Greetings and Happy New Year to all! I want to take a moment to update you on some of the many exciting activities that are happening and what will be happening in the near future.
As for our academic studies, we are continuing to learn the nine parts of speech with students at various levels. We are working on paragraphs, sentence structure, and punctuation in Writer’s Workshop. In math, we have begun studying estimating, multiples, and will soon study measurement.
After holiday break, we continued with one of our favorite works in the classroom, the Time Line of Life. The children have begun studying the connectedness of evolution through the various eras. They are talking about and studying the many sea creatures, dinosaurs, plants, and animals from the past that are so closely related to those of the present. We will study the five vertebrates one by one and will continue these studies for quite some time.
Asia is our continent of study for this month. We are studying various food origins with an emphasis on Asian countries and cultures.
Our next field trip is Friday, January 29th to the GTM Research Reserve. We will leave the school at 9:15 and return no later than 1:30. If you are interested in chaperoning, please let me know via email.
We will have a Valentine’s Day celebration on Thursday, February 11th. The children may bring in Valentines for their friends. We do not encourage the children to bring candy. If children are insistent on bringing a treat, we ask that it is a homemade, organic item that is low in sugar. No candy will be allowed to be eaten during the school day. Please be mindful of children with gluten allergies and dairy sensitivities. We recommend unaddressed Valentines but realize that elementary students often want to address their Valentines, and that is fine with us. We will include a class list in their folders next week, Friday, January 29th. There are 24 students in our classroom.
Last but not least, we will be celebrating the 100th day of school on February 3rd. Please look for homework related to that celebration in your child’s folder.
