Weekly Newsletter

This week was gingerbread week! We read a variety of gingerbread stories in class. We talked about how there are different versions of the Gingerbread Man and many stories with gingerbread characters. Preschoolers chimed in to help read the repetitive text and made predictions when a fox entered the story. To help make these stories even more enjoyable, we made gingerbread houses and gingerbread puppets. Thank you for the donations which helped make this project possible! And thank you to Ms. Becky for gathering materials and sewing the cute puppets for us to decorate!

Instead of gingerbread, we used graham crackers to assemble the houses. The photo shows preschoolers building and decorating their houses, as well as some finished houses. The last photo shows a decorated gingerbread puppet.

Preschoolers learned about the winter solstice that will occur on Thursday, December 21st, marking the first day of winter. It is the shortest day and longest night of the year. This is because of the current tilt of the Earth. They also talked about how it has been dark at dinnertime and also when they wake up in the morning. The most exciting fact the children learned is that the sun will shine a little bit longer each day after the shortest day of the year.

The children participated in several activities to bring in the light. They decorated candles that are displayed in our classroom window, along with the message Shine Your Light. They also listened to the story Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light, written by Apryl Stott. The two main characters in the story, a little girl and a bear, make lanterns to share with friends. The lanterns come in handy when a baby deer is lost in the deep snow and many animal friends are out looking for it with their lanterns. The children made their own lanterns out of parchment paper. They decorated them with snowmen and snowflakes, added a pipe cleaner handle and a small tea light. They are magical! We concluded the lessons by talking about the light we each have inside of us and how important it is to shine our own light.

This week first graders have finished up the first module in our EL curriculum which had us focused on tools and how they help us in our everyday lives. Their magnificent things are complete, along with their first long writing piece sharing about all the tools they used to help them create their magnificent thing. These fabulous writing pieces will be on display next to our adopt a cow wall. Come check them out!

In our second EL module we will focus on the sun, moon and the stars. At the same time we will focus on space science during our next science unit. First graders are focusing on the essential question: How does the sun affect our lives on Earth? In our first lesson, we learned about Earth’s place in space. To solidify their understanding of this we made an Earth’s place in space map and finished up the lesson by visiting a website that shows us just how large our galaxy is and how small the Earth is in comparison! Check it out- Earth's place in space

Wishing you and your family a restful and enjoyable vacation! See you all in 2024!

This week’s point of interest in Third Grade was Stonehenge, in recognition of the shortest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere. Have you ever been to Salisbury Plain to behold the ancient wonder and puzzle over the mysteries of its construction? If so, tell your third grader all about it! People went to a lot of hard work, five thousand years ago, to mark this special day in this outstanding way. Tomorrow the days will begin getting longer again - yahoo!

Sending along our best wishes for both fun and relaxation over the winter break, and best wishes for the new year!

This month, we have been learning about the Southeast Region in geography. Just like the informational text for the Northeast Region, students learn about the land and water, climate, products and natural resources, landmarks and culture of the region. As you know, Mrs. Upright and I modeled reading the informational text, taking 2-column notes of main ideas and supporting details, and writing summaries in our Northeast Region scrapbooks. In the Southeast, students were responsible for writing some of the water summaries and landmarks summaries independently. There is more to the Southeast Region than just sunny beaches. Be sure to ask your child what makes the Southeast an interesting and unique region.

Our 6th graders are excelling with their new math unit about ratios thanks to a firm understanding of the concept they gained in 4th and 5th grade! They are developing an understanding of the relationship between ratios, fractions, and factors. As the year progresses, we will learn about unit rates, percentages and dividing fractions – all of which are skills that build on each other. In ELA, students are continuing to gain more confidence with summary writing and mastering the difference between a central idea and supporting details. Finally, as a way of launching a new social studies unit about the Paleolithic Era, this week we are learning about different world traditions for celebrating the winter solstice, including different Paleolithic sites such as Stonehenge and NewGrange that were designed around the winter solstice.

Check out a fun routine you’ll see in our third, fourth, and fifth grade classrooms. This activity is called Mobile Math. What do you notice? What do you wonder? Can you determine the value of the triangle and/or the square? Enjoy! :) aprew@mtrsd.org

It’s been a whirlwind of practice and performances in recent days. Our band and orchestra had their first “big” concert and did a wonderful job! It is hard to believe that most of our young musicians have been playing their instruments for only a couple of months! During the concert, several of our older and more experienced players also presented ensemble pieces. They have been working hard on these pieces and their extra effort really showed. Our third-grade recorder players seemed to take it all in stride and played their piece beautifully, even though I know there were some “butterflies” here and there just before they took the stage. You did it! Great work everyone!

Performances are an important part of learning to be a musician. The behind-the-scenes work of learning to play an instrument; learning to read music; learning to listen to one another; learning to watch and follow their band director–it all comes together in the presentation of a piece that might last only a minute or two. But the rewards are great. In addition to learning to play and perform, our band and orchestra members are learning how to be prepared on performance day. They are learning to take responsibility for having their music and instruments ready to go–just waiting to play that first note–and they are learning that practice really does make a difference. Being prepared is a real confidence-booster and it is wonderful to see our young musicians working toward that goal.

Just a few days after our Winter Concert, our band and orchestra joined with some of our staff members in our first “Share the Music” performance at all-school. Seven brave and talented staff members “shared” with us the playing of a piece called Polka Dots. What fun that was! It was wonderful to see our staff members sitting and performing alongside our students. Many, many thanks to these inspiring teachers! We hope that this was the first of many more collaborations!

Best wishes for a wonderful winter break and I hope our young musicians have lots of opportunities to play for family and friends. Happy music-making!