February 23-27, 2016
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| Congratulations to Tyndall, Piper, Nadia and Aiko for earning 1st place in the Speed Championship during the "A World In Motion" Celebration! |
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| Mary Jane and Nadia show their certificates for attending the PrinciPal meeting with Mrs. Russick! |
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| Finn, Zhi and Cole show their school spirit for "Twin Day!" |
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| Maya shares her quote on responsi- bility before our Crew discusses it. |
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| Mary Jane and Nadia take notes during our Crew meeting about what respon- sibility looks like and sounds like to share at the PrinciPal meeting. |
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| Teddy's parents joined our Crew meeting and our greeting was High-Five in Mandarin! |
We also held an extra Crew meeting to discuss responsibilities when there is a guest teacher like the one we had in art this week. Many of the crew took responsibility by "stepping up" during the meeting, writing an apology note and giving it to the guest teacher. "Shout outs" were also shared for some students from our crew.
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| Julia, Maya and Lauryn enjoy a snack from Johnson Controls before the celebration. |
The "A World of Motion" Celebration was a great culminating experience! Given that it was our first time, there are quite a few changes that we will make next time. (I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting on it. ) Thank you to Teddy's parents for helping with the snacks and to Piper's dad for helping to measure and time. Thank you to Parth's mom, Lauryn's mom, Teddy's parents, Piper's dad, Bennett's mom and Aiko's mom for stopping by. It's been wonderful building a relationship with the Johnson Control's volunteers and one of them hoped that this experience might encourage some students to become engineers. This has truly been a STEAM experience for all of us! Later, we processed the entire experience and the celebration. It seemed that the students had a positive view about the unit and most enjoyed the celebration. What impressed me the most was their enthusiasm, how often they said that even when things were difficult, their team helped them to persevere and keep going, that they enjoyed working in teams or getting to know other people better. One student said it was the best unit that she's ever experienced in school. They also talked about growth mindset in many ways. I couldn't be more proud!
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| Liam shares his science fair poster! Most of sharing was done during math class as it was the only time for Mrs. Malloy's Rookies to share since our science time was used for "AWorld In Motion." |
In Reading this week, students watched a few very short videos, one in Mandarin (with subtitles) before reading the accompanying Scholastic News. Mrs. Malloy also continued to teach both reading and writing in Social Studies every day that we switched for science and social studies.
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| Tyndall rings the chime during our Mindfulness lesson with Ms. Janet. |
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| Jesse leads us in Mindfulness. |
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| Matthew shares about his trip to Florida and one of his souvenirs. |
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| Brain Break! |
Special Notes and Friendly Reminders for Parents
1. Thursday bags are due by Monday.
2. Please turn in the Reading Log (totaled) by Monday, February 29th. If your child misplaces his/her reading log, s/he can write the information on a piece of paper.
3. Important Math Fact information: Xtramath 3 times or fact packet due Mon.
4. Quote or Precept due for Empathy (March) if your child hasn't signed up yet.
5. Please sign up for Spring Conferences on March 10th and 11th. (Please click on "Spring 2016 Conference Schedule" and my name.) All other teachers that have an online sign-up are also posted on this page. Thank you to John Stanco for this!
6. Trash-Free Tuesday is on February 23rd and all Tuesdays. :)
7. Science Fair is Wednesday, March 2 from 6:30-7:30 pm. You are welcome to see the third grade posters (all students have shared these in class) and the 5th and 6th grade projects. Since our "A World of Motion" finished last Friday and there are only two days before we would have to hang up posters, all four classes, are not creating posters for the science fair. The teachers decided that to try to create posters in two days wouldn't encourage high quality work. We realized that our planned schedule was overly ambitious so next time, we'll start a lot earlier! Thank you for understanding!
8. Rookie science fair posters: If you visit the science fair on Wed., March 2nd, please leave your child's third grade poster (even if another letter stated differently.) Since we just finished "A World of Motion", I haven't had an opportunity to assess them yet and will do that next week. Thank you!
9. Due to science fair, cold lunchers will eat in the classroom on Wed. , March 2nd. Some students like to know this ahead of time. :)
Important Dates
Monday, February 29th: reading log, Xtramath or fact packet and reading log due, last BOB competition
Tuesday, March 1st: band lessons
Wednesday,March 2nd; Adv. Orchestra rehearsal at lunch (Julia), science fair 6:30-7:30 pm. Rookies: please leave posters hanging up, cold lunchers eat in classroom
Thursday, March 3rd; orchestra lessons and lunch rehearsal
Friday, March 4th; No School for students-Record keeping for progress reports and planning day for teachers
Monday, March 7th-Thurs. bag, reading log and fact practice or Xtramath due
Tuesday, March 8th: band lessons, "No Trash Tuesday"
Wednesday, March 9th: cold lunchers eat in room again today, Adv. orchestra lunch practice (Julia), Riveredge Nature Center perm. slip due
Thursday, March 10th: No School for students-Conferences begin at 12:30 pm
Friday, March 11th: No School for students-Conferences begin at 7:30 am
What a beautiful day! Miya had a semi-dress rehearsal for her dance competitions today-they start next week! I took a relaxing walk while waiting for her.
Thank you,
Deb
