Dear Families,
This is one of my favorite weeks of the year, as we give extra thanks for everything and everyone we have. I am thankful to be part of this community with all of you and to be a guide in the learning of your children. I am thankful for all of your support both in the classroom and at home. I am thankful to see 25 smiling students every week whose future and potential have no limits! To celebrate all we have as a class, we will be having a “Salad-bration” on Wednesday during lunchtime. The salabration will reflect the diversity that is the theme of our Immigration unit, and will mix many unique topping flavors, each of which will contribute to the masterpiece of a chef’s salad. This past Friday students signed up for which topping they may be able to bring. I will be providing the greens for the event. The Salad Bar will be open in the classroom to supplement lunches 12:40-1:10, and all families that can make it are invited to join! Attached is a list of who signed up for what. Part of our Immigration unit will also take us on our next field trip! On December 16 we will be walking to a naturalization ceremony at the U.S. District Courthouse, leaving at 10:15am and returning near 12:45pm. Please find attached the permission form to sign and return. Due to limited space at the event site, only the first 5 forms turned in with ‘yes’ marked for chaperone will be asked to join us for the event. Please read this form carefully as additional important information is included because of the location. Last week the whole class had a special lesson on aggressors, victims, and bystanders, and we recognized together that as a team, there’s no place for this in our classroom and that if it happens they are to tell me or Ms. Dene. We always strive to build and maintain safe and peaceful relationships and communities around us by looking out for individuals and standing up for what is right. I wanted to send a big thank you to the families that donated books at the book fair or items from the “Small Hands” giving tree. I was asked about other items that may enhance Room 223 which compelled me to create a wishlist to assist anyone that may be in a place to provide donations. The web link to the wishlist is on our class website and is as follows: http://amzn.com/sl/31GK6OHG6RBEB. Your ongoing support is amazing. Although we have a short week this week, we will continue into our curriculum, spending a little extra time on science in addition to math lessons, further cultural studies on Immigration, multiplication practice and daily writing prompts. Additionally, we will expand our self-directed reading choices from fiction boxes to include SRA’s and Research Labs. These develop reading comprehension and vocabulary through non-fiction and science readings rather than just fiction. If I don’t see you Wednesday for the salabration, I hope you all have a safe, wonderful, and memorable holiday weekend!
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Dear Families,
I hope you all had a great Veteran’s Day 3-day weekend! I spent part of the weekend in search of a moose, but to no avail. Now we are back to a full week of school, although I will be absent for training on Friday. I am confident that our class will continue to show kindness and respect to guest teachers in our classroom and throughout the school. This week we will be working through math using both materials as well as GoMath, continuing explorations in multiplication, division, geometry, and now fractions for some. In reading we will truly finish up our study on “character” before beginning our study on “setting”. In science we will begin work in our ASD science kit by exploring the relationship between force, speed, and energy. As always I am calling out for volunteers to share their life experiences and expertise with our class. This week we will have a parent share their personal experience with immigration as part of our cultural studies unit. Your voices are invaluable and powerful agents in the hearts and minds of our children, thank you for all you do! Dear Families,
I wanted to say that last week was awesome and made possible only by the support of you all! We had a successful salmon dissection (the envy of the upstairs) that was educational, safe, and surprisingly not-to-messy. That being said, I hope this summer when you all go fishing, students can point out many of the different anatomical parts of these amazing fish, passing along their knowledge. Last week we also embarked on a field trip to the Performing Arts Center to see The Lighting Thief. Although the production garnished mixed reviews from the class, it provided a unique way to experience the community and further explore literary elements of stories. Through your continued support, we will continue to benefit from such hands on, real life, and relevant lessons. This week’s schedule is a bit less busy while also being a bit shorter. In honor of those who have served our Nation in the armed forces, there is no class on Friday, Veteran’s Day. Thank to you the families in our class and country that have made it all possible, (including the right to vote on Tuesday!). The four school days we do have this week will be used to begin our look at Immigration (19th Century through today), Homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled different and mean different things), Setting (time and location of a narrative). We will continue our informal read aloud, Made of Salmon: Alaska Stories form The Salmon Project, although this week we will wrap up our science unit on salmon before beginning our STEM unit on energy, electricity & computer science. As a reminder, our class has a website (listed at bottom of this page) where newsletters and homework descriptions are posted just in case a homework packet doesn’t make it home on a Monday. For now, get out your Snow-dance moves… It looks like it’s coming! Dear Families,
I hope you and your family had a great weekend together! Our families are the foundations upon which we build our understanding of peace and compassion upon. You are all wonderful. I say that after what proved to be an amazing week of parent teacher conferences! I am so excited about our community, the support we have for one another, and our eagerness to continue our progress as socially responsible life-long learners! This is going to be a busy week here in Room 223! Monday we will begin our weekly routine of different explorations including skyscrapers, graphic organizers, fiction boxes, x50’s (multiplication practice), writing prompts, and our daily world-map. Additionally we will be continuing our parts-of-speech study by analyzing “conjunctions”. In reading and writing we will begin our study of different literary elements, beginning with “character”. In math, 4th years will begin multiplying by 10’s and estimating products. Fifth years will be starting long division by exploring a Montessori material called “test tube division”. Sixth years will continue multiplying and dividing decimals and may begin working with fractions. In cultural studies we will be finishing up the Industrial Revolution before moving on to Immigration for much of the rest of the quarter. This unit will not only examine the historical impacts of immigration on our nation and world, but will also explore the ongoing story of immigration in today’s context. Every relevant topic is made much more meaningful when connected to our own lives. As such, if you have a personal story of immigration that you could share with our class, it would be an invaluable opportunity for our students to connect a concept to their heart and mind. Please let me know! Another real life experience this week is our salmon dissection in class Tuesday afternoon. Thank you to the parent volunteers for making this possible! That appreciation also goes to those of you chaperoning for our field trip Thursday morning to the Performing Arts Center! You make success possible! That being said, please make sure children are dressed appropriately for a walking field trip Thursday morning. If you have any questions about parent teacher conferences there is always a very open door policy for you to stop in before, during, or after school to chat. It goes without saying you may also call, text, or email to follow up with any praises, questions, or concerns about your child’s happiness and success! Dear Families,
What a wonderful winter wonderland we had this weekend! I hope you all had fun and stayed safe playing in the nature glitter! I’m so excited winter is back! Unfortunately it looks like rain should be here to take it away by Wednesday. Speaking of Wednesday, for most of you, that is when Parent Teacher Conferences begin. The deadline to schedule online is Tuesday by the end of the school day after which time you may schedule through the office. As previously mentioned, if the available times do not work for you, please contact me so we may arrange a schedule that works for both of us! Due to conferences, this Wednesday and Thursday students are dismissed from school at 12:30pm. Friday is an in-service day so there is no school for students. It’s also Red Ribbon Week and a spirit week: Monday is PJ Day, Tuesday is dress like Mr. Eddie Day, Wednesday is Superhero Day, and Thursday is Wear Red Day for Red Ribbon Week. Although there are no classes on Friday, Denali Montessori is hosting a fall carnival that evening. The spooky and fun-filled annual fundraiser put on by our PTSA includes food trucks, carnival games, door prizes and costumes for all! Our class is hosting a fishing-for-prizes booth and will need students to volunteer for 30 minute time slots. The carnival is 6:30 – 8pm. In class this week, due to the short days, we won’t be doing spelling, skyscrapers, new grammar lessons, or map of the week. However, we will be starting a new weekly reading comprehension work called “graphic organizers”. These worksheets practice isolating important parts of text and organizing them in a visual manner helpful to the reader. We’ll also begin a “map of the month” that students will be working on over the course of the quarter. Additionally, we’ll have some computer lab time, explore the different elements of a story, begin doing morning writing prompts, and continue studying salmon in science. Ah yes, salmon in science…next Tuesday, November 1st, we will be dissecting pink salmon in the afternoon. A retired ADF&G salmon biologist, Greg Molyneaux, will be leading the dissection, but we’d really love a few parents to volunteer to help with the preparation, safe dissection, and clean-up. Let me know at conferences or by email if you can be part of this awesome exploration! One last thing: Thursday we are going to do a classroom read-in all morning. This is a time for students to read simply for the pleasure of reading. Students may bring a pillow and blanket/sleeping bag, a stuffed animal, a cup/mug for caffeine-free tea, and at least one at-level chapter book. Graphic novels will only be allowed for 30 minutes. At the end of the morning students will note in their reading journal different elements of their story (plot, setting, etc.). There is a book fair at school this week if you’re looking for new reading material. I am excited to see you all this week to celebrate success and set goals for progress! Keeping in mind we only have 20 minutes maximum per conference, if you have any major concerns we can always schedule an additional meeting for a later time. Dear Families,
I hope you had a great weekend and are ready for a short week! Yes, Friday is a report card day for teachers and thus there is no school for students. That means this is the last week of the quarter and students need to make sure they have everything in. Ask your child if they are caught up on Skyscrapers, Fiction Box reading, Pronoun and Adverb work, Industrial Revolution work, and their Math. Some students are finding themselves falling behind as they socialize. I thank you for your help in stressing the importance of work sessions as a time to develop our knowledge and understanding. This week we will have some extra time to finish up work that is missing but will continue in our math groups, working with Montessori materials as well as a few items from GoMath. In language we will tackle prepositions and continue with our reading partners on Industrial Revolution books. In science we are working with 3-part cards as we study salmon. I am hoping to arrange a guest speaker on this topic in the coming weeks. If you are an expert on salmon and would like to share, please let me know! Have a story to tell of salmon? Come on in! Tuesday the 18th is Alaska Day and Monday next week is PJ day (wear PJ’s to school). If you have not already signed up for parent teacher conferences please do so online at http://www.asdk12.org/parents/conferences/ Don’t forget to select grade level as “mix”. If you feel that you cannot make it for these times, please contact me so we can try to arrange something that will work for both of us. Students are invited and encouraged to be part of this meeting, though it is not necessary depending on your own personal preferences and availabilities. Dear Families,
Another awesome autumn is upon us! This week our fine State has summoned me to serve as a trial juror and I have a pretty low service number meaning, odds are, I will be selected (or by the time you have read this, have already been selected). Apparently I can only defer so many times. Alas, I have arranged for Mr. Mason to be our guest teacher in the event of my absence. Mr. Mason was a student teacher with Ms. Rily and a long-term substitute for Mrs. Hundrup last year and is a part of our culture here at Denali Montessori; I am excited to have him in our classroom this week. Just around the corner is the end of first quarter which means parent teacher conferences! I am so excited to discuss the progress of your children over the past quarter and eager to hear more about how things are going on your side of their education. This is a time to celebrate achievements and reflect upon goals and progress. If you have any concerns or a desire to talk in length, you are always welcome to schedule an additional and/or separate time for before or after school. Of course, invitations always stand for any families to visit the classroom while we are learning if you would like to see us in action! For information on parent teacher conferences go online to http://www.asdk12.org/parents/conferences/ . To locate a good time for you, make sure you select “mix” for grade of student. I have made my schedule available Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, as well as Thursday morning. If you feel that you cannot make it for these times, please contact me so we can try to arrange something that will work for both of us. Students are invited and encouraged to be part of this meeting, though it is not necessary depending on your own personal preferences and availabilities. This week we are excited to be studying salmon more and begin transitioning our bulletin board into a giant cycle of life! We are also continuing our study of the industrial revolution and will begin doing some small group reading and reflections on some ASD provided texts regarding the topic. In math we are continuing in our math groups with assignments nearly every day. Many projects we complete in the class span a week or more meaning time management is important to ensure math is kept up on. Checking in with students each evening asking if they finished their math for the day is a good step towards enforcing accountability. Next week and the week thereafter we will begin working in even more groups to provide “Response to Intervention” (RTI) opportunities. RTI is based upon the AIMSweb testing we did last month; results and plans will be discussed at conferences. We are also excited to announce a new pen pal project with a 5th grade class in Kwethluk, Alaska, (just upstream of Bethel). Although students will still occasionally have a homework assignment to write the pen pal that they picked at the beginning of the year, I couldn’t resist the invitation to share and learn with children on the other side of Alaska as well. Our Kwethluk pen pals will be class-work instead of homework. Sincerely, Mr. Brent Dear Families,
I wanted to thank everyone ahead of time for your help in making the field trip to the salmon hatchery a success! This experience is to allow the class to tour the facility, learn about one of the most amazing resources in our great state, and collected enough eggs to study the first chapter in the salmon’s story throughout the coming school year. What fun! The next field trip is in a month and is to our Performing Arts Center (PAC) downtown. This walking field trip is Thursday, November 3, and is to watch a live production of the Lightning Thief, an adaptation of the young adult novel of the same name based on Greek Mythology. Experiences at the Performing Arts Center like these allow our students an opportunity to see an age appropriate stage drama on our city’s premier stage! As the casts are professional actresses and actors at the PAC, there is an $8 fee per student and per chaperone. This fee can be paid online or sent in with the permission slip (please indicate your method). As always, donations are asked for to provide scholarships for families unable to cover the costs. As winter is coming perhaps quicker than you may desire, it is a good time to remind everyone that indoor shoes are necessary for our classroom and PE. These shoes need to be different then the shoes worn outside. This is especially important on snow days, to avoid tracking snow around the carpet that we sit upon and lay out our Montessori materials. Children that do not have shoes to change into when entering the classroom will be asked to borrow a pair from PE (in case of evacuation drills and for hygienic purposes, footwear must be worn at all times). In class this week we will hopefully finish up our read aloud book based on the industrial revolution, A Bandit’s Tale, and begin reading passages from the newly published book, Made of Salmon: Alaska Stories from the Salmon Project, edited by Nancy Lord. Our ASD science kit on circuits and pathways will be pushed down the line to allow for a few weeks of close examination of salmon as we begin growing baby salmon in our fish tank. Thus, salmon will be integrated into language and other parts of our coursework in addition to science. I love salmon! This Thursday we will also have a master gardener, Cindy Helmericks, as a guest speaker to discuss plant hardiness in colder climates as well as go over specific care for the growing plant collection in our room that students are tasked with keeping alive and strong. This week in math we will continue our studies in what are now grade level math groups. Sixth graders will be focusing on 2-digit divisors, prime factors, LCM and GCF as well as surface area in geometry. Fifth graders are exploring 2-digit multipliers, place values, and algebraic properties as well as plots and graphing in geometry. Fourth graders will continue working with place values, multi-digit addition and subtraction, and properties of 2-dimential figures in geometry. I am excited to have math going full steam but as you can see, there is a lot to do. It is vital that each child make full use of their work session to maximize their potential. Families can help support this dedication by discussing different assignments completed each day, viewing and discussing the “Assignment Tracker” each student is required to maintain, and helping children stay accountable to their progress. Thank you all for you commitment and encouragement! Sincerely, Mr. Brent Dear Families,
Another full week ahead for us! After a successful caribou hunt last week I am excited for what is coming up this week. First though, thank you to all those that volunteered or stopped by the carwash/bake sale over the weekend. It was a huge success! I will keep you posted on future fundraising opportunities. Also, we have three families already that joined the PTSA meeting last week. I am so proud and thankful for such involved families! This Thursday is our school’s open house and is a chance for families to come upstairs and see the classroom and some of the things the students work on regularly as well as currently. I am excited to see all of you there! Until then, our class will continue our work with adjectives as will begin also studying prefixes and root words with our skyscrapers. This language and grammar study has become a normal part of our routine and work sessions. In cultural studies we have a collection of books on the industrial revolution from which students choose to write a paragraph about. This boom in technology will tie in nicely when we begin our ASD provided science kit that explores computer systems. For now, our science continues to look at different ways to identify the leaves that are beginning to fall. We’ll take a look at some leaves outside as well as some mixed salad greens to practice our naturalist eyes. In math most of the class is concentrating on place values and surface area. This week we will continue to diversify our math studies. A short a sweet letter this week as I’m sure we will chat more come Thursday at open house! Sincerely, Mr. Brent Dear Families,
What another glorious sunny weekend we had! There’s no denying autumn is in the air though, with more crisp and chilly mornings and smells of biodegrading plant matter filling the forest. I love the change of seasons! This also signals our readiness to finish getting into the thick of opportunities in class. We’ll be forming math groups this week and will begin exploring geometry concepts twice a week in addition to our normal operational and place value math. We’ll also be practicing our multiplication, division, or fractions on an individual basis throughout each week, finishing with a progress check on Fridays. This week we’ll also be conducting our AIMSweb assessments. If you are not familiar with these, they are short assessments (less than 10 minutes) that measure math concepts and application, computation, and reading. They are great tools to measure progress and this week’s assessments will provide a starting place for the year ahead. Speaking of the year ahead, each May our 6th graders do a field trip with Kenai Fjords Tours to explore some of the fascinating science in Resurrection Bay, from zooplankton to water turbidity. This unique experience is funded by each participating student where possible and by scholarships for those unable to cover the costs. Scholarship funds are generated through donations as well as different fundraisers throughout the year. That being said, our first fundraiser is this Saturday morning, September 17. Volunteers, especially students, are needed to make this a success. A sign-up sheet went home with students on Thursday. Please let me know if you and/or your child(ren) can help for an hour or more. This is a great way to contribute towards our Denali community. It is expected that each family contributes 40 volunteer hours per school year. Another great way to get involved and help out our school is through the PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Association). Our first meeting of the year is this Wednesday from 5:30 – 7pm and includes a potluck, childcare, and a meet and greet! I’ll be there as well! I could also use help preparing, copying, building, and/or fixing materials, supplies, etc. in the classroom. Additionally, field trip chaperoning and driving is another great way to contribute (which by the way, the office also needs proof of insurance, driver’s license if these are your plans. These can be photographed/emailed, faxed, or you can stop by to have them copied). I really do appreciate all your help and involvement with our class and school. I believe the greater our partnership, the greater opportunities of success will be afforded to our children. This Friday (Constitution Day) I will be sneaking out of town to (hopefully) harvest a caribou north of the Lake Louise area near Glennallen. We will have Mr. Mason as our substitute. Before this we will go over sub expectations as a class to make sure we are all on the same page. Finally I wanted to share with you a project I put together through “Donor’s Choose” in hopes of bringing additional chances to grow life in our classroom. Chevron is granting $100k to Anchorage teachers for STEM projects like this so there is a high likelihood they will fund our entire request (so don’t donate yourself just yet). Click here for the project. Sincerely, Mr. Brent |