30 Days Has November

Another month has passed and here we are facing the winter holidays square in the nose.
Our last day of school is a mere 2 weeks away. Friday, December 16th will be our last day. It is a regular school day, culminating with a brief Sing-Along in the Multipurpose room.

I am hoping to have a little workshop on that day for the children to enjoy some different activities. I welcome volunteers! If you have any ideas for a craft, let me know too!

This month in math, we have been graphing, learning time to the 1/4 hour, double digit addition (without regrouping) and how to read a thermometer. The election gave us an opportunity to collect and sort data on a large scale. We asked the question, "Will your family be voting in the election?"

We gave the ballots to all 2nd and 3rd grade classes. We discussed how our classes were like counties, and our school was like a state.  We checked off all the classrooms as the ballots came in. Next, the children sorted the ballots. The categories were simple, Yes, No, and, I don't know. Yes won!

The children remember well their first grade learning of time to the hour and 1/2 hour. 1/4 hour is always a bit of a challenge. We will continue practice these next couple of weeks and then throughout the year. The children know that each numbered increment is 5 minutes and they can tell time by counting by 5's. (That rote memorization DOES come in handy!) If you have an analog clock or watch, this is a great way to give your child practice at home. (Include the phrases quarter to, and quarter after.)

 On Wednesdays, we get a visit from Mrs Olson. She helps us to further understand our Peacemaker Pledge as well as our values of the month. So far this year we have worked on perseverance, self-discipline, and, compassion.

 After we see Mrs. Olson, we take the long journey of 18 steps (we've counted!) to the library to visit Mrs. Ridge. Mrs. Ridge is guiding us to make 'Just Right' selections to help us improve our reading. The guideline is, 1 'Just Right" book and 1 other book.
Books are returned on Monday so Mrs. Ridge can have us checked in by class time. Selections can be renewed.

Mr Kirby helps us to stay healthy and strong on Tuesday's and Friday's. He is dedicated to more than keeping the children active. On Friday, at the end of class, they were all talking about the importance of good eating habits as well as being active to keeping our bodies at optimum levels.

We had special visitors last week! Mrs. Ruff (one of our Para-educators) has a daughter (Destiny) who is in Dental College. She offered to come with her friends and talk to our classes about good dental hygiene. They brought the big teeth and big tooth brush (oh how I loved these when I was 7!) and they brought Dina the Dental Dragon for us to do some practice brushing. 

 This week, we have been fine tuning our writing.
By creating a Cinquain poem about snow, we learned about verbs, adjectives, and synonyms so we could spice up our writing. Then we created cut-out pictures of ourselves catching snowflakes on our tongue. The Cinquain poem is attached. Some children are still adding their snowflakes this week.

 The children's work is on display in the hallway.

Remember, Monday and through the week, the PTA has arranged a lovely holiday store for the children to purchase gifts. Most items are $1-$5. If you approve, an envelope to carry your child's funds was in the Friday folder attached to the elf shelf flyer, which has further information.

Our children's focus on the snow seems to have awakened the snow gods! The white stuff is on the way this week! Here is the link on Skyward for weather. Make sure to sign up for FlashAlert to get notifications. This page also has TV and radio guides.
 Steilacoom Skyward Weather

Be safe driving and walking Monday morning and be prepared for potential delays if driving is not safe. Weather proof shoes and jackets will be very helpful for outside play.

Much love all!

Feels Like Fall

Another month has gone by and we are well into the spirit of the Fall season.

We have started an interactive notebook to demonstrate our learning. It is like a school scrapbook where we cut, paste, and write images and words to remember our learning. Here is one of our first entries on place value.



We had a very interesting first aid assembly. A speaker from the Red Cross taught us a little bit about basic first aid. Of course our favorite part was when we got to try wrapping wounds and creating slings with our partners!

  On Fridays we do a weekly word check in. We talk about the spelling/reading patterns, and share if it is a multiple meaning word, like close, and use.
One Friday morning, we had to  take a break during our quiz because a mother deer and her fawn were browsing outside of our classroom windows. Some things are just more important.

  




  On Halloween day, the children were greeted with a pumpkin at every group of tables. We read  
and then we took on the task of discovering how many seeds were in our pumpkins.
Children shared the task of scooping out the insides. One pumpkin had started to decompose and we got to see and compare the sprouting pumpkin seeds to our Lima beans.

 Next the groups chose a way to sort, group, tally, and total all of their seeds. The highest total was 547!

We also did our first pencil sketches. Our subject was the bat. We followed step by step directions and the children did great work! The sketches that have not yet come home will be coming home soon but are briefly on display in our hallway. (The others chose not to display their work.)
Later that day we changed into our costumes and started our science lesson; creating a skeleton using dried pasta. 


The fun did not stop on Halloween. One of our learning targets this week was compound words. We played a learning game I created years ago called It Takes Two. The children receive a placard with a word which they keep hidden until the music starts. Then they look at their word and take off to find their partner who will create a compound word. Big smiles when they found their friend! We had to play more than once it was so much fun.

• Our Food Drive is underway. Kindly donate non-perishable foods to help our local food pantry.
• This week we will honor our Veterans on Thursday afternoon. Veterans Day is Friday so school will be closed.
• I hope you will participate in our It Takes All Kinds Of Pilgrims project! 

Don't forget to turn your clocks back tonight!