Dear Families,
It has been a busy week in our classroom. I finished reading assessments and it is wonderful to be back with the whole class again. The students did an amazing job learning with Ms. Winter and did an amazing job reading with me. I look forward to sharing our progress when we meet during our parent-teacher conferences in a couple of weeks. Thank you for signing up, and thank you for contacting me if you need another time slot.
On Wednesday, Eli, our 8th grade Wish Student from WCS (who also happens to be Ms. Dunphy's son) visited our class. As part of his 8th grade challenge, he did a small presentation and project about the Chinese New Year. We learned how to say "hello" and "how are you" in Chinese, and the students had a chance to draw Chinese characters using watercolors. I hope you saw their creations at home. Thank you Eli for sharing your knowledge about China with us!
The students started working on their small moment covers this week and we are almost done. Once these stories are published, we will celebrate our completion of another writing unit before embarking on our next one: Research writing within the context of the Sochi Winter Olympics. The students started exploring the various winter sports represented at the Sochi games this week. We have many books in our classroom and we also rely on the internet for videos and print. There are very few "just right" books written on winter sports, the history of the games, the symbolism and importance of the Olympic rings and torch. As a result, the teachers on Harmony will rely on online resources and printed materials. As your child explores the links on our wiki and blogs, please remind them of
what it means to be safe, kind and responsible online. As we learn with digital tools, I embed a curriculum around digital safety and personal responsibility. The children learn how to "x out" if something does not look right, ask a teacher for help, and only browse what the directions stated. While we never do searched online by ourselves (I always
pre-link sites or games for the children and use safeshare as often as possible), the internet is constantly changing and links sometimes disappear. If you notice something that does not look right on our team wiki, please let me know so I can take appropriate action and de-link. Thank you! I strongly believe that we all need to help each other teach our students how to use the internet respectfully and responsibly.
Next week is Valentine's Day. The children can bring in Valentines to their friends, but if they decide to do so, please make sure your child has a card or treat for everyone in our class. We have 19 students in our classroom now. Welcome Ella! We are not celebrating Valentine's Day with a separate party, so there is no need to send in any treats or cookies for the whole class. The teachers on Harmony decided last year that the children get so many sweets inside their Valentines that they really do not need any more at the end of the day. Please remember that we are a
nut-free classroom. Thanks for your understanding!
Lastly, the month of February is filled with additional school-wide activities as this is the "I love to Read and Write" month. This week, the entire school participated in an interactive writing activity, with each classroom writing one sentence to a story that we all contribute to. Ask your child to explain how the students at ABS created a story with the gingerbread boy, trolls and dragons while their is a snow-storm in the town of Williston! Next week the students will participate in the Red Clover book activities and ultimately vote for their favorite book.
Regards,
Maria
