Collaborative work as students created posters to show our our School Rules
We began the week with some collaborative work as students had to work with a small group to plan, create, and present posters about our school rules. These will hang in our classroom throughout the year to remind us of classroom expectations. Thank you to everyone who came out for our Open House on Thursday evening! It was so wonderful to welcome you all into our classroom and to see the excitement as students proudly talked about some of the work and showed their families our classroom!
Students continued drafting their small moment narratives. This week they lessons included: crafting a powerful beginning, editing, and setting daily goals. I am working through the reading assessments. Ms. Bourne and Ms. Tibbitts who work in the MES Literacy Lab joined us on Wednesday to help with the process.
During Math students are currently reviewing addition and subtraction strategies. Our Math menu is running pretty smoothly at this point, as students are learning the expectations of independent work time so that I can work with grade level groups.
On Friday we had a Fall science lesson about why leaves turn colors in the fall, and we were lucky to catch our final butterfly hatch from its chrysalis.
Thank you to the Reynold's who provided us with a delicious Chicken Soup, Elmore Mt. Bread, and Birthday cupcakes for dessert on Friday!
Friday Family Hot Lunch will be pizza, salad, and fruit, provided by the Fuller Family!
Announcements:
Please send extra shoes or slippers for indoors
Students need sneakers for PE on Thursday
No School, Wednesday October 5th (Yom Kippur)
We will begin having ECO on Thursday, October 6th (Every Thursday thru December and March thru June) - Please fill our and return the permission form found in last weeks Friday Folder.
Parent Teacher Conferences, Monday October 10th (No School) please call the school to sign up if you have not already scheduled an appointment.
Field Trip to The Elmore Fire Station on Friday, October 14th.
Students had fun doing some team building games on Monday.
It's hard to believe I am already writing about our third week of school. This was our first full week of the school year, and we filled it up pretty nicely! We started the week with some fun team building activities. Above students are participating on the Caterpillar Race. We also played a fun name game. Activities like this are not only fun, but help us build our school community, which is critical for having a successful year. On Tuesday we had our first Farm to School where students explored plant seeds. Wednesday was not only school photo day and our first guidance lesson of the year, but Mrs. Bellavance had Jury Duty, so we had Jon Gailmor as a guest teacher! Jon brought his guitar and we ended the day doing some fun songs with Jon. On Thursday we took our first District Assessment (STAR Renaissance - Reading). We ended the week harvesting some of our garden and students helped to make a salad which we later served with our first family Hot Lunch of the school year!
This week we formally launched our writers workshop. Students will spend the next several week writing narrative stories. These are small moment stories about something that happened or something they did. We began by making a list of things that could be written about. The next day, students began drafting their stories. We read the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and talked talked about how the author helps the reader paint an image in their mind but using words that connect to our senses to describe the scene. We ended the week learning how to make changes to our writing without the need to redo everything.
Next week I plan to begin assessing students reading levels. Once this is done we will begin guided reading instruction. Until then, we are listening to many read alouds, doing some shared reading, talking a lot about books, and practicing silent reading and partner reading. Everyone did a great job getting started on their reading homework this week. Just a reminder that students should return their reading logs everyday.
During math, students are getting used to the routines of our math lessons, which includes a whole group math launch (Which one doesn't belong, estimation, a number talk, a game, etc), then we go into our math menu time. During math menu, I work with small groups doing targeted instruction (usually by grade level) while the remainder of the class is doing independent work which they choose from their menu. This includes "must do" work and some student choice. Math menu allows me to differentiate work for all learners. We will continue to add to our menu offerings as students learn more games and technology.
Thank you to the Mosley's for providing our first Family Hot Lunch. We enjoyed Shepards Pie, watermelon, and the salad the children helped to make from our garden! Next Friday the Reynold's are offering Chicken Soup, fruit, and a special dessert!
School lunch items for next week are below. (Turkey and cheese may be Ham and Cheese): Please email
your orders by sunday evening so I can submit them to the kitchen. Breakfast is also available each day.
Please find a free/reduced lunch form in your child's Friday Folder. Please fill these out and return them to the school. School lunch is currently free for all students, but the district needs to collect this information for their funding. Thank you so much!
Announcements:
Please send extra shoes or slippers for indoors
Students need sneakers for PE on Thursday
Open House: Thursday, September 22nd
Grade 1@ 5:30
Grade 2 @ 6:00
Grade 3 @ 6:30
No School, Wednesday October 5th
We will begin having ECO on Thursday, October 6th (Every Thursday thru December and March thru June) - Please fill our and return the permission form found in your child's Friday Folder.
Parent Teacher Conferences, Monday October 10th (No School)
Field Trip to The Elmore Fire Station on Friday, October 14th.
We celebrated the completion of the second week of school with Juice Pops on Friday afternoon!
Week two is complete and the children are beginning to get into the routines of the day, as we are still setting the stage for the school year and developing a classroom community of learners. This week we developed our school / classroom rules together after identifying good choices and poor choices. We were able to classify them into 3 main categories which we then adopted as our our rules or expectations for the year. They are : Be Safe, Be Respectful, and Do Your Best!
Additionally each student identified a goal (Hopes and Dreams) for the school year. Each child made a Dreamcatcher with their goal written on a feather which hangs from their dreamcatcher. This is just the beginning of our goal setting for the year and the students will continue to set goals and reflect on them throughout the school year.
Each child has also made an "All About Me" poster and they are drawing self portraits to go along with them. Please send a family photo, if you haven't already, (or email one to me) so these can be added to their All About Me display.
We have been working hard to establish a routine for our math instruction as students have been gradually introduced to the math menu format we will be using this year and we have started targeted grade-level instruction which is mainly review at this point.
Students have been writing in their writing journals and we will begin using the writers workshop model next week. Additionally students have been doing silent reading and began practicing partner reading this week.
Next week students will begin having reading homework for a defined amount of time each night. I will send a letter home on Monday explaining the homework expectations along with a reading log for them to keep track of their reading each night. This year I will be lightening the load for homework as research shows there is little effect of assigning homework to younger children on their school achievement in school. Here is an interesting article if you are interested or watch this quick video.
On Friday, as is tradition at the Elmore school, we made applesauce using the apples from our appletree in our school yard. The children collectively cut up the apples. We added them to pot with a little water and boiled them until they were soft. The final step was to run them through a food mill, and add a bit of sugar and cinnamon. Everyone enjoyed a fresh cup of applesauce for dessert after lunch.
We have harvested many Buttercup Squash from our garden as well as some rather nice looking carrots! I'm looking for some creative suggestions for the squash. If you have a favorite recipe you would like to share, please send it in!
We will have our first Farm to School class next week with Kyle Weatherhogg (we will have this about once per month). We will be taking a closer look at our garden space and I anticipate harvesting our kale, leeks, fennel, potatoes, and celery.
We have been growing Monarch Butterflies in our classroom! We currently have three chrysalis, and two caterpillars that are ready to change any minute (infact as you read this, I am certain they have already formed their chrysalis!) It has been so fun and engaging to watch these caterpillars grown and change, and we have been reading about the process as it happens. Last weekend we had our first butterfly emerge. Unfortunately it happened when we were not here, so we missed the big event! I was able to release the butterfly on Saturday, and gladly it flew away!
We will have our first Family Hot Lunch on Friday provided by the Mosley's! I will let you know early next week what the menu will be.
Here is the link to the Meal Train if you would still like to sign up to bring a meal. I think there are only two unclaimed dates at this time. Thank you!
Announcements:
Please send extra shoes or slippers for indoors
Students need sneakers for PE on Thursday
School Picture day is September 14th. Envelopes are in your Friday folder. Please return these before Wednesday.
Open House: Thursday, September 22nd
Grade 1@ 5:30
Grade 2 @ 6:00
Grade 3 @ 6:30
No School, Wednesday October 5th
We will begin having ECO on Thursday, October 6th (Every Thursday thru December)
Parent Teacher Conferences, Monday October 10th (No School)
Students enjoyed their first Physical Education Class with Ms. Wine on Thursday!
Week 1 was fast and furious! Excited and sometimes, nervous children filled the classroom at The Elmore School again this week. We have 10 returning students and 7 new first graders. This week as all about getting to know each other, community building, and becoming familiar with routines and expectation.
We did some journal writing, started to learn the basics structure of our math instruction including math menu (we will begin more targeted instruction over the next couple of weeks), be became familiar with our classroom library and learned how to find "just right" books for reading (more targeted reading instruction will begin in a couple of weeks). Finally, we made All About Me Posters about ourselves which we will have displayed for Open House on Thursday, September 22nd. We have several Monarch caterpillars and chrysalis we are observing, so we have been learning a lot about Monarch Butterflies. We should have some ready to release next week.
This year I would like to put a spotlight on families of The Elmore School. Please send a small family photograph with your child on Tuesday. If if is easier to send a digital file to me to print you are welcome to do that as well. I would like to display these with our All About Me posters.
Next week we will begin Digital Citizenship lessons, set goals for the year by identifying our Hopes and Dreams, and come up with our classroom / school rules.
If you haven't already done so, please go to The Meal Train to sign up to bring Hot lunch on one of the Fridays this year. The first Friday (September 16th is still available!)
Please email any lunch orders for next Tuesday - Friday. Options are:
PB &J
Turkey and Cheese
Chef Salad
Chicken Caesar Salad
Announcements:
Community Talent Show Performance: Saturday Sept. 3rd - meet at the Playground @12:30, performance @1:00
Please send extra shoes or slippers for indoors
Students need sneakers for PE on Thursday
NO School Friday, September 2nd or Monday September 5th
School Picture day is September 14th.
Open House: Thursday, September 22nd
Grade 1 5:30
Grade 2 6:00
Grade 3 6:30
No School, Wednesday October 5th
Parent Teacher Conferences, Monday October 10th (No School)
The apple tree is covered with apples! - Next week we will collect them for baking!
