Dec. 21st

Winter Break! Happy Holidays to all of you! Ms. Swchartz, Ms. Ooton, and I are so thankful for all the wonderful gifts we received. It was so thoughtful and we feel so lucky to have such wonderful families!
These past few weeks have been busy. I was gone two days the previous week. One for a training and another day to visit some local tutoring organizations. I am on the board of a great non-profit organization called North West Children's Fund, that supports over 30 organizations around Seattle for at-risk children and their families that help try to end the cycle of child abuse and neglect and are devoted to improving child welfare.

Gingerbread Boy This week we devoted our afternoons to a gingerbread unit. We read four different gingerbread books, made our own gingerbread characters, made our own ginger bread recipe, and our own how to books. Finally, we wrote our own endings and decorated our cookies to enjoy! It was a fun filled week.

Music

We ended the week with a wonderful music concert. The Students did a fabulous job with both performances and were so proud to be up on stage. Thank you to all the families who were able to come and see the kids perform!!!

Africa Continent Study

Last week we saw an amazing presentation by Lucy’s mom! She showed us pictures from a trip she took to Uganda where she participated in a Ugandan wedding ceremony! It was so great to see photographs of a traditional wedding ceremony! We learned about the culture of a Ugandan wedding ceremony and noticed similarities and differences between a traditional wedding that we might see in the U.S. in comparison with the one we learned about this week! Please ask your student about this! We also had Lena’s mom come in and share with us her experience in Kenya. She taught the students how to greet one another in Swahili and then had students practice the new words they learned by singing a song. Ask your child to sing with you: “Jambo. Jambo rafiki. Habari Gani? Mzuri Sana!”

This week we wrapped up our African Continent Study with an African Market celebration! We had rice balls and lentils made by Ruby and Nathan’s parents, from room 206, and the parents of Kaz, Henry, and Charlie made rice ball and brought in Ingera bread. We also had plantains and shredded chicken, bread and olive oil with spices. We lit our kinara candles for Kwanzaa and celebrated the last principle which is unity or umoja!

Writers Workshop: This week in writing we finished our All About Books!! We added the dedication page, cover page, glossary page, and favorite things page, and the all about the author page. We had a writers celebration and Ms. Claytor and Mr. Case, Mr. Glenn and Ms. Tedi, Ms. Stout and Ms. Lee all came to read our writing! It was a wonderful celebration and our students are proud of the work that they accomplished!

Star Student

Nina has been working so hard the week before. She finished her language work plan and her weekly work plan. She has pushed herself as a learner in readers and has moved up several reading levels. She has become a writing machine! She also stepped up this week and invited a kindergartner to sit with her at lunch and be a recess buddy for him. She invited him to play and show her all the things she does at recess. I know that really filled that kindergartners bucket! Way to Go Nina!!!!!

Lucy will be the star student when we get back. Lucy really pushed herself as a writer, working on her all about book. She was so focused and driven and wrote a ton about SHRIMP!!!! She also finished her pink language work plan, which she worked on almost everyday. Lucy always comes to school with an excitement to learn. She has been a kind friend to everyone in class and a great role model for everyone. WaY to go LUCY!!!!!!!

Enjoy the rest of you break!! I am currently enjoying half of it in sunny Tucson, where I just visited Biosphere 2. Next week I will be headed to snowy cold Idaho! Hope your spending time with your family, friends, and creating your own adventures. See you in January.

Welcome back!

Worktime

The students came back ready from break and focused. This week for work time students have learned more practical life works that focus on multi-step directions, fine motor skills, and concentration. Many more kindergartners have received language work plans and moved up to a new language work plan. The kindergartners have been learning about place value through golden beads and a work called birds-eye-view. It has been wonderful to come back and see all the growth that is happening!!!
Africa

This week for Africa students have learned more about Kwanza traditions, the candles (kanara), and weaving a Kwanza mat. The students have also learned about different geographic locations and important mountains, landforms, and rivers in Africa. On Dec. 20th we will have our final African celebration during the morning. If you have anything to share or bring in please let us know!!!





Readers Workshop In readers this week we have introduced a little bit about non-fiction. We compared the differences between fiction and non-fiction books. We also looked at the cover page to get ourselves ready for the book. We focused on thinking about what is this book going to teach us and then reflecting what did we learn. We talked with a reading buddy, " What is the main idea, and how do you know? We will continue non-fiction through January delving deeper into features and information non-fictions offers.

Writers Workshop: This week in writing, we have been continuing our great work on our all about books. We focused this week on doing a quick sketch and then trying to add words. We have also zoned in on trying to stretch our topic over multiple pages, making sure each page has a clear focus. We then learned about headings (tells us what each page is about) and how we can add headings to our own writing. Our next goals will be to continue to learning about how to add diagrams, captions, table of contents, and editing.

Student of the Week: Mateo has been working very hard this week. He finished his work plan and really pushed himself to do some challenging math. He was motivated and driven this week to keep up with his work. Mateo has set great goals for himself and is trying to meet those goals. He always comes to school with a Can do attitude !! He has been a great 1st great leader and role model. WAY TO GO Mateo!!!