Dear Parents,
This has been a busy, busy week…but so much fun! The highlight of our week was definitely coming back to school and learning that we have a home school friend that has joined us full-time! Jessi Johnson is the newest member of our full-time class, and that has bumped us up to 14 kiddos! Welcome, Jessi!
We also began Advent this week and talked about how we are waiting….waiting for Christmas, and waiting for Jesus to come again! Our friends we met in the Bible this week were waiting for their promise of a Savior…Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaiah, David, Joseph… We had so much fun talking about God’s promises this week! We also practiced for the Advent service we are participating in next week as well! Each of the children has a special part in the service, whether it is singing, acting, or speaking! They are super-excited! Please note that we will need the children at the North site at 4:15 to practice and get started. Church services are at 5:00 and 7:15. Thank you so much for your help in all of this!
Please check out our next Mission Project Challenge, “Holiday Hang Out” in the hallway. For December, students will be working with their homeroom class to raise money. For each $5 collected, we will hang an ornament on the Christmas tree display in the hallway. Each homeroom reaching their goal will be invited to participate in the Holiday Hang Out, the ultimate school Christmas party!
Here is what we did this week:
In Language Arts this week, third graders read a story called ‘The Science Fair.” We learned some neat science facts, as well as gained knowledge about how we should trust our friends and rely on each other. Fourth graders read a story called “The Earth Dragon Awakens,” which was about the earthquake in San Francisco in 1905. This was a pretty frightening story. It was very well-written and piqued our interest so much!
Fourth graders shared their book reports today and they were fantastic! Their next book report will be over an historical fiction novel. This will be due at the end of January, and they will need to dress as a character from their story when they present it! Third graders have until the end of the quarter to complete their book reports, which are also historical fiction. They are due January 11th.
This week we really have focused on our writing skills. We are working hard to sharpen our finding a topic skills, as well as focusing in on a topic. We did some sample writing this week. These paragraphs will come home for you to view. As the year progresses, you will see your child become a more capable and fluent writer! With this practice and fun exercises, I am also hoping that he or she may begin to love writing too!
In Math this week, both classes continued learning about graphs. We learned how to read line plots, form line graphs, make pictographs, make bar graphs, and find plots on a grid.
During Art, we learned how to make self-portraits. We learned some good pointers about the correct ways to make faces. We then made a self-portrait of ourselves in the future, with what we hope to become! We will finish these up next week!
In P.E. this week, we continued learning basketball skills. We learned how to switch hands while dribbling, to pivot, and to pass and shoot in a game setting.
In Music this week, we worked hard on songs for our December 5th Advent Service. The theme is “Mighty”. We will sing two songs during the service. We have learned “Mighty is Our God”, “My God is so Great” and “Agnus Dai”. It is fun to sing new Christmas songs. So far, we have learned “Christmas Hope Medley” and “Good News! Great Joy!”. We also continued playing the recorder. Students have been divided into Recorder Karate groups and are working to learn new notes, songs and rhythms. They should practice twice a week at home. Every student has earned at least one ‘belt’!
For Writers’ Workshop, we learned how to write a fairytale and began doing this! You should have seen the imaginations soaring in here! We will work on these during Writers’ Workshop, and also during our free time. I gave the students the due date of December 14tgh, but I am extending that to the 22nd. I have never given the kids’ a due date for writing before, but some of the children tend to want to “forget” about work if it is not due, so I was hoping this would give them some incentive to work hard on this project. If you see that your child is really enjoying this, and wants/needs more time to make his or her story more elaborate, please let me know, and goodness…that will be fine!
Blessings,
Kim
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