HAPPY VACATION!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! SPAIN HERE I COME!

This Week....
   We've been very busy and a little wild since it was a full moon and the excitement of vacation is on the brain!  We have been working really hard on our information booklets. Thank you Mrs. Gerber for coming to help us! :)  Most kids are finishing their rough draft and/or publishing their work.
  I had really ambitious dreams of having ALL of the projects completed and TYPED but we didn't quite get there. The good news is that we will finally have access to the new computers in the lab/library! Moving forward, your child will be learning some word processing skills (if they don't have them already).
      * NOTE *    If you are looking for a stocking stuffer, you may want to add a jump drive to your list as each child will need one after the break! I'll send out a reminder after we return.

    That said, most kids have handwritten their work this time. IF they choose to, they can always type their work and print it out at home over the break. I am not making this a requirement but some kids have said they want to do it.

      SO: HW for writing is basically to print out any photos your child may want or need for his/her booklet. (TYPING OPTIONAL)


  Here are some works in progress:

Publishing

Research: Looking for Shark Photos

Drafted page

Designing A Layout

Creating a Booklet Cover

Conferencing With Wu Laoshi

HAGAR'S HOUSE

     We decided to talk about the gift of giving this past week and the kids did a service project to collect goods and stock the Hagar's House pantry. They made posters and little skits or service announcements to perform in each classroom. It was really sweet and super cute to watch them wok together on this. We will collect all of the boxes around the school and sort the items today. I am so proud of them for the work they did. Your kids are so kind and special. I have sent some of the videos directly to you via email so look for those! 

    

STAFF PARTY

   We had our staff party on Wednesday! It was really nice to be together outside of the GLOBE'S four walls. We danced with the belly dancer and did some SALSA with our Latina ladies! I know we all left with that warm, fuzzy feeling we had at the retreat. 

Here's a photo of the 3rd grade team. We are excited to add Ms. Shunnarah after the break. Ms. Estrada will be teaching all of the Spanish for grades 2 & 3! 

     

FAMILY 

Finally, I would like to wish you all a wonderful winter break. I hope that you are able to relax, enjoy and celebrate the holidays and New Year. I am so grateful and honored to teach your children each day. I LOVE coming to work because they are all amazing and brilliant little people. Each child in our classroom is special and unique. I appreciate them for EXACTLY who they are and I love them all like family members.

 My family:

  

My awesome Sister in Law

MY Wonderful 2nd Parents (in laws)

I will always believe! 

Cole believes! (picture by Elena)

LOVE

 My Vacation

 My husband and I started a tradition 13 years ago...

     We travel at Christmas. This year we are going to SPAIN!! We will be in Madrid, Cordoba, and Granada. Cole will stay at home with his grandparents but next year ......he's coming to PARIS with us! So...start saving friends and we can all meet at the Eiffel Tower in 2014! 

xxooo

Fun Stuff!

First I'd like to say thank you for the books, flowers, and kind emails! Y'all are so good to me!

P.S. This is Mr. Cole writing apology letters to his after-care teachers for not making good choices.......Shaking my head! 

Science Experiments:

   I took a detour on the Ancient Greece topic to finish up the last of the science unit on Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils. We popped our homemade rocks out of the molds we made in October and made some scientific hypotheses. We also made fossils and are currently completing the last part of an experiment on Fossil Fuels!  More to come in SS starting Wednesday. 

Chinese Culture:

   Wu Laoshi taught the students about the geography of China today. They put together puzzle maps!

Just a little peek into our day....

Recent Developments...

Friends,
  In light of recent events, I would like to take this time to assure you that the leadership changes and shifts that are taking place do not and will not effect my love and dedication for GLOBE, your children, or my ability to be an effective educator. This is a new school with lots of growing pains. In my experience I have learned that maintaining focus on the job at hand, the curriculum standards and the children is the best way to insure that the job is done with fidelity and rigor. I hope that your confidence in my teaching abilities remains unwavering and that you understand that your children are getting a wonderful and rich education here at GLOBE. I ask that you try to remove yourselves from any of the other non-curriculum related discussions that are buzzing around. It will not serve you or your child. In situations like this, there are many sides to every story and it is best to allow those directly involved to deal with it. At  the end of each day, we are all human beings with thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and humility. At GLOBE, we are striving to teach our children to have empathy and respect. This is a time for us to model these virtues. I love GLOBE. I love teaching and I love your kids. Moving forward, I will work even harder to improve myself as an educator and your child's academic abilities.

With Love,

We're Back At It!

Hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break! I had the flu for the first weekend of break but I was able to shake it off and head to New Orleans with my boys! We had a lovely and DELICIOUS time. We took Cole on a swamp tour, climbed the live oaks, went 'antique' shopping, and ate wonderful meals all over the city!  (We stayed with friends who had a great babysitter!)

Check out Cole's 'really old fashioned phone'

Assessments:

   I am working on getting these little children to become better spellers! The next few months will be intensely focussed on spelling patterns, word work and word sorts! So I will be collecting more specific data on the areas we need to practice more frequently.
   The students have started grammar morning work each day with a quick mini review before morning meeting. The morning work is a quick 10 sentence activity that focusses on all the 3rd grade grammar standards.
  We also made a chart to track our progress with math fact fluency! I'm devising a plan to celebrate each child as he/she learns all the facts with fluency! Each child is tested with one minute fluency tests at his/he own pace. So don't worry if you see that your child's chart isn't as full as the others.....

last but not least .....UPDATES AND INFO:

1. We have a projector! YAAAY! Thanks so very much for helping! We have watched videos on Greece, fossil formation, and Madamoiselle has shown some French videos as well!

2. The book fair is almost over.
Family Night from 4-7 on Thursday Dec.  5th and it will be open on Friday from 7:30 am-10:30 am. The kids have really enjoyed shopping there this week.

3. Wishes/Needs:
     * I am looking for 3-4 milk crates to use for each table's materials. If you have one sitting in your garage or basement that you don't need or want, send it in! I'll take it!
    * Card Stock ....we need some for our info booklets. If you've got some to share, we could use it!

Thanks so much......Y'all are the best!

Sniff..Sniff..COUGH COUGH COUGH!

Updates from the Health Department:
      (aka Me) I just had to say the words, "I rarely get sick"! Now, I'm sick!

   The "funk" has officially infiltrated room 107! Myself and Wu Laoshi are both on our last leg, actually, I'm on my last lung! The Thanksgiving Break could not be at better time. We've lots of little ones coughing, sneezing, tummy aches and headaches this week. We've also had strep throat in the school building so be on the lookout for the signs.
 
   On a more serious note, and in the spirit of providing full disclosure, mold has been detected in the building. I know that this is probably not news to you as this building is old and there have been findings in other classrooms. I am not surprised that we have additional illnesses popping up not only due to the weather changing its mind every other day, but also due to the fact that our HVAC unit was cleaned and "de-gunkified". My scientific hypothesis is that while the cleaning is a good thing, it stirred all sorts of mess into the air in the classroom. I've kept the heat off and the windows open all day everyday in hopes of clearing it all out of the air.

   I am wondering if houseplants can help out with air quality in the room? I am no green thumb, but I'll give it a try! If y'all any thoughts, please let me know.


THE GIVER: 
 
   We finished our chapter book and it ended with the kids begging me NOT to stop reading! YES...even your kid...the one who doesn't want to read or do his/her reading response journal!
We will be using the vocabulary words from our chapters to delve deeper into learning words through context. The students will also have a RRJ assignment over the holiday. It will be glued inside their RRJ tomorrow.

              Now that the story has ended, we don't know what happens to Jonas, Gabriel, or the community ......

     If you were the author Lois Lowry, how would you write the next chapter in their story?

      * Write about Jonas and Gabe's new lives OR write about the community after Jonas and Gabe's escape. 

      *Draw and color your visualization of the next chapter. 

     * Remember to circle the words you think are misspelled and use your writing conventions! * 
   

Informational Writing Assignment:

    Your child will be bringing home a loose leaf booklet upon which he/she can work on their informational booklets. 

   This is not an assignment that needs to be completed in its published form. I would simply like the students to conduct research on their subtopics/chapters and take notes. They have already created chapters and are working on an introduction. (Their chapters can always be changed or re-arranged if they don't seem to fit)

We will work together after the holiday break to stretch out their writing and publish their work. 

An example of a Friend's Table of Contents

 

                    

Another Table of Contents

 ART: Guerrilla Girls

        The students are creating posters that focus on an issue or problem in today's world. Here are a few works in progress:

 December:

  I will be focussing heavily on grammar, sentence structure, building words for spelling and reading fluency during the 4 weeks between Thanksgiving and Holiday Break. I am amping up the requirement for the RRJournals as well. I am setting the expectation that the students take initiative to edit their work, circle words that are misspelled (or thought to be) and identify the author's purpose for the book that was read.

I know I am forgetting something....but I am going to bed. :)

Reflection....

It's been another action packed week in Room 107!

CLASSROOM COMMUNITY:

We got our white boards and Mr. T and his protege installed them! THANKS So MUCH AGAIN!

So..of course I spent my workday re-arranging the room and re-organizing some of our routines. The kids cubbies are moved to the other side of the room and I have been teaching them to think about our day as soon as they enter the classroom.WITHOUT having to tell them, they figured out that they needed to unstack chairs, sharpen pencils and greet one another before playing a game. We also had hte HVAC unit serviced and cleaned! It looks great and the heat works...so well that we had to turn off hte heat about an hour into the day. I believe it was William who said, "MAN it's hot in here!"

We did a community building lesson on how we can all make our classroom run smoother and how we can all get what we need each day. I asked the students to write about what IS working/what they like and also what ISN'T working. Here's a glimpse of the feedback.

I learned that the kids love me, which I selfishly love to hear! They also love that they have free time to actually play together in the classroom. It amazes me that  they think I am the reason for that, when in fact, it is because they work so hard and complete all of their work each day! They also love Chinese Culture with Wu Laoshi. We have decided to include more of her culture into each of my lessons whenever possible. I also learned that they love math and reading centers. I will work at making our centers even more engaging and challenging (esp in Math).
    I found out that French is hard, which is understandable, so I spoke with them about how it will get easier. They wrote that they wish we had a smart board or projector. I am going to start a donor's choose project to try and raise money for those items. I will provide all of you with the information once I have done so. The idea is not to raise money from all of you, but rather to tap into our collective resources with friends and business owners who are looking to make a tax deductible donation. Even if these items are eventually going to end up in each classroom, there is no reason why our classroom should wait! :)

RESEARCH PROJECTS:
 
   We are beginning our unit on Informational Writing. I learned SOOO SOO MUCH from Lucy Calkins last Friday and I am extremely excited to jump into the unit! Here are the ideas your kids came up with so far:

Wu Laoshi checked out every book from the library we have that are related to our topics. We will be working diligently on our topics and our writing. I may be sending home the writing over the break so that the kids can work on it if they choose. I 'll send more info on that after I see how far we get.

More to come......

Must go grocery shopping....I have one egg and an onion in my kitchen!

Très Important

                            Hello! It's time to give you some important info and updates! 

WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON: I am sending home a book order form for the school-wide book club book. It is $10. I will be reading it to the students and incorporating it into our curriculum, but if your child wants one, they can always read along with me!

PROGRESS REPORTS:

  Please  be sure to return ALL PROGRESS REPORTS IN THE PURPLE FOLDER to me. I can make you a copy if you request one. I still have a few still out there floating around and my TYPE A personality is making me worry that some will get lost! :) You can keep the Science Project and SS Historical Figures Projects. I need everything else. You will receive all of it back at the end of the year. 

FRENCH:

  Please see Mademoiselle Buntin's Blog for info on French updates! 

http://nbuntin.weebly.com/les-eacutetoiles.html

Her 11/4/13 post says:

Hello Parents,

This week we will be working on house vocabulary.  Some of the words that your child will be learning are:  la maison = house, la chambre = bedroom, le salon = living room, la cuisine = kitchen, la salle de bain = bathroom.  Have fun with your child by saying each room in French!  Par exemple, voici la chambre = here is the bedroom.  As a culminating activity we will be making shoe box houses.  We will need a shoe box or a small box 

NEW MATH SERIES:

  I'm going to spend most of my time tomorrow looking over the new series so that I can use it to its fullest! You may have noticed that different math HW sheets have been coming home. We have a consumable "HOME LINKS" book for each child, so even though it is sort of easy for the kids, I don't want to waste the resource. We are going deeper than the practice your child is bringing home. Having said that, your child should be able to complete his/her HW easily and independently. They should also use this HW as a practice in following the directions and answering the questions in sentence form with appropriate grammar and writing conventions.  

CURRICULUM:

Math: Multiplication and Division, word problems, problem solving

Reviewing: Addition/Subtraction with re-grouping, place value

RLA: Figurative Language (idioms, metaphors,similes,onomatopoeia, alliterations, hyperbole) and SPELLING CENTERS!!!

reviewing: pronouns, sub/verb agreement, prefix,suffix, root words

Reading: Cause and Effect Relationships, Non-Fiction Text Structure

Reviewing: Characterization, Inference, Setting, Author's Purpose

Writing: Research Reports (Student interest driven)

Social Studies: Ancient Greek Civilization, Roots of Democracy

Science: Magnets

REQUESTS:

  Please send in any books about Ancient Greece or the Olympics that you may have for unit of study. We will be conducting research about the early forms of government and comparing the structure to our government today. There will be a really fun project to culminate our learning.....more to come on that! 

LUCY CALKINS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

       I will be missing my first and second day of school next week (Nov. 14-15) to attend the Writing Seminar in Jacksonville, Florida! I will leave very detailed and precise lesson plans with the sub and hopefully I will be able to talk with him or her before I go. (I am way too Type A to leave my children with others....I'm really working on that about myself!!) Having said that, I will miss the Fun Run, so if any of y'all would like to come and help out on Thursday, I'd really appreciate it! It starts at 10 am. Look for more info in the Globe Gazette or next week on the blog! 

Finally...Here are some photos :

New Boards are here and will be installed tomorrow! YAAAY! Thank you so much!

We used our front board space to write our research project interests!!

Here is what your kids are interested in learning about! 

Have a Great Weekend!