Friday, September 27, 2024

Dear Parents,

We have been learning about many different kinds of birds this week and last week.  We have talked about and learned about the Blue Jay, The Red Cardinal, the Woodpecker, the Cassowary bird, and the Kookaburra.

Every year, World Cassoway Day is observed on September 26.  These birds live in Australia.  Today there are three remaining populations one in the Wet Tropics and two in Cape York.  I showed our class a video of this bird.  Ask your child what they remember about this bird?  I hope you were able to hear a little bit about the Kookaburra.  If not at least the song they learned and sang to Ms. Anna’s class.  Our class has been looking at a bird book and pamphlet about birds when bird watching outside by taking walks and observing through our classroom window.  Feeding the birds by placing a bird feeder outside our window and getting special bird food that squirrels don’t eat only the birds.   We are mostly learning about the top 10 local birds in Illinois.  Each child has been drawing and journaling about their specific bird by knowing what they eat, and where they live, and presenting what they learn to our class.  Also, we learned a new word Ornithology, see if they remember what it means.  🙂 Courtesy of Ms. Marianthi

We started our third and last book in the series of Sydney and Taylor and the Great Friend Expedition by Jacqueline Davies In this story Sydney and Taylor have been friends for a long time.  But how does one make new friends?  This is Taylor’s new big Idea.  How do you make new friends?  How do you ask someone to be your friend?  How do you keep friends….friends?  These are questions that we discussed in our room.  Ask your child how else can they be a good friend.

We continue to work on our math skills, playing group games math numeral bingo 1-20, board games with partners, and three groups of four for card games such as Monster War, matching game, and Slap Jack.

Our class was working hard on learning and writing the -at family in the journals that they made. They come in every morning excited to add new words to their journal and they are so proud to read the words on their own.

We had our first All About Me student.  Melissa brought in five items that best represented her and her favorite items from home.  What a special treat for us all to learn more about Melissa.  She also brought her favorite book that we read to our class.   Thank you for an exciting week about you Melissa!!

We gathered with Ms. Anna’s class as we do every Friday in the afternoon and we played bird facts bingo!

Just a reminder for Friday, October 4 your child can wear Pink and be out of uniform.  We will also have our Fall Bake Sale

Also as the weather gets cooler please have your child bring a jacket to school since we have recess outside every day Thank you!

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely

Ms. Demetra

The books we read this week:

I Was So Mad By Mercer Mayer

The Good for Nothing Button! By Charise Mericle Harper

Bluey Sleeptime By Joe Brumm

What is Math? By Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Owls By Sara Courtauld

Friday, September 6, 2024

Dear Parents,

We finished our chapter book on Sydney and Taylor Explore the Whole Wide World by Jacqueline Davies.   We will continue with the next book in the series on Monday.  We saw a video on Skunk’s https://youtu.be/VILK9gAMOMU?si=aaSwhJxyt0zUn3zK

You can ask your child some questions about skunks and the video they saw.  Where do they live? (forest, mountains, cities)  Are all skunks black and white? (yes) Do all skunks have stripes? (yes and some have spots) What do they eat? (bugs, fruits, plants, small animals)  Ask your child if they can tell you more about skunks.

We continue to talk about Henri Matisse and how he started out small and then went on to make wall-size collages.  Our class worked on their paper cut-out shapes and made them bigger.

We had the opportunity to work with Ms. Anna’s class together with our class and play math games.  We will get together each Friday afternoon and work on different activities.  We have noticed when younger children work with older students that it creates a positive social environment.  The students then build confidence and practice patience with each other.

What a great day on Friday to see all the students in their spirit wear and to see them so excited for our school’s ice cream social!!

Books we read this week

Flat Stanley and the Very Big Cookie by

The Long Dog by Eric Seltzer

A Pig, A Fox, and a Box by Jonathan Fenske

Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London

Friday, August 30, 2024

Dear Parents,

Welcome to our new school year!

Last week and this week went smoothly, and we got to know our classroom and the routine of our classroom day.

We read about Henri Matisse.  We talked about who was Henry Matisse? What was he famous for? How did he use paint? and What were his favorite tools used for painting? Matisse was a French artist who was a master of colors and shapes.  His paintings were unique because of their color, bold shapes, and collages. Our class made their own collages by cutting colorful paper into shapes and creating different designs using scissors and glue. We continued doing different types of collages this week their collages were based on the ideas from the book Matisse’s Garden by Samantha Friedman.  I can’t wait to see the end result of their collages.

Math games allow our students to continue learning to work with a partner and learn new board games and card games.  We also worked on Number bonds: by rolling the dice and adding the numbers on the dice. Writing the sum in the circle and then writing the equation to match the number bond and learning the terminology of plus sign + and the equal sign =

We started our new chapter book Sydney and Taylor Explore the Whole Wide World by Jacqueline Davies.  Ask your child which animal Sydney and Taylor are?   (Hint: Sydney is a skunk and Taylor is a Hedgehog)  What did Sydney and Taylor bring on their trip to explore the world?   (Sunscreen and bug spray).  Did they bring food for their journey?  (N0) Ask your child which is their favorite part so far from their novel study.  Along with reading our story, we have been drawing and I write the words to what they want to write in their journal and we did this every day this week.

Thank you all for working with your child on the poster All About Me. We will be featuring a child every week using the poster and sending home a bag to put five items in that represent your child best.  You will know when it is your child’s turn when they come home with a bag so that you can place the items inside this bag Thank you for your help with this project.

We celebrated our first birthday this week. Caroline turned 5!!! Caroline’s mom joined us and read Caroline’s favorite book to our classroom.  Thank you for reading to us.  🙂

We also went to the park with our friends in two other classrooms.  They had fun!

Lastly, I wanted to share the fish in our classroom. Our class took a vote and named them Goldie and Flying Flash.

Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Sincerely,

Ms. Demetra

Books we read this week:

I am Love A book of compassion by Susan Verde

The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame

Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae

Matisse’s Garden by Samantha Friedman

One More Try by Naomi Jones