Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
The Puffins New Rug
Instructional Updates
Pre-K/ K students have been enjoying the stories and beautiful illustrations of author/illustrator Jan Brett. Brett’s stories The Hat and The Mitten lend themselves story re-telling, a favorite activity with Pre-k/ K students. Story re-telling is an important foundational skill for young readers, it promotes story comprehension and helps students develop expressive vocabulary. Students are also developing sequencing skills as they work to explain and retell the events of a story in the order they read them.
In Eureka math, Pre-K and K students have been identifying 3-D shapes as having “curves” or “no- curves”, as well as sorting shapes by similar features. While K mathematicians explore concepts in geometry, the fluency goal throughout module 2 will be to maintain and further develop number concepts to 10.
On Friday the 13th, while K-8 was away at the Grand, Pre-K joined the Puffins for a scavenger hunt around the empty school to find that rascally gingerbread man! Kindergarteners enjoyed seeing our beloved Ms. Philips on stage at the Grand on Friday during the performance and were so excited to greet her after the show concluded.
1-2 Writing- This week, first and second graders have continued working on narrative writing. We worked on adding details to a story to make it more interesting and putting events in the correct order to make a story. We are also focusing on a spelling pattern each week to strengthen our spelling skills.
1-2 Reading- Students in the first and second-grade class are continuing to build their reading skills by working on specific strategies while reading. We have broken words up into parts to chunk longer words so they are easier to read. We are building automaticity in this skill to be able to work on these longer, more difficult words independently.
1-2 Math- Our first-grade mathematicians have continued working on addition and subtraction sentences. They are studying how when thinking about addition, they can simultaneously think about subtraction, as it is the same numbers, just in a different order, as long as they keep in mind which number the “whole” is (3+5=8, therefore 8-5=3). Second-grade mathematicians have continued working on place value within hundreds. They know that any number in the hundreds has three digits and that there is a hundreds place, tens place, and ones place. Along with this, they have been working on how the number 423 has 4 hundreds, 2 tens, and 3 ones.
3/4 Students continue work and discussions around character development as it relates to Wilber in Charlotte’s Web. They also worked on a leveled book entitled Brave and the Fox about an Inuit girl who has to face elements caused by climate change and overcome the struggles. Students performed well on their spelling tests.
5/6 Students continued the first part of Bud, Not Buddy as a group. We also focused on various figurative language and idioms. Students are encouraged to read the text at their own pace and write a summary (gist) of each chapter as they read. Classwork is focused on interpreting the text.
7/8 Students are required to read each chapter of The Disappearing Spoon…….” and write a summary (gist) for each chapter. They have also been individually focusing on one element within the text, doing outside research, preparing a presentation and 3-D model of the element they are researching.
This week the students worked on editing and typing stories they wrote about how seeds can be dispersed. They have been learning about the parts of a plant and how those parts can vary between species. These concepts will help the students understand how a variation in biological allows different species to be adapted to survive in their environment.
This week the class finished their unit on the Industrial Revolution by writing about how industrialization impacts their lives today and imagining how things would have been different if industrialization had not happened. They also began learning about why the earth has seasons. We started by examining common misconceptions they and others have about seasons. Many students were surprised to learn that the earth’s distance from the sun does not impact temperature or seasons on earth.
This week the 7/8 scientists began their chemistry unit with a practice lab in which they needed to measure and mix different colored water precisely in an attempt to end up with 6 test tubes with exactly the correct amounts and colors of water. As they do more lab activities in the weeks to come, the lab safety expectations that we discussed after this lab will be put into practice. The students also examined the periodic table and practiced finding information on it by playing Periodic Table Battleship.
3/4 Math: 3rd-grade mathematicians reviewed rounding, addition, and subtraction this week. These are topics they had learned earlier this year while working as a full group with the fourth graders, and they showed strong skills in these areas. 4th-grade mathematicians learned how to multiply one-digit by up to 4 digits this week. They did a great job applying this to word problems as well.
5/6 Math: 5th-grade mathematicians continued their work with long division and succeeded at dividing with decimals, as well. There were some challenges with thinking conceptually about division with decimals by using their place value understanding before doing the long division. Students demonstrated a willingness to work on these interesting problems as well as a strong place value understanding. 6th-grade mathematicians used what they have recently learned about division of fractions to both multiply and divide decimals. They took on these large, complex problems with gusto!
7/8 Math: 7th-grade mathematicians began the transition into the marvelous world of algebra this week! They did an excellent job shifting their way of thinking about real-world problems from solving them arithmetically to using variables and equations to solve them algebraically. Students worked on writing equivalent expressions, using the distributive property, and writing and solving equations. 8th-grade mathematicians continued their geometry explorations with dilations on the coordinate plane. They then connected that to the concept of similarity and learned about the Angle-Angle Criterion for similar triangles.
PTF News
Thank you
- The PTF put on an awesome Craft Show again last weekend. We are sending out a HUGE thank you to Santa and Mrs. Clause for making such a long journey and for hanging out with us for so long! Thank you to all the volunteers that helped set-up the gym. Thanks to Mr. Ensworth, the eight-grade class and the Carson’s for making and selling delicious food for the show. Last but not least thanks to the amazing crafters and shoppers in this community, it was a great show.
- Thank you to Healthy Peninsula for providing some of our fresh veggies for the backpack program and thank you to our dedicated group of volunteers that pack all the bags and help organize such an essential program.
Upcoming Events:
- Friday, January 3rd @ 7:30 AM Coffee Social. Come have a cup of coffee and a snack.
- TONIGHT at the holiday concert the PTF will be providing food and drinks. So come at 5:30pm to have some snacks before the performance. We can’t wait to see you!
Warm Clothes Swap
There are still plenty of warm clothes on the rack in the front entrance of the school. Please search through and take some warm items or drop off things that your family has outgrown. This has been an extremely valuable resource and thank you to everyone that has dropped off clothes!
December
12/19 5:00 PM ½ grade meet and greet with long-term sub
5:30 PM Open House
6:00 PM Winter Concert
12/20 Classroom Celebrations
3-4:00 PM Pre-K/K Pee Wee Practice
12/22 3-4:15 PM Voluntary Practice for Boys and Girls
12/23—1/1 Holiday Break—NO School
12/23 3-4:15 PM Voluntary Practice for Boys and Girls
12/26 3-4:15 PM Voluntary Practice for Boys and Girls
12/30 3-4:15 PM Voluntary Practice for Boys and Girls
January
1/2 Back to School
3-4:30 PM Girls Practice
4:30-6 PM Boys Practice
1/3 3-4:00 PM Pre-K/K Pee Wee Practice
1/5 3-4:15 PM Voluntary Practice for Boys and Girls
1/6 3-4:00 PM Grades 1/2 Pee Wee Practice
3-4:00 PM Boys B Team Practice
4-5:30 PM Boys and Girls Combined Practice
1/7 3-4:00 PM Grades 1/2 Pee Wee Practice
3-4:00 PM Boys B Team Practice
4-5:30 PM Boys and Girls Combined Practice
1/8 4:00 PM Home game vs Sedgwick
1/9 3-4:30 PM Girls Practice
4:30-6 PM Boys Practice
1/10 3-4:00 PM Pre-K/K Pee Wee Practice
1/12 3-4:15 PM Voluntary Practice for Boys and Girls
