Novemeber 15th

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My post is a little later this week, but it is because I have been able to have a chance to meet with almost all of you for conferences. Thank you so much for taking the time to come to talk about all the wonderful things your child is doing at school. I love getting to share with families all the growth your child has made in only a few months. Thank you again to all the families for coming to meet with Ms. Ooton and I.

I also wanted to say a big Thank you to all the kids, and help of Dakota's Mom Sauntia, for surprising me on Friday with birthday balloons and wishes. The students each gave me a wish and a candle to blow out. It was such a warm filled last day before break and very thoughtful of everyone, THANK YOU!!!!

Native American Assembly/Chief Leschi

On Thursday we got the treat of joining the rest of the school at a Native American storytelling assembly. Students got the chance to take an active role in voicing different characters and doing actions that made the stories come alive! We also learned about a important Native American that our school and community are named after, Chief Leschi. We learned how he stood up for his peoples rights, and we painted a portrait of him with spices! See these great paintings displayed in the hall.

Continent Study: Africa! Many of our new works over the past couple of weeks have been focused on the continent of Africa. Student have been learning to Africa’s different climate zones, research and give presentations on different animals that live on the continent and most recently, begun a study of Kwanza.

Readers Workshop

In readers this week we learned some new sight words: that, his, are, and for. The students did fun activities to practice saying these sight words such act like you are tossing glitter as you say each letter in the word. The students did a great job looking for these sight words in their stories. Keep practicing all the sight words we have learned over break! A, and, at, are, for, he, his, I , it, in is, of , on the, that, to, was, you.

Writers Workshop:

This week in writing, we started on our first page of our all about unit. We learned about zooming in on important parts of our topic and how to draw a close up. We also learned about fancy words that help our readers understand our writing and did our best to spell those fancy words. Next week, we will be adding more pages to our all about book! Ask your student about their topic to help them get ready to write more about it next week!

Science We wrapped our science a few weeks ago but I wanted to share some great pictures of the students learning about snails and worms. The students loved this unit and being able to have a hands experience learning about animals. Our next science unit will be wood!

Student of the Week:

William has been working very hard at writers workshop and his all about book! He challenges himself at work time by working on his sandpaper letter, math works, sensorial, and practical life. He is respectful to others in our class, shows responsibility with his learning and our classroom environment, and is peaceful to others.

Nov. 11th

Continent Study: Africa! The students have really enjoyed learning about Africa. This is week for Africa we have learned about different flags from numerous countries such as South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Morocco, and Ghana. The first graders also had a project to research a African animal. The presented their animal research to the class on Friday. Please ask your child what animals they learned about. Please let me know if have any artifacts or would like to come in an share any connections you might have to Africa.

Special Guest

This week Katie Busby came in to talk to our class about a very health food, persimmon. She talked about the benefits to eating persimmon, such as a great source nutrients like antioxidant Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and FIber. She brought some for all the kids to taste and then we voted on whether we liked it, just thought it was okay, or didn't like it. The results were 19 students enjoyed the taste!! Thanks again to Katie for getting us to try something new and healthy. Ask your child what they thought.

Readers Workshop In reader’s we have talked a lot strategies to figure out those tricky words. We talked about taking a look at the cover, thinking what words we might come across in the story. We also talked about using a picture walk and the context of the story to take our best guess. We learned to STOP, and CHECK for UNDERSTANDING. This helps us to make sure those guess we make, make sense with what we are reading about. Practice this with your child’s reading at home.
Writers Workshop:

This week in writing, we started our non-fiction units. The students had a chance to brainstorm all the things they are experts on. There were a lot of great ideas such as dinosaurs, basketball, gardening, jump roping, and school! We also learned about how to tell what we know to a partner and then go back and write down all the facts we know. We made it our goal this week to write by drawing the reader in, having a great lead to our stories.

Student of the Week:

Ian!! has been working really hard to push himself in reading and writers workshop. He tries to choose work from every area to work on each day. He pushes himself to work on more challenging works and keeps his focus on his own work. He is always ready to learn and participate at the carpet. Way to be a great leader, keep it up Ian!

Continent Study Africa!

We have started our Africa continent study! We read some books about Africa and researched some things that we didn't know, but learned! We looked at Africa in an Atlas and also learned about some animals that you may see in Africa. We noticed similarities and differences in some of the cultures in Africa in comparison to ours. We also learned about the different terrain that Africa offers; dessert, rain forest and the Savannah. If anyone has traveled to Africa and would like to come in and share their knowledge with our class and room 206, please let me know! Guest speakers are so powerful and students love learning from a variety of people! 

Readers Workshop

In reader’s we have talked a lot about our characters in our story and reflected on how they are similar and different to us! We took a closer look at the setting in our stories to help us re-tell what happened. We ended our readers celebration by making our own leaf men characters. Please ask your child these story element questions each time you read. Who are the characters, what is the setting, and re-tell the story!

Writers Workshop: This week in writing, we are also wrapping up our small moments unit! We chose one piece of writing and edited it. We ended this unit by having a celebration with some special guests coming in to give us compliments on our writing! Mrs. Guzmán’s class joined us by also sharing their stories and some treats! The students felt so proud of their work and it was wonderful to have them share that with someone else. Look forward to reading these stories at conferences. Our next unit will be All About Books!

Parent/Teacher Conferences!

Please remember to sign up for parent/teacher conferences! If you need to check your time, you are more than welcome to come in and look at the conference sheet! They are coming up soon! I will send home a reminder about it soon.


Student of the Week:

Henry works hard on his language work plan and chooses challenging works for himself everyday. He holds himself accountable for his choices during work time and is showing his leadership skills by focusing intently on his work! Henry loves learning new works and is always participating. Way to go Henry !!

Peppi's Woods Planting day!

A huge THANK YOU to Jana Robbins for organizing a school wide event for the kids to plant plants in Peppi's Woods, helping to contribute to Green Seattle Day that took place on Sat. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there on Friday, due to a wedding, but I heard so many amazing things about this event. Our class was able to plant many non-invasive plants in the woods with their 4/5th grade buddies! What a wonderful event for the students to come together as a community and make our forests great. Thank you again to Jana and all the volunteers for making this day happen!

Harvest Party!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all of you who helped make the Harvest Party happen! We had such a great time, getting to spend time with each K/1 class and making fun crafts. We also had so much fun at our feast! The decorations and the help was greatly appreciated. Thank you again for helping us celebrate fall.

Carving out the pumpkin!!!! On Tuesday we were able to meet our new class Buddies from Mrs. Deese's class. Each child was paired up with a 4/5th grade buddy. With our new buddies we dug out the pumpkin and sorted through the seeds and guts. IT was so much fun to for the students to get to know their new buddy. Look forward to hearing many more things we get to do with our buddies!

Student of the Week:

Gibson has been working incredible hard at work time. He has challenged him self with his reading, and math works. He has especially pushed himself with writing and adding more details to his stories. He loves learning new materials and has been a pleasure to have in our class. Keep it up!!!