In our Small Group work next week we will be exploring all that the Message Center has to offer: cutting, gluing, writing, drawing, coloring, and making messages. We will be talking about how to “mail” these messages to our friends and families. At this point we don’t have mailboxes for the children in our room and we’d like to have the children help us to invent a place and/or a system for mailing our messages.
We have begun to talk with children about social-moral topics. Next week we will be talking about the school agreements: “No Weapons in School,” and “No Hitting.” As teachers we’ve observed this phenomenon each year in the Threes/Fours class: it is very easy to TALK about classroom rules and agreements, but harder to apply them to daily life. The fascination that children have with super-heroes has blurred the issue about who can fight and why. We feel it is never too early to start a dialogue about WHY communities need rules and agreements. If you and your child have similar conversations, email us with your stories.
What is slimy, lives in water and has NO name? These were some of the clues the children had to work with as they guessed what was in the “Happy Sack” this week. It didn’t take long for them to guess the answer……. a FISH! The children were introduced to her while in small group time with Missy. Each child had some input as to what the name of our new “wet” friend should be. Lucie, Kathie, Sarah, Fishy, Rock Fish and Rainbow Fish were just some of the many suggestions.
We read the book “Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister. The Rainbow Fish, with his shimmering scales, is the most beautiful fish in the ocean. Yet, he’s proud and vain and none of the other fish desire his friendship… until he learns to give away some of his most prized possessions. We made this story come alive by making friendship bracelets. We used Energy Beads to represent the Rainbow Fish’s shimmering scales. The students followed the example of the Rainbow Fish as they shared their special "Rainbow Beads" with each other.
This is a preview of 3/4’s Reflections: Our New Classroom Friend - Week of September 24 - 28. Read the full post
ON THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 AND 5, CLASS AND INDIVIDUAL PICTURES WILL BE TAKEN! LET’S MAKE SURE WE ARE ALL AT SCHOOL BRIGHT AND EARLY WITH OUR HAPPIEST FACES SO WE LOOK SUPER GREAT IN OUR PICTURES!
Student photographs for 6th grade will be taken at 10:40 AM next Friday, October 5th. Any students who miss that Friday’s shoot will have to be skipped.
The 6th grade floated down the Meramec River on Friday, September 14, 2007.
The students had a great time driving to the park, riding on the bus to our drop off spot and floating down the river in our rafts. It was a beautiful day and a great way to kick off our study of WATER. Thanks to Theresa Eppert for organizing this great trip.
Here is your parent homework: Yes, that’s right Parent Homework. Ready?
Find a child care provider, baby sitter, child sitter, or willing or unwilling relative to “watch the kids” on Thursday, October 11, from 5:30–8:00 PM.
Why??? Because this is the night of
Parent Orientation for Preprimary Families
which is one of the most important events for parents during the entire school year. You will get to see your beautiful children in a slide show doing those mysterious things that the kids call “playing” and we call “learning." We will share our ideas about learning and answer your questions about what goes on here at school while you are, well, not here. This is also a great time to connect with other parents in the preprimary.
Preprimary Orientation will begin promptly at 6:00 PM and will conclude by 7:30 PM.
What Good Readers Do
by Beth Mosher 9/24/07
Have you thought about how you read? What makes a good reader? Do you like to read? Children learn by example. It is important to model for your children good reading. Read, Read, Read! Read at home to your child and listen to your child read. Read signs as you drive, read newspapers, read magazines, listen to books on tape, read menus and show your children that you love to read. Surround your child with reading materials and your enthusiasm for reading will become contagious.
As you read with your children do the following: Make Connections: Create a bridge from the new to the known, connecting the text to yourself, what you know about the world, and what you have read in other texts. Questions: Ask questions as you read to enhance understanding, find answers, solve problems, find specific information and so on. Make Inferences: Connect ideas or fill in information to make sense of unstated ideas. Visualize: Generate mental images to stimulate thinking and heighten engagement. Summarize: Synthesize and organize key information to identify main points and major themes, distinguish important from unimportant information, and enhance meaning. Monitor/Regulate: Pay attention to meaning, clarify or correct comprehension difficulties or promote a problem, - solving stance during reading. Evaluate: Make judgments about the text to form ideas and opinions, or determine the author’s purpose.
This week small groups will work with a teacher in the Cozy Area to become more familiar with the materials and possible experiences there. We will also be preparing for Ewan’s birthday on Thursday by making messages for him and decorating his birthday box.
Here is your parent homework: Yes, that’s right Parent Homework. Ready?
Find a child care provider, baby sitter, child sitter, or willing or unwilling relative to “watch the kids” on Thursday October 11 from 5:30–8 PM. Why?? Because this is the night of the Parent Orientation for Preprimary families-which is one of the most important events for parents during the entire school year. You will get to see your beautiful children in a slide show doing those mysterious things that the kids call “playing” and we call “learning”. We will share our ideas about learning and answer your questions about what goes on here at school while you are, well, not here. This is also a great time to connect with other parents in the preprimary. The Orientation will begin promptly at 6 PM and will be concluding by 7:30 PM.
Small Group experiences will include welcoming a new member to our classroom (a cold-blooded creature that has a backbone, lives in water, and has gills) and finding a name for our new friend; thinking about contained water in the Studio with Chuck and Amanda; reading stories and singing songs about creatures in the water; and, talking about making friends and building community using these stories and songs.
We’ve passed our “Waterplay Equipment” on to the kindergarten/first grade group so NO special clothing is required for this week. Thank you parents for taking on this responsibility - we had fun getting wet and we had fun changing into dry clothes!
We are featured in the Museletter this week. Keep checking the website for updates in many different areas - we’re hoping to learn about “Photo Journals” very soon so we can send out more than one photo at a time!
This is a preview of 3/4’s Projections: Week of September 24-28. Read the full post
