Dear Parents,
As my email earlier in the week shared, we lost a very special friend in J3T this week: Katut Blue Joy passed away. To say that I learned a lot through the experience is an understatement... On Wednesday morning, I came into the classroom to discover that Katut was no longer with us; he appeared sick earlier in the week, so it wasn't a shock. I debated what to do: leave him in the classroom so that the children could see him, or take him out to flush him. Thinking that I would be sparing the children something, I took Katut out, said a few words of thanks, and flushed him down the toilet. A point you should note, as it later becomes contentious, is that I flushed him from the women's restroom, in the handicap stall (I wanted the space to say goodbye properly.) As Julian came bounding in the classroom, eager to share his note giving permission to take Katut home, I immediately knew that I made a mistake. "Well, where is he?" Julian asked, as his face dropped. "Let's Talk about it when everyone is here." During morning meeting, I shared the news. "HOW COULD YOU FLUSH A BOY FISH DOWN A GIRL'S TOILET!!!" Leo proclaimed. "He should be buried in the garden, with a casket and a proper funeral!" Alexandra affirmed. "He was such a good fish!" Christian said, as he consoled Maxime. "We need to do something for him! We need a service!" the rest of the class agreed. I told the children about the Balinese grief process when someone dies, that includes alerting the gods to the deceased's passage, honouring the gods for giving the life in the first place, mourning the individual, making amends for any wrong-doings, sending the individual off, and then celebrating the life and asking the gods to support those who are left behind. The children asked if we could have our own version of the Balinese process, and I agreed. The boys were sure to let me know that I should be grateful for the process, because I needed to make amends for flushing away our precious fish. So when the children went off to short play, I immediately set to work organizing a memorial service for Katut. A cookie order was placed, and I searched my music collection for the best music possible to say goodbye to a fish. At the end of the day, we gathered in a circle and each child said one thing about Katut. I was honestly deeply moved by what the children had to say about our fish. Through many tears, we had a lovely ceremony. Though they (Finn) were worried that he would be upset that he wasn't buried in the garden, or at least set off to sea via the East River, the children seemed to find some peace through the ceremony. Here are a few things said that stood out to me: "When I first moved here, it was really hard, so anytime I was angry or upset, I could just look over at Katut to see him swimming, and it was like he told me: It's all going to be okay!" "When I get anxious, watching Katut calms me down." "I felt like Katut could listen to me, and hear my thoughts." "Katut is also quiet." "When I moved here, I didn't think I fit in, and then you let me have the job of feeding Katut. That made me feel special, and I started to belong and be needed." "Katut was magical! All that blue and purple, and sometimes, when you look just right, you can see his beautiful green." The children took time to create a memorial to Katut, and on Thursday, we had violins and bongos brought in to honour our Beta Fish. Alexandra and Anthony played the violin, and then Dylan played the bongos and sang a beautiful song about the circle of life. Emilie Shared a story about her fish that passed away, and a few others shared about losses they have had. It's Friday now, everyone is off to their spring break destinations, and I am about to take the memorial down. I have promised to add to our Peace Table the makeshift coffin as well as Katut's tombstone. I have been truly moved by the series of events that transpired to honour our fish. The children showed up as a deeply connected and caring community, with amazing empathy and compassion for others. I saw that they felt safe to share their feelings, and even to hold me accountable when I made a mistake. I also learned that, though we often try to hide the life cycle from our children, they need to be respected and trusted to be able to handle it. Grief is a part of life, and learning how to process loss and express it is an important consideration that I am now adding to the Happiness 101 toolbox. The children have agreed to celebrate Katut (the final stage of the Balinese practice) as they go out into the world, and we all agreed that the best way to honour him was by enjoying our lives. I hope you have a joyous break with your loved ones. Give your lovely learners a few extra squeezes this week, and if you don't mind, add one in from me. Yours in learning, Erin
0 Comments
Dear Friends of J3T: Welcome back from our February break! I heard some fun stories from the time away. I was excited to see the children today, and to jump back into the learning. The two weeks leading up to break were full of excitement with Global Play Day (WHICH WAS A HUGE SUCCESS!!!) , seeing the Lion King, Friendship day, bake sale, and our open house. I included photos in the slideshow above. UNIT STUDIES/LITERACY Now that we are back, we are completing our unit on Biomes by finishing up our reports of information, shadow puppet show about the book One Day in the Tropical Rainforest, and creating comiclifes about animal adaptations. Next week we will begin our new unit on Creative Expression, so stay tuned for the letter telling you all about our new and exciting unit! MATH: In math, we kicked off a new Context for Learning unit called: The Big Dinner. The focus of this unit is the development of multiplication, including automatizing the facts, using the ratio table, and developing the distributive property with large numbers. We will use a variety of models to help solidify the student's conceptual understanding of multiplication, moving into standard algorithms. For today's lesson, the children solved the problem of buying a 24 lb. turkey. You can see the task below.
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING: Happiness Habits
This week we are introducing the happiness habit: Taking Care of Our Bodies. This habit includes exercise and nutrition. This article mentions a bit about the connections between exercise and happiness, and Carl Massy's Blog: The World's Biggest Gym, also goes into nutrition and exercise and how they benefit our moods. This video talks about foods that can help to boost your happiness. Those two are, of course, just a tiny bit of information available on the topic! On a final note, a new homestudy menu went home today. IT is also in the homestudy page, accessible by the link above. That's all the news from me this week. I hope you get out to enjoy some of this warmer weather. Sincerely, Ms. Erin Threlfall Dear Parents, Welcome to a new week of learning! I hope you had a warm weekend, and enjoyed watching the snowfall during the blizzard. In my neighborhood, it was great fun to see how people gathered on the streets and became instant friends, the blizzard an opportunity to create new community connections. This week promises to be packed with learning. Before I tell you about what’s coming up, I’ll give you a glimpse back at last week’s learning. The students have been very excited to create shadow puppets to help retell the story of One Day in the Tropical Rainforest. We now have many rainforest animals, and have gained a lot of information about their role in keeping the rain forest balanced. In Math, we completed the unit called” How Long, How Tall,” during which we used our understanding of doubling and halving to help us find the relationships in numbers such as 4 and 8. We then used this information to help us solve more complex problems that involve multiplication. The students are deepening their understanding of multiplication, and are ready to move into ratio tables to help solve problems. We were lucky to have a special visit from Santiago Villalpando, who serves as the Chief of the Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs. Santiago came in to talk with the children about the United Nations Conference on Climate Change that took place in Paris. It was wonderful to hear about his work, and to hear the children’s thoughts on climate change. The children showed themselves to be very aware and curious global citizens! We are eager to welcome other parents to the classroom who might be able to enhance our learning. Here’s what we are up to this week… LITERACY: This week the children will be writing their reports of information on their selected biomes. This will give them the opportunity to show what they know about ecosystems and biomes, and how things are interconnected. The children will continue to develop comprehension skills as they examine information sources and identify the key elements of nonfiction text types. MATH: Our unit of study this week is all about time- how to read an analog clock to the nearest minute, and how to measure elapsed time. To help us along, please ask your child to tell you time as much as possible, while also calculating elapsed time between events. Wearing an analog wrist-watch is a great way to support this unit! UNIT STUDIES: We continue our work looking at the biomes of the world, examining the relationship between the biotic and abiotic features in an ecosystem, and how these ecosystems come together to form larger biomes. They will deepen their understanding of location, and how climate drives the features of a biome. This video might help to clarify any questions you have about biomes and ecosystems! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuejxJttBqo SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING: We are continuing our focus on the Happiness Habit: Build into Relationships. We are also taking a look at responsibility and integrity, and how behaving responsibly helps to build trust with others. We have the metaphor of the marble jar working very well in class. Ask your child about this! To help support the children as they work to act responsibly and with accountability, consider giving direct, named praise to your child when they deposit marbles into your trust jar. For instance: “ I see that you have organized your things for school before you go to bed. This shows that you are thinking ahead and being responsible enough to set yourself up for success. That makes a difference, and helps to build trust!” I recently read this article from a Stanford study on praise and developing a growth mindset. You might find it interesting, as well! That’s all the news from me for this week! Wishing you a safe and warm week ahead. Erin
Happy New Year! I have heard wonderful stories from your holiday break. From the sounds of it, this crew knows how to make the most of a two week break. I am glad that everyone had time to rest, play, and connect with family and friends, and am also very happy to have everyone back in our "J3T Home!" Last week we hit the ground running, filling each minute with great learning. Here's a look at what we were up to, and what we will continue this week, as well. LITERACY: We read the book: One Day in the Tropical Rainforest, an informative fictional narrative that tells about the efforts of one brave boy to help save the McCaw Rainforest. The children were fascinated with all of the animals. This book connected with the previous learning, so the children were able to take the thinking deeper to see the connections between the animals and the role they play within the rainforest. Now the children are busy wit becoming experts about one animal, which they are creating a shadow puppet figure for. We will use those puppets to tell the story using the Asian art of shadow puppetry. For tech integration, the children are also creating a ComicLife story about their particular animal. This week, the children will deconstruct a report of information to create their own criteria for an effective piece. They will use this to craft their own report about a biome of their choosing. MATH: We continue our work with multiplication, and have added in ratio and scale. Ask the children about our investigation with Antonio and measurement! Please be sure that your child is reviewing their multiplication facts each evening. By now, the children should have mastery of the 0,1,2,3,4,5,6, and 7 times tables. We moved onto the 8's today, and watched this fun video to help us remember the facts. SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING: With the return from break, we have started with the Happiness Habit: BUILD INTO RELATIONSHIPS. The children had a wonderful conversation about why we call it : "build into relationships" instead of just "make friends" or "be a good friend." I was so impressed that they understood that you don't just make a friend and it's all good, you have to do things all the time to help make that friendship/relationship grow and stay strong. As Alexandra said: "You have to add to it, brick by brick." We talked about the idea of love languages, and how everyone hears and speaks love differently, and so we need to learn about others and do the things that they can hear as love. You will notice that this is one of the homework assignments. If you are interested in learning more about this concept, I highly recommend the book: The Five Love Languages . This week, we will be talking about building trust in a friendship. I will be using Brené Brown's ideas from Daring Greatly, which you can get some idea of in her talk: The Anatomy of Trust. DATES TO REMEMBER: Monday, January 18: NO SCHOOL: Martin Luther King Day I have been busy writing reports, reflecting on your children as learners. It is great to see how much growth they have had over the term, and to be able to identify new goals for them all as individual learners. Thank you for your continued trust and support along the way! Yours in Learning and Growing, Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Dear Parents-
Happy Holidays! It was wonderful to share the breakfast with all of you; thank you for contributing and sharing your time with us. We have had such a rich term, filled with great learning- this month alone feels as if it was chock full of wonderfulness. I've included some pictures from our zoo trip and holiday party to celebrate those events! I am confident that you were as proud of the children's performance at the winter concert as I was. The song selection was fantastic, and tied so nicely into our unit as well as the UNIS idea of building a better world. It was great to see the children share their talents, and so proud of their accomplishments standing before you all. We have also been very successful with writing persuasive pieces that touch on a topic each child cares about. They have developed excellent research and organization skills in writing while also developing their unique author's voices. In math, we continue to develop multiplications skills. As previously mentioned, it is very important that the children practice their times tables until they "know them like they know their name." When we return from break, we will use multiplication skills for our next context for learning exercise. By this point, I would expect the children to have mastery of 0,1,2,3,4,5, and 6 times tables, up to the twelve facts. I wish you all a wonderful new year, safe travels, and happy family time. I look forward to seeing everyone back on January 4! Sincerely, Erin Dear Parents-
Welcome to a new week of learning! The next two weeks will be incredibly busy with the music concert, our field trip, kicking off our new unit, and math investigations. Read on to discover what we are studying this week… UNIT STUDIES: This week we will have our tapping-in phase for the new unit. A more comprehensive unit letter will go home next week, but to give you a general idea, we are looking a the biomes/ecosystems of the world. We will identify their features/form to understand how the world's biomes are interdependent, while also looking at how they are changing. We will also inquire into our responsibilities to the environment in an interdependent world. LITERACY: To support our new unit, in reading and writing we are diving into the nonfiction genre. This week we are investigating the features of a nonfiction text, and why people use informational writing. They will be reading nonfiction texts to help build their understanding of the biomes in the world, and will be developing skills as writers to craft a report of information. Grade 3 is an important transition year in the writing skills we expect of our learners, as this is when we work to develop the ability to synthesize information and translate it into our own words. This moves us away from writing about ourselves and what we know into learning about a topic through research then organizing what is learned in writing. Last week we started collaborating in our word work groups. The children are very excited because they are working with different teachers for this. Grouping was determined by pre-assessments and writing samples from the children. Ask your child who they are studying with; I am sure you will hear enthusiasm about this opportunity to work with others. MATH: We are continuing our work in multiplicative thinking, building strategies for understanding the concept of multiplication, ratio, and eventually into division. You will notice on the homework study that we are asking the students to begin working on memorizing their times tables. Knowing the times tables "like we know our name," is a requirement of students in J3. This is one of the few times when we expect students to simply memorize facts, as automaticity with the times tables is important to support the work done with more complex problem solving. Learning happens best when concept/skill is experienced in many ways. For that reason, the children are encouraged to practice using as many senses as possible. For the auditory or musical experience, songs may be the best way to go. For the kinesthetic and visual experience, students may practice using homemade flash cards. Some children will learn best when they speak the drills out loud. Children learn best from a variety of approaches, all enabling the skills to become "muscle memory," deeply imbedded in the children's schema. On the math page you will find some resources for helping your child to learn their facts. They are by no means exhaustive, just a small selection of what is out there in the world! GENERAL NOTES: Attendance: Please be mindful that children are expected to come into the classroom at 8:20. From 8:20-8:30 they settle in and set-up for success. We strive to begin our morning meeting promptly at 8:30. The meeting is an important part of our day as it gives us all the opportunity to come together, preparing our minds for the day ahead, while also letting go of any stress that may have precluded the start of the school day. Please support this by ensuring that your child is on time for morning meeting. With the holidays coming up, I know many people will be traveling. Please remember that it is very challenging to make up learning when children are away before and after a holiday break. While I understand that it can be hard to follow the schedule when travel is involved, it is important that children are here for learning to occur. Thank you for your support with this! Morning Snack: I call this "nourishment break" with the children because that is its intention: to provide healthy brain fuel to keep us going throughout the day. Please avoid sending in potato chips/doritos, and sweets foods for our nourishment breaks. Here are some ideas that might be fun to make with your child- and you could sneak in math skills with measuring! http://www.opi.mt.gov/pdf/SchoolFood/Resources/TN/healthyschoolsnacks.pdf Holiday Celebration: Celebrations are an important part of bringing a community together, so J3 is very excited to announce that, On Dec. 17, we will celebrate the holidays with a rotation through the different J3 classes. While celebrating what we have, we would also like to share with others, and so we have decided to have each child bring in a children's book that will be donated to Children of Bellevue Reach out and Read program. For the rotations, the children will have a dance party with Ms. Mellilo, build edible snowmen with Ms. Reilly, create cards and bookmarks with Ms. Sachro, play holiday games with me, and make snow domes with Ms. Escobar. We are asking each child to bring:
DATES TO REMEMBER: Dec. 10th:
Thank you, as always, for your continued support! Yours in learning and growing- Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Dear Parents, Happy week of gratitude! Though I know that Thanksgiving can be a time where we debate historical accuracy and the stories not told around this holiday, I see it as a wonderful time to pause and reflect, giving thanks for all that is good in our lives and the world. At times such as now when the world is in watch, it is especially important that we take the opportunities provided to celebrate those whom we love and all that we have. I wish you and your family a relaxing, joy-filled time when you take a moment to express gratitude, break bread together, and sit in quiet reflection. As I reflect, I know that I have so much to be thankful for, not the least of which is this wonderful community of learners (and their parents) who help to remind me of why I became a teacher. Let me share with you a recent moment of : WOW! I AM SO LUCKY TO BE WITH THESE LEARNERS!! By now, I hope you heard about our exciting lesson last week in which we asked the question: How can we use data to plan for action? To help the children better understand how great questions can lead to useful data, and how analyzing data can clue us in on problems and possible solutions, we took a look at the work I used to do on the Buduburam Refugee Camp. Specifically, we zeroed in on the day in the life of Bakayoko, a young refugee child who captured my heart. During this lesson, the students had the opportunity to create a pie chart showing Bakayoko's day. Then we analysed the chart using our Visible Thinking Routine: See, Think, Wonder to answer the flowing questions: What do you see in the data about Bakayo's day? What does this make you think about his life and the problems he faces? What does the data make you wonder? What solutions do you wonder about? The students made keen observations, and identified some key problems for Bakayoko. Just look at some of the things they said! As the students identified issues, we were able to also identify ways that different organisations worked together to resolve some of the issues. The children saw the Global Volunteer Network (my employer) worked with the local NGO Children Better Way as well as UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, World Vision, and Save the Children to make it possible for Bakayoko to attend school, have access to clean water and food supplies as well as medical supplies, and helped to solve some big problems all so that the children could have the opportunity to be children who play and learn. This lesson truly helped to solidify the work we have been doing to identify how organisations and individuals can work together to solve problems in the world. It also helped the children develop stronger questions to guide their service projects and support their arguments being made in their persuasive writing pieces. This was a lovely opportunity to see truly integrated learning in action. I wish you could have been here to see how enthusiastic they were, and ON FIRE! Some of the children asked that I share the powerpoint with you so that they can help explain everything to you, so here it is! Moving ahead, the students will be putting their service learning projects into action, publishing their persuasive writing pieces, and officially closing this unit, though we hope that the learning and attitudes gained stay and incite action in our next unit of study, which will also bring us into new writing and reading genres- but more on that next week...
MATH: We kicked off our new unit today when investigation began with the context of a grocery store. Students looked into how grocery stores and markets around the world organise merchandise, and developed an understanding of the key vocabulary term: array. On Tuesday, students will view illustration of fruits and vegetables arranged in bins, packages of paper towels piled in stacks, six-packs of water bottles, and other things in a grocery store. Although the objects represented could be counted by ones, the arrangements naturally invites repeated addition, skip-counting, and doubling strategies as well as the language of grouping--for example, 8 groups of 6 is equivalent to 4 groups of 12 which is equivalent to 4 groups of 6 plus 4 groups of 6. (Fosnot, Catherine. Groceries, Stamps, and Measuring Strips: Early Multiplication. In Contexts for Learning Mathematics from Mathematics in the City, City College of New York.) This unit takes us into the concept of multiplication, making the connection that multiplication is an elegant and efficient way to represent multiple groups of something. I have asked that the students take pictures of grocery store arrays over the break. If you could send those in either electronically or printed, we will use those in class to support our studies! Dates to Note: Nov. 25th, 26th, 27th: Thanksgiving Break Dec. 10th: Photo Retake 6:00-8:00 J3/J4 Winter Concert (arranged by the music department) Dec. 21st – Jan 3rd: Winter Break (classes resume on Monday, January 4th) That's about it from me this week. If you are traveling, be safe. Enjoy your time together. Take a moment to breathe and be calm, opening the opportunity to take stock of all that you have around you. Yours in gratitude, Erin M. Threlfall Dear Parents-
WHEW! I am feeling all talked out! I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet with each of you about your wonderful learners. We have a fabulous community and it felt really great to share that with you. Please remember that we are a united team for your child, and you are welcome to speak with me any time you have questions, concerns, or things to celebrate. Definitely remember the "things to celebrate," as I love to hear about the great stuff, too! As was mentioned during parent conferences, we are excited to bring Raz-Kids and Dreambox into the fold for home study. On Tuesday, in addition to the new home study menu, your child will come home with their username information for both sites. On the Math page you will also find power points explaining how to get onto dream box from your home computer and iPad. Please take special note that the site address for Dreambox has been updated for this academic term, so you may need to adjust your settings if you bookmarked the site last year. Gold stars went out last week to Enis Guri, Scott Nadel, and Maria Sigge for naming the changes on the site. They listed details I didn't even think of, including the flash playing of the pictures, the UNIS calendar link, and Happiness 101 link to the side. Also new to the site are the literacy and Home study pages, linked at the top of the page. New this week is a Math page linked at the top. With many of you, I shared ideas to support learning at home. Here is a recap of some strategies we talked about. Literacy:
Math:
Unit Studies:
What's on my Bookshelf? I have three books that I have really been enjoying. Buddha at Bedtime: Edem and I read this together at bedtime, and we are really enjoying the opportunities that arise to talk about character and kindness. And the stories are just fun to read, too! The Conscious Parent (and the second book: Out Of Control) by Dr. Shefali Tsabary has to be one of the best parenting books I have ever read, and it helps me in the classroom, too. The Mindful Child by Susan Kaiser Greenland shares fabulous strategies for practicing mindfulness with your child. I started this one a week ago and have incorporated some practices at home and will be bringing them into the classroom. Social Emotional Learning: The recent events in the world have been very difficult, and I know that many of you have connections to Paris, Beirut, Iraq, and Syria. At UNIS, we will begin the morning on Tuesday with a moment of silence, and I will introduce this as an opportunity to send positive thoughts and energy to those having difficult times. Dr. Topher Collier sent out a message offering support; please know that we are all in this together, and I am also here if any of you need to talk about how your child is processing the tragic events in the world. Please also keep me informed if your child is expressing anxiety or sadness; knowing this will help me to be of greater support in the classroom. I found this article to be very helpful for talking with children about these events.. That's it from me this week! Sincerely, Erin M. Threlfall P.S. On Nov. 19 the PTA hosts the parent teacher social. I will be able to stay for a short while at the very beginning, from about 6:00-6:30. There will be many other families there as well, so it is a great opportunity to meet up with otter UNIS families! Dear Parents, Happy last day of Because of Winn-Dixie to you! I know, this doesn't sound like an official holiday, but it should be and I assure you, it was a holiday to us in J3T. Today we read the last chapter in Kate DiCamillo's fabulous book, and celebrated with a small party that mimicked the party in the book, complete with funny dog pictures, egg salad sandwiches, and pickles. We were so lucky that "Otis" popped in with his guitar to serenade us. Ask your child to tell you about this wonderful tale and some of the themes we discovered within it. Though we strive to keep it fun in J3T, we also keep it seriously busy. Here's what's ahead, and what you can to do to support the children's learning. MATH: This week we transfer our math skills into working out story problems that involve calculating with money. The children will work to answer the following questions:
The homework menu has questions that will help to reinforce this understanding. It is also helpful for the children to tally bills at the restaurant, to pay for items at the store and receive the change, to add up the items you are buying at the store, and even possibly to work with their own money if they receive an allowance. I found this helpful organiser on Accountability for children over the weekend, and will be putting it to use in my home; a portion of it works on tracking money. It may be something that interests you, as well. The creator has other great printables such as one on manners and another on age appropriate chores, so take a peek at the site if you need some helpful organization/info tools. READING: We are working on answering the following questions:
UNIT STUDIES: The children are continuing their UNIS Cares projects, and are working to identify the people who can help them solve their identified problems. They will also be creating surveys to find out how other people in the community feel bout the problems, and what they would like to see instead of the problem. (This connects to the data collection and analysis math standard as well!) Ask your child to tell you about Feel, Imagine, Do, Share! One of our big focus points this week is in being reflective, and consider another's perspective. We are also learning that organisations have to talk to the people whom they are serving if they want their projects to be successful. HAPPINESS HABITS: In addition to continuing with Express Gratitude, we are developing our skills in practicing mindfulness. A few of the many goals with mindfulness is to develop a sense of calm, increase focus, activate the mind for deeper learning and fact recall, and to help bring about a general sense of peace- which in turns helps with the habit of Build Into Relationships. Today we talked about taking deep breaths and pausing during stressful moments so that we can recenter and ground ourselves, allowing us to think clearly and take the best course of action for that moment. You can practice meditation and mindfulness at home, too! This is one guided meditation that we used after a stressful fire drill a few weeks back. It is great for bedtimes. Here are some tips for being mindful at home. A NOTE ABOUT PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES: During our conference, I will share with you my snapshot of your child as a learner. We will focus on the following areas: Characters learning through looking at the Social Emotional Learning and Well-being, Conceptual and Competency learning in Literacy, Math, and Unit Studies. We will have to stay tight with our 20 minute time allotments because I have a very booked schedule for Thursday. If you feel that you need more time, we can schedule a follow-up meeting after the conferences finish. As I shared at the curriculum night, we can arrange times to discuss your child's progress whenever it is needed. Dates to Note: Nov. 9th – 20th: City Harvest Collection Nov. 12th (evening), 13th, and 16th: Parent/Teacher Conferences Nov. 19th: 6:00-8:00 Parent Faculty Social Nov. 25th, 26th, 27th: Thanksgiving Break Dec. 10th: Photo Retake 6:00-8:00 J3/J4 Winter Concert (arranged by the music department) Dec. 21st – Jan 3rd: Winter Break (classes resume on Monday, January 4th) That's it from me- I hope you have a wonderfully mindful week with your children! Ms. Erin M. Threlfall
Dear Parents, Welcome to a new week of learning in J3T! It feels as if it has been ages since we saw a Monday! The last few weeks were so full of celebrations and special events, that the children almost didn't believe me when I said there wouldn't be a dress-up or celebration today. Luckily, Leo turned 8 so we had the chance to celebrate something special. In this week's post I would like to touch on fluency and accuracy, both in reading and Math. The goal with fluency in both reading and math is for the children to have fast, accurate, and elegant recall so that they can read expressively and solve problems easily using their schema, or prior knowledge. As we work to develop new skills, this basic foundation is crucial so we can take in more challenging skills, strategies, and concepts. Here is how you can support your child at home. MATH You will notice the children coming home with their "math scales" cards today. We took on this name because the children decided that knowing and practicing certain math facts is like a musician practicing the scales. It warms up the muscles, calls on prior-knowledge, and helps the "artist" play more complex pieces. To this end, the children have addition fact cards that they have been working with. These are facts that they should be able to do with mental math skills. Each card has equations on one side and the sum on another. They also have "clues," to help solve the problem. The children should know each fact "like they know their name." We have been working on this in class, and have talked about various ways they can practice these, including a math challenge game and speed sorts. They can also string different equations together to make more complex problems. I have asked that they do the math scales for 5 minutes each evening before they take on any other assignment. This habit will serve them well when we approach multiplication problems, as this is the kind of thing I will want them to do when they are learning their times tables. Of course, I love to hear about the children taking on real life problem solving scenarios in their day whether that be at the store, with telling time, when baking, adding their Halloween loot (a new one added to the list today,) or when accepting a great challenge from the people who love them! The "math scales" are mentioned on the homework menu. I have asked that the children also do these for 5 minutes every day this week, in addition to the self selected items on the menu. READING: In reading, “Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.” (Reading Links, 2002, p. 9). Fluency doesn’t ensure comprehension, but comprehension is difficult without fluency. If a reader is constantly stopping to decode and figure out unknown words, most likely meaning will be disrupted and the process of reading becomes long and laborious. When students make gains in reading fluency, they are able to put their energies into comprehension and are better able to analyze, interpret, draw conclusions, and infer meaning from texts. I have asked the children to practice reading aloud as much as possible so that they can improve their fluency and expression as readers. Their task is to pay attention to punctuationThey can do this by reading to themselves, a stuffed animal, real life pet, family member, friend, recording themselves reading (one of my favourites for effectiveness) or even acting out what they are reading. They can read in front of a mirror to track their facial expressions, or Edem's favorites is to make a movie on photo booth. Not only does this motivate the children, but then you also have a cherished video of their reading to share with family members. (Here is one from Edem when he was 5. He rehearsed, and rehearsed and rehearsed until the alien voice was just right.) The attached Parent Pipeline should be helpful to support this strategy at home. HOMEWORK A new homework menu is coming home today. I have asked the children to be diligent about recording their work in their "Thought Journals," so that I can check in on their choices and give feedback to their work. This sheet is due in on Monday November 9 for a check-in, and then the final due date is November 17. Please let me know if you are experiencing difficulties with the reading or menu. We agreed to have none of the home study nightmares, so let's communicate if there are struggles. HAPPINESS HABIT: Express Gratitude This month we will focus heavily on the habit of expressing gratitude. The students started their gratitude journals today. Be sure to ask them about this habit! Here is an interesting article on Happify about the attitude of gratitude. UPCOMING DATES: Thursday, Nov.12: Parent Teacher Conferences evening session Friday Nov. 13 : Parent Teacher Conferences day session NO SCHOOL Monday, Nov.16: Parent Teacher Conferences day session NO SCHOOL November 15: City Harvest Collection November 25-27: Thanksgiving Holiday: NO SCHOOL As always, thank you for your support! Sincerely, Erin M. Threlfall
|
SnapshotsA peek at life inside of J3T , curated by Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Archives
June 2016
Categories |