It’s time! Interim reports were sent home on Sept. 24th and I am still missing several cut-off responses. Parents should send these in as soon as possible. Also, appointments for our Parent Conference will be available to choose from in the Communication Logs tomorrow. Many appointments will be held on October 26th because this is a teacher workday. There are also choices for other days and times.
This will be a very important conference, as goals for the children will be set at this time. I look forward to meeting with everyone!
Other than our slight schedule change, we are up and running with many daily procedures. Our lovely Ms. Lana, who is a former Peeler parent, will be returning as a volunteer beginning on Monday. Even though her daughter is now in middle school, she just can’t stay away from our little school! She will come in weekly to work with children on an individual basis. Glorious! Thank you, Lana!
We also have a parent volunteer who will be coming in once a week as well. How lucky are we?
There are MANY times throughout the week that volunteers are welcome and needed! Parents/Grandparents can work with individuals or small groups of children with guidance. There are also more clerical types of jobs that can be done right in the classroom if volunteers feel more comfortable with such activities.
In the past, we have also had some of our own parents come in to give a little presentation to our class. The children are thrilled when a family member comes and offers a bit of expertise! The children and I will be sending home a communication on this very topic to see if we can rally some of our parents into our classroom. We are also talking about field trips for the year and welcome any ideas our families might have to offer. More to come!
We had a whirlwind of a day on International Peace Day this year! Our PEACE POSTERS were inspired by the well-loved book,
‘A Million Visions Of Peace: Wisdom From The Friends Of Old Turtle – In response to the Old Turtle Peace Tour, these messages of hope were gathered from people of all ages in all fifty states and serve as an inspiration for all who wish for a more peaceful world.’ (from Scholastic.com).
The Children also made peace pinwheels from The Pinwheels for Peace Project found at: http://www.pinwheelsforpeace.com/pinwheelsforpeace/home.html
What fun it was watching the wind take our words up into the atmosphere, spreading our words and thoughts of peace all over the world.
We were very intrigued at how the pinwheel’s propeller worked and discussed wind energy. We wondered what simple machine could be incorporated into the ‘windmill’ that could become a useful tool, PROPELLED BY WIND! Hmmmm….where are the child-friendly engineers when you need them…back to researching I go – ideas anyone???
Mrs. Parrish’s Class even made peace bracelets for us! A big THANK YOU goes out to all of them.
“There is no trust more sacred than the one the world hold with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.”
What a day! Thank you so very much goes out to Chef Tracy, Elizabeth’s mom, Keyshaun’s mom, Gabe’s mom, Ronan’s grandma, Nic’s mom and our Mrs. Seawell, for a day to remember.
The day began with the children harvesting the ingredients for the sauce for the homemade pasta. We collected; tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers, onions, basil, oregano, parsley, thyme and a bit of swiss chard. We read ‘Strega Nona’s Magic Pasta Pot’ and were ready to go! Groups went into the Cooking Lab , (we were the first to use the renovated lab!), put on aprons and set off to work.
In celebration of our author study and the arrival of Tomie dePaola at Barnes and Noble at Friendly Center on Sept. 27th at 2:00 (what a mouthful!!!), we are making homemade pasta tomorrow beginning at 11:30! We are reading ‘Strega Nona and the Magic Pasta Pot’ and we really want to see if we can use the spell and feed the whole school! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to feed pasta to the whole world on International Peace Day tomorrow?
We will be making a sauce using tomatoes, and other goodies from our school garden. Buono! What a wonderful and necessary experience to learn the whole cycle of sowing, to planting, to tending crops to harvesting to EATING! Yummy! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to do some canning this year too?
In preparation for our cooking, please send in as many aprons as possible for the day. Great thanks in advance goes out to Chef Tracy Lamothe from Rivas Trattoria. She will be the expert in the kitchen. I’ll be curious to see what her hat and apron look like at the end of the day!
The children are beginning their reading homework this weekend. Each child has a ziplock bag containing;
Reading Record
Reading Strategies Bookmark
book genre overview
guiding questions for parents
‘just right’ book
Inside the Record, parents will find directions on how to help children make the most out of home reading. Which reading strategies will be chosen and focused on over this weekend? Perhaps a survey/graph is in the making!
The second Special Words Test this year will happen tomorrow! The children have had the opportunity to learn all their classmate’s names – OH SO important! We were amazed at just how difficult some of our names are to spell. Hopefully we will have mastered them and can use them in our writing entries with much greater confidence now.
