January 26, 2013

I hope everyone enjoyed the three day weekend with Monday being reserved for parent/teacher conferences. Last week was another productive week for the students, and filled with some new challenges in both Math and Language Arts. Concepts in both subject areas have been gradually getting more challenging for the students, as expectations in all grade levels have increased. Most of the students have rallied to meet the added challenges with additional support from myself and our classroom aides.

The Science unit on soils has struck a lot of interest in our class with the live red worms and composting component as part of the learning process. Another highlight from last week was the visit of Mary Timm from the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge. She has introduced the students to Mallard duck characteristics through using shapes that they colored and cut into a duck. The next visit, she plans to help the students draw their own Mallard to send into the duck stamp competition. All the students were very proud of their Mallard creations, and as you can see in the photo to follow, we have the ducks displayed in our room.

 

On Friday, the planned visit from Tetlin Environmental Technician,Theresa Christiansen, to do an "Ice Safety" activity was postponed due to illness. It has been rescheduled for this Friday. Hopefully, I will have something to share on that subject next week.

Please remember to turn in any book orders at the end of the week if you would like to buy books for your child. Also, the spelling words are getting harder for the 1st graders so remind your child to study them and write each word at least three times each nightly. If you have any books I have sent home that have not been returned, I would appreciate them back to use with other students. 

Stay warm and have a great week!

January 20, 2013

 Weekly greetings! As always, last week flew by and we are moving into the third week of January already! This week there will be two special activities for the students. On Wednesday, Mary Timm from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Tetlin Refuge, will return to work on pictures with the students for the junior duck stamp competition. Also on Friday the Tetlin Environmental Technician, Theresa Christiansen, will visit and talk with the class about ice safety.  Other activities of interest will be a new Science unit starting on Monday for the afternoon students on soils and composting now that the red worms for the project have arrived alive.

With the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday this Monday, we began studying the important role he played in our countries history. The class also picked a three word phase to create an inspiring poster to display in out room to encourage each other, just as Martin Luther King Jr. was able to inspire others with his words. Furthermore,  a favorite weekly time for the class is Art each Friday. The students have been exploring aspects of watercolor painting. They really enjoy sharing their creative ideas with each other. I hope their colorful creations made it home on Friday for you all to see. A few photos to follow are from last week's Art session.

Please continue to look for homework every Monday through Thursday night. The first grade will have a spelling list weekly that they need to study each night. Also, I am sending home simple readers for them to read to someone at home each night. The Kindergarten have had numerous paper books sent home from the themes covered in the reading curriculum and they should be reading them to someone at home also. This will help them with the sight words that have been covered and simple words to sound out.

Feel free to contact me with any questions you might have, and you are always welcome to sit in on our weekly PLC [Professional Learning Committee] meetings on Friday to discuss best practices and methods in teaching to improve student learning.

January 13, 2913

Our first week back flew by! We jumped right back into a regular schedule and we were all tired by then end of the week after adjusting from being on vacation.

A few highlights were the arrival of the new teacher for the upper grades, Barb Baysinger, and the visit from Mary Timms to share about things animals do in winter. The students really enjoyed her presentation, and even did a puppet show using numerous animal puppets to review the information. By the end of the week, the class had filled their reward bottle with beans for good behavior and we had "Show and Tell" on Friday. Most everyone brought something to talk about, but the favorite of the group was Buddy the toy poodle that Bridgette shared about. I have included a couple pictures of Buddy's visit to school.

Please look at the "See Saw" book order form in your child's homework folder. If you would like to order books, just fill in the form on the back and return it to me with the money. I will send it to Scholastic Books to be filled at the end of the month. Also, remember to ask your child about nightly homework. There were 10 students from last semester that got acknowledged on Friday for not missing more than two full weeks of doing their homework. I will do the same thing at the end of our school year.

Enjoy your week and I hope this warm weather continues!

January 4, 2013

Warm wishes for the New Year! On Monday, we will start back to school for the second semester. I trust the students will be as eager as I am to back at school. Despite the sad loss of Mr. Cudney just before the holiday break, we tried to move forward by writing letters to Mr. Cudney's family in addition to finishing Christmas gifts and cards.

 

 The first grade also completed a unit in Science on animals at night [nocturnal] and animals that are predators or prey. The students made masks of their favorite animal and then played a game using the masks.

This week, Mary Timms from the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Tok, will be following up on the animal unit with a focus on animals in winter.

As we move into the second half of the school year, please continue to look for homework on Monday through Thursday nights, and completed class work to be reviewed on Fridays.