Hello families,
We had a short but fabulous week together as a class! The kids earned (finally!) their final letter to spell out "scientific" which earned them a celebration this afternoon. We played a fun game of Jeopardy which had a series of questions from all that we have learned this school year so far. They also enjoyed a slice of pumpkin pie and whipped cream. Yum! Next week we will have a new friend starting; his name is Jackson and he is a third grader. I believe he is arriving to us fresh from Colorado. I know the kids will help to make him feel welcome and to learn the routines and expectations of our classroom quickly. The book and t-shirt orders have been submitted. Hooray! I'm hoping to get our shirts within the next two weeks, our books may take a bit longer. I am still hoping that they'll arrive before winter break though. I will keep you updated if you placed an order. This week we kicked off our Second Great Lesson; The Coming of Life. Please talk to your child about what they took away from this lesson. There is a lot of information in this lesson and I enjoy hearing what the kids focus in on; every kids finds something different that draws them in. I just love it! We will be using this for our science focus for the next month or so. Watch for some great projects and information to come home that they're learning more about from this lesson. Be sure to watch the progress of our life-size timeline on our hallway board too. A huge thank you to everyone for all of the lovely Thanksgiving cards and gifts that were sent in for me as well as the Small Hands orders. I feel so loved!! I appreciate all of you and the support you provide for the kids and me. I hope that you all have a lovely Thanksgiving break with your family. See you next week! Christine Homan Hello families,
The kids and I are just so surprised at how quickly the time is passing, it just has not slowed down! It is hard to believe the we are already approaching the end of November. Thank you for getting your field trip forms in on time for me, we have to pay in advance for many of the field trips and this helps us stay out of the "red" in regards to our field trip funds. Many students chose to order a book and/or class t-shirt and I am super excited to see both of them come together! We have finished the design of our classroom shirt and the order will be sent out today. We should have our shirts within the next two weeks. I can't wait to share them with you! Our classroom book is mostly done but we have to do our final drafts. Once done, it will take a few weeks for those to arrive. This week we started our Second Great Lesson; it is one of my favorite's to teach! We will be talking about the Coming of Life through winter break. Look for some great projects to come home that will help the kids understand this timeline of life and where our place is in the world. We will be kicking off the discussion with algae, moving through trilobites, reptiles, mammals and into humans. The older kids are already talking about Australopithecus in anticipation of the lesson. I just love it! Starting the first week of December, our Practical Life shelf will be filled with holiday traditions from around the world. This year we are going to focus on Italy, Mexico, and France. If you have any artifacts that you could loan us for this time or would like to come in to share something from your own heritage, I would so appreciate it. Rebecca, Max's mom, is planning on coming in to make latkes with the kids and Lynn and Joe, Lia's parents, will be coming in to share some of their Italian holiday traditions with us as well. A huge thank you goes out to Leah, Shepherd's mom, for helping us with the third grade Thankful books. This is not a simple task and I so appreciated the help. I love when parents are able to come in to help, interact, and be a part of our environment. Thank you, Leah! Lastly, our holiday classroom celebration with be on December 22nd. Please send in a food item for our "feast" with your child. We will be having a day of celebration together in honor of all of our hard work for the past few months. This will be a read-in day, so send your child to school in pajamas and ready to hang out, read, and have a good time with their classmates! We will feast in the afternoon between 1 and 3pm. You are welcome to join us. ***Please remind your child not to take any valuable items to school. Things get taken, they go missing, and they get lost. It is really unfortunate when this happens and I have no control over it. The best thing to do is to leave valuable items at home.*** Due to there being no school on Thursday or Friday of next week there will be no spelling words list sent home. Enjoy your time with your family this Thanksgiving! Have a great weekend, Christine Homan Hello families,
This past week we had so much fun learning about Dia de los Muertos and more about the three states of matter. We even had a guest speaker visit us from KTVA, Melissa Fray. She is a meteorologist for the station and came to talk to us about weather. We got to ask her all kinds of interesting questions and she showed us an awesome experiment involving cold and hot air. We also worked on more of our light/sound unit and got to make cup-a-phones and work with different kinds of vibrations. Did you child talk to you about our Listening Walk last week? To wrap up the week we did an experiment using rice krispies and marshmallows to show how the states of matter can change properties to go from a solid to a liquid and back to a solid. Using a crock pot and the scientific method, we observed the different states of matter change right before our eyes. We had a blast doing this and got to have a yummy treat after our experiment was over. Check out the photos at the end of the post for our fantastic week! Next week we will be giving our Presidential speeches, voting on election day, and beginning our Thankful projects for the month of November. We will be wrapping up our unit on light/sound and three states of matter as we move into the Second Great Lesson mid-November. The kids have been working so hard and we have had so much fun with all of these great projects this year. The time is just flying by! I have sent home an order form for a book that we do each year. This year we have decided to use our Presidential speeches as the theme. Each child will get two pages; one for their speech and the other to create an illustration of themselves as President. The books are $19.95 each if you would like to purchase one. Please do not feel obligated to do so. However, if you could check "no" if you don't want one and send the form back into class we can get a free copy for our classroom. I would so appreciate that! In their mailboxes today I have sent home a permission slip for the 360 Allstars field trip that is coming up in December. Please fill it out and return it with the $8 admission as soon as possible. You can pay the $8 fee through your parent Zangle account if you prefer. We still need one (or two) chaperones for this trip. Please arrive at 9am if you are chaperoning. We will return between 11:30 and noon this day. Lastly, and I swear I won't ask for any more money from you for a while, the kids would like to do our Classroom Faces t-shirts this year. We have not done this for two years, and again, this is completely optional. The cost of the shirt is $15 and the order form is also being sent home today. This is a one-time order opportunity for the shirt and the books. Have a great weekend and I will see you all on Monday, Christine Homan |
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