Happy Friday!  Too much to tell, to wait for Monday. We are beginning our Commotion in the Ocean projects and show rehearsals. I sent home the poems to memorize on Thursday. I will be sending home your child's speaking parts next week. Please send in a clean white T-shirt to school ASAP. They will begin decorating them soon. The next four weeks will be fast and furious. This week is Celebrate the Arts with our performance Friday at 11:00 followed by a picnic lunch. Please enjoy all of the Art displayed throughout then entire campus. All divisions participate in the Celebration all week. The Upper Division will be performing The Music Man Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. We are going to the Dali Museum on Monday. Out tour begins at 10:00 and we will return to school after for lunch. I would like to send a very warm thank-you to everyone for making Teacher Appreciation Week one of the best ever! The breakfasts were a wonderful surprise each morning and lunch was a delightful treat. I even got Godiva chocolates and Edible Arrangements apple slices dipped in chocolate delivered. Thank you again, I feel tremendously appreciated.
The pictures show quite a bit going on this week. Have your child use an empty egg carton for Math. They can label it with numbers and use pennies as game pieces. Depending on the digits the pennies land on, will determine what 3 digit numbers they can make. Have them practice how many flats, longs and cubes they need to go along with the number or which coins they need to show that amount. We also had our Writing Celebration for Our Craft of Revision Unit. Purple was everywhere. They worked on changing the story leads, endings, spelling, sequence or added where more detail was needed. Next week we are back to our non fiction All about books, with our focus being dolphins. Each week our focus will change. We are also reading out of our nonfiction dolphin books. Have a great week. We will!

Happy Monday! Congratulations to Emmitt for helping Sr. Zamoff with Monday Town Meeting. He spoke beautiful Spanish. We also had a busy Relay for Life week. Our chain was so long. Thank-you for sending in coins to build our chain. The Kick Off was great and the Relay was so much fun.

In Math, we are still making polygons. This time, we used straw parts and pipe cleaners. We also did floor math and practiced Fact Triangles, In and Out Box and Number Collections. Danny from the Middle Division came and helped us practice money and coin combinations.

 In Readers workshop, we are reviewing fluency and expression before we return to nonfiction ocean animal reading. In Writer's Workshop, we have completed our Craft of Revision Unit and our published pieces are in the hall later this week for preview. Please help your child with spelling. If they ask, please tell them the correct spelling. We are no longer relying on invented spelling. They now know enough sight words and vowel rules to determine appropriate or correct spelling. In Science, we are beginning our ocean unit. This week we be a general introduction and overview.
Have a great week. We will!

Happy Friday/Monday depending on when you are reading this post. I would like to remind everyone to wear purple everyday all week. We are celebrating our Relay for Life event on Friday. Please come, it is great fun for all and very purposeful. We celebrated and remembered Mrs. Weinman this week and planted a beautiful garden. I will be collecting donation envelopes as well as continuing the link project for one more week.
I am sending home the unit 7 checking progress in Math. Please use this assessment to know which areas your child needs to practice. Our pictures are all about Polygons. We made them from straight pretzel sticks and gumdrops. Ask your child about them.
In Social Studies, we are continuing our work with Florida. We labelled the state, discussed and learned about mantees and alligators. What a wonderful experience I had, swimming with the manatees in Crystal River. They are giant!
In Writer's Workshop we are revising, rereading and adding to our stories.
Have a great week. We Will!

ful.

Happy Monday! We enjoyed Reading Week. Our Character Day was great. We have been working on creating our Character Maps, with many different stories. We had guest readers share their Lion Fish storybook and finished the week with Oldie Goldie. The highlight was reading outside with the entire Lower School community on Tuesday, when we dropped everything in our schedules to just "Read". In Writer's Workshop, we have spent a great deal of time learning how to conference with partners. What do we say and how do we give constructive suggestions without hurting feelings.

Please join us on Monday with our dedication of the playground and planting our flower garden for Mrs. Weinman. Don't forget to bring in a potted plant for the ceremony.
In Math, we have begun learning about the attributes shapes have. We have certain language when we are talking about the shape like color, corners, sides, and size. On Friday, we have also begun learning about Polygons. There are rules for a shape to be classified a polygon. Ask your child about why a shape is classified as a polygon. We will be making polygons on Tuesday using straight pretzels and gumdrops.
In Social Studies, we have begun our unit on Florida. We have talked about how Florida is in the south and which bodies of water surround it. We have also identified it as a peninsula.
To get ready for our Relay for Life event we will all be wearing purple the week of April 1st. Keep sending in loose change our chain is really getting long.
Have a great week. We will!

I hope you had a great week off for Spring Break. Here are some pictures from Field Day and the Mini Mester with the Upper Division students. They taught us a lot of things. We had a blast!

Please don't forget Character Day is the Monday we return. Please come dressed as your character and bring in the book.

Happy Monday! Well, here we are with another short week before Spring Break. Here are some pictures from the hot dog lunch. Thank you for participating in this important fundraiser. We have begun another fundraiser in the classroom. The students may bring in loose change to buy purple links. Every link will be added to our Relay for Life paper chain. The chain will be displayed at the event.
In celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday, we will focus on his characters this week. Your child will pick a story to bring home to write about the character from their book. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! I will be sending home books on Monday. Please return them by Thursday.
Reading Week will be celebrated the week of March 18th. We will start it off with Character Dress Up day on Monday March 18th. Please refer to the green sheet sent home.
In Writing Workshop we have learned how to plan out our revisions. We marked our writing with sticky notes and then will go back reread and revise areas that need attention.
We have Field Day on Thursday. I have posted your child's team color and they have been told. Please have your child wear that color shirt on Thursday. They will be given breaks and drinks as well so they will not need a snack sent to school on Thursday. Please make sure they have sunscreen on since we will be outside from 9:30-11:30 as well.
We are still working on the Patriotic symbols and have talked about The Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell and Mount Rushmore. I am also sending home Unit 6 Math Checking Progress along with Unit 7 Family Letter.
Please continue cleaning out old books and send them in for Oldie Goldie. Have a good week and Happy Spring Break!

Field Day Colors:

Gold/Yellow Team:

Rayce Welborne

Green Team:

Morgen Palmer

Blue Team:

Elise Hamblen

Red Team:

Jet Evans

Shae Martin

Black Team:

Emmitt Davis

Nicolas Hasbun

Kiera Healy

Davis Kennedy

Johnathon Levitz

Sofia Torres-Monclova

White Team:

Tiffany Beasley

Kate Rutledge

Happy Monday! Well, here we are at almost the end of February. We are concentrating on the United states of America, presidents and symbols. We have discussed George washington and Abraham Lincoln along with the White House so far. We are wrapping up our Solar System unit of study with presentations. Enjoy the pictures of the students presenting.
In Reading Workshop our focus work is on Characters. Please complete the reading journal work each week and return it to school on Monday since we use it in class as well. Which character is important to you and how do you think they are feeling are the questions asked in the Character Frame.
Now, I am encouraging the students to make book to book connections about which characters are similar. This week we are focusing on describing the character chosen.
We have begun the Craft of Revision unit in Writing Workshop. We have learned how to insert carrots as they did last year and add to the middle of our stories, with purple strips of paper. We use all purple pens to change spelling as well. We use Try Cards for them to practice how they think words are spelled and what is the actual standardized spelling. I just simply say those are the sounds you hear but when you see it in a book it looks like this. They are more conscientious about following the spelling patterns we have learned and copying words correctly from the Word Wall. I pulled out old stories they wrote in August and September to revise. They were shocked by their own work and how much they have improved with their writing skills since the beginning of the year.
In Math, we are working on computation and solving math facts. The quarter was also introduced and counting coins using quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. Please continue working on counting all coins at home. Please pay close attention to the Home Links to know which skills are practiced each day.
The Relay for Life hot dog luncheon is Thursday at 11:30 . Please come and support this event. Please turn in your reservation forms by Tuesday and WEAR PURPLE OR RELAY FOR LIFE T-SHIRTS.
Oldie Goldie book sale will be after Spring Break. We are collecting books now. Please send them in.
Have a great week. We will!

Have a great week. We will!