Hello - I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!
I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The food is great but it is not because of the food, I am usually too tired to really enjoy the food on Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because my family is together. My sisters and I cook for days to have everyone’s favorite dish at our Thanksgiving table. My mom is 87 and still directs as to what needs to be cooked and how it should be served. We are a clan of 45 these days but we still pray and sit together as a family. There are no gifts but just lots of love, laughter, hugs and smiles.
Just a few reminders -
This is a preview of
Message from Beth 11/26/07
.
Read the full post
Water Water Everywhere!!
Children are forever asking questions about the things they see, touch, hear, smell, and taste. This week we will aim to foster our children’s curiosity and encourage them to use their senses to find out about water. Specifically:
What is water like?
What shape is water?
Filling with water.
Children will be encouraged make their own scientific discoveries and to interpret them according to their own ideas.
Children do not have to be taught to explore, question, and manipulate; they are born with a powerful desire to do so. Children generate satisfaction from being able to manipulate and control materials and results outside their own bodies. This drive leads to a clarification and understanding of their physical world.
As the children investigate the properties of the physical world (water), they will add new knowledge to their accumulated store. As more knowledge is acquired, it becomes the foundation for new developing concepts. By handling, manipulating, tasting, feeling and much more, the children are able to accommodate much of this information into pre-existing concepts. Thus, the children broaden and deepen their understanding about the world about them.
We started off our small group with a story; “A Turkey for Thanksgiving” by Eve Bunting. In the story, Mrs. Moose, who is preparing the holiday feast, complains that everyone else has a turkey for Thanksgiving, but she doesn’t. Genially, Mr. Moose sets forth to find one. Along the way the other dinner guests–Rabbit, the Goats, Sheep, and Porcupine, join in the search. The anxious turkey, too fat to run far, is soon captured and marched to the Moose house for the meal. Luckily for him, he turns out to be just another guest at the table. “They want the turkey for their tummies”. (Julia)
We then made our own “Turkeys for Thanksgiving”. Each child colored coffee filter using watercolor markers. Next, we sprayed the coffee filters gently with water. The colors bled together to create a beautiful tail for our turkeys. We glued on a body and our very own special details. These turkeys are really something to look at! “The colors got together.” (Julia) “We sprayed it with water.” (Emmett) “They got together.” (Immanuel)
This is a preview of
3/4’s Reflections on our Turkey-ific Times: November 12-19,2007
.
Read the full post
Reminder!!! On Thursday and Friday are Parent/Teacher conferences. The sign-up sheet is located outside Mr. Schwall’s studio, please check your scheduled time to meet with Karen and Kara.
There are three simple, concrete ways that The St. Michael School is different from other independent schools in St. Louis. And these three differences lead to significant difference in our educational approach.
First of all, The St. Michael School is an Episcopal day school for children of all faiths, ages 3 to grade 6.
• There is a diverse representation of many religions.
• We start school with a meeting in chapel every day with kg-6.
• The first question asked in chapel is: Who are you concerned about or thankful for?
If we wanted, and some days we do, we could spend the whole 15 minutes with their responses.
This is a preview of
Ideas presented to VIP’s on Tuesday, 11.20.07
.
Read the full post
Parent Teacher Conferences are coming soon: Thursday, November 29th and Friday, November 30th.
Since sign-up was way back during the Preprimary Orientation in October, we are sending you this little reminder of WHEN we will be seeing you. We look forward to continuing our family/school connection.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29
7:30 am BROWN (I)
8:00 am BLEWETT
4:30 pm BROWN (L)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30
8:00 am HAYNES
8:30 am MURPHY
9:00 am GOULET
9:30 am WEBB
10:00 am NELSON
11:00 am HEATH (S)
11:30 am HEATH (A)
1:00 pm KOHLER
2:00 pm GLASS
2:30 pm THOMAS
3:00 pm HOY
Please take your child to the Pulitzer Foundation on a Saturday 10 AM - 4 PM sometime before January 6 when the show closes. The Pulitzer is also open on Wednesdays from 12-5 PM. Your visit will be a follow up to the class field trip on Oct 17.
Be sure to see all the works but especially the works that your child indicated that he or she wanted to revisit. This should not be a great time committment because we did the tour in less than an hour. However we didn’t get to see “Joe”, the Richard Serra sculpture that is outside. If the weather is good, try to see this amazing work. Don’t forget to go upstairs to see the Richard Long work with white stones.
This is a preview of
4/5 Parents: Create Your Own Field Trip
.
Read the full post
Open House tonight.
Vision screening for Sixth Grade will be tomorrow morning, as the screeners had only finished half of Grade Five before they ran out of time.
Math: review sheet on working backwards, due tomorrow. We went over the first “Working Backwards” sheet in class today.
L.A.: preparation for debate tomorrow “Paper vs. Plastic: Which is better for sustainability?” Each student today used their research to sketch an essay supporting their side’s point of view. The purpose of this was to help the students draw out relevent the information, pro and con, from their research, and then organize it effectively.
Newspaper: Students revised edited pieces and layout continued. Printing and distribution is coming.
Dyscalculia
This is a preview of
Message from Beth 11/12/07
.
Read the full post
« Previous Entries
The children in the fours and fives class enjoyed having their VIP at school on Tuesday! The children played in the various areas of the classroom with their special guest and shared their family albums with them. They also sang the "Preprimary Song" and the "Water Cycle" song!! Thank you for visiting our school and being apart of this special day!
