To start...
Peanut and Tree Nut Allergies
We have a new first grade child starting on Monday and she has a severe peanut and tree nut allergy. Thanks to many of you already for being mindful of allergies when packing your lunch. All of the students have met her and are aware of her allergies. We're going to be keeping peanuts and tree nuts out of our snack menu and if you could please help us keep the peanut/tree nut exposure to a minimum, we would really appreciate it. If you do send peanuts or tree nuts to school, could you please have a conversation with your child to help us raise awareness, we would appreciate that as well.
Building a fort at recess:)
What we're working on
We ended the week with a Bang! We told the Montessori Great Lessons - The Story of the Universe and Pangaea. The students drew pictures of volcanoes, the solar system, created models of Pangaea "All the Earth" and Panthalassa "The largest ocean in the Earth's history," and we did a experiment with our model volcano after the students shared their knowledge about the parts of a volcano. All the students are practicing their cursive - some are just practicing letters, others are writing stories. First graders are sewing pillows with all of the world's continents as well as finishing up their study of living and nonliving things. They are also studying compound words and what the symbols: > < = mean in math. Second graders are finishing up their study of volcanoes and practicing multiplication with exchanges using the stamp game. Third graders are finishing up their decanomial work - a multiplication work that contains 10 squares... They are also studying the 6 roles of the adjective. So far, they already know that adjectives describe nouns (i.e. funny, happy, green, big) but adjectives can count, too (i.e. 3 pencils, many dogs, a few tables). See if your third grader can figure out other roles of the adjective...
Horton Park on Wednesdays
Unfortunately, the weather hasn't been on our side the past couple of Wednesdays, so we haven't been able to go on our weekly trip to Horton Park. This coming Wednesday looks beautiful, so let's keep our fingers crossed. Each Wednesday we walk with buddies for about 7 blocks to Horton Park on Hamline and Minnehaha. It's a nice, large, green space to play organized games like ultimate frisbee and soccer or to just run around and create your own game. It works best if the students have good running shoes and appropriate clothing on those days. Once we get the hang of the weekly schedule, I'm hoping that the students will remind themselves to dress appropriately on those days. We're looking forward to our first trip!
Big Thanks!
A big, BIG thanks to Michael Winikoff and Ursula Hargens for volunteering to purchase such delicious snacks for us this month. The children love preparing and serving the food together and they do both so well.
And many thanks to Jennifer and Jonathan Taylor for taking care of our laundry. We use those wash cloths a lot, so it's so nice to have them handy. Your son is getting pretty strong from carrying that big bag of wash cloths each week!
Thanks to all of you for sending your children to school ready to learn after a good night's sleep and for being so consistent and patient with us during drop off and pick up.
As always, feel free to contact me if you ever have any comments, questions, or concerns.
Fondly,
Jessy
