we go!