Field TripOur field trip forms have been rolling in! We are looking forward to our trip to the Grand Rapids Public Museum on May 4th. Be sure to turn in your field trip money ($7 for student, $8 for adult) and form by Friday. If you have a museum membership you are welcome to use it for your entry. The membership may not be used for the student entry. All students must ride the bus to and from the museum with the class. M-STEPPINGIt is finally time to take the M-STEP test and we are so ready to be done with it! We will be testing on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. We will be testing in math as well as Language Arts. Our test will start promptly at 9:00 so please be sure your child arrives on time. Be sure to feed your child a good breakfast so they feel full and ready to tackle all of that thinking. In case of an absence, make-up days are already scheduled! Parent volunteers, I will not need you this week due to our crazy testing schedule! Thank you so much for your dedication to our classroom. I will see you next week! Flexible SeatingI am so excited to try out flexible seating within our classroom! I have been researching this for a while and have found so much research that supports this cool new idea. We plan to start our new seating and learning environment next week and will have Friday be a practice day. Flexible seating will allow students to choose their optimal learning spot all throughout the day. If your child prefers to be in a more isolated spot and working on the floor with a clipboard, this can be their spot. If they prefer to stand while working, there will be a spot for this as well. All whole group instruction will take place in the dugout or at the front of the classroom so that I am sure all students can see and hear the lesson. Please take some time to look at the links and learn more about this cool new seating option! Edutopia _Flexible Seating I am still seeking some donation items to make our classroom more flexible with the seating arrangements. All items will be borrowed and returned at the end of the school year (unless you are done with it and wish to donate it).
Stability (exercise) balls Yoga mats Stools Pillows Thank you for your support as we explore how we learn best!
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We are in the home stretch of the year now! It is hard to believe that we have only two short months left. We hit the ground running when we returned back from break and we aren't slowing down soon!
Please take a moment to enjoy some of the pictures from our week last week. We enjoyed some donuts and muffins with our moms (or a special lady). Thank you so much for coming. The kids were so excited to have this time with you before school. We also took a moment to say "see you later" to our sweet friend and peer, Addie. Addie will be out for the remainder of the year and will return to Park in the fall. We will still be celebrating and participating in Addie's walk on May 7th at the John Ball Zoo. Please mark your calendars if you are able to attend! Sports schedules are out and calendars are filling up! That being said, I would love the chance to make it to your child's game or event if I can fit it into my family schedule. If your kiddo would like to have me attend, please send me a copy of the schedule so that I can take a look at all of the dates and see if I can get to a game! Current Learning: We are learning about recycling in science currently. Last week I shared with the students a video about the life of a plastic bag, as well as a video about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We plan to use this week and a portion of next week to continue our discussion and investigation about reducing, reusing, and recycling. The challenge this week is for students to pack a waste free lunch. This means that nothing in it needs to be thrown away (even if it is a recyclable material). Every day with a waste free lunch will earn your student an additional Monkey Buck. In math, we are working so hard on our area and perimeter unit. We took some time last week to review concepts that we had learned before break, and now we are into the word problem portion of this unit. This is a very challenging unit with word problems that require very careful reading. To spice up this unit and have a little bit more fun, students are becoming "Gitler's Gumshoes." Each child has been given an official detective badge. On this badge they are earning stickers for their missions accomplished. Based on the number of stickers they earn, students will get different pieces added to their detective picture on the board (mustache, hat, pen). Students seem motivated by being detectives and are working hard to find their "evidence" in their word problems. We are wrapping up our current opinion (personal essay) writing unit. Students are working hard on convincing Holly that Michigan is a wonderful place to live. I have been very pleased with the amount of growth and independence that is being shown this unit. Coming up will be our final unit which is informational. We have finished learning about distinguishing our opinion from that of the author's opinion in a text. We are now moving back into some non-fiction studies. We will be working on using information gained from maps, illustrations, photographs, and the words of the text to demonstrate an understanding of when and how key events occur. We will be using some Scholastic readers throughout this unit as well as non-fiction text. Some of these articles will come home. Please feel free to review these with your child at home! |
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