Peregrine Press

September 29-October 3^rd

 

This Week:

Monday: Running Club in the morning

Tuesday: Teambuilding with Laura (Our new Out and About Teacher)

Wednesday: Demonstration on fiber arts (weaving and knitting); PE; Celebrations of Learning 5:00-6:30 (This is an open house for the community to check out our school and see what kinds of things we do here.)

Thursday: Art

Friday: Colonial Day (costumes, food and tea)

 

*Quick reminder about homework: EVERYONE needs to take the homework folder home on Monday and then turn it in on Friday.  I want EVERY student to get into the routine of keeping a log of what they do at home that could be helping them work toward a goal, even if it is not assigned homework.  This week I still had 10 students not turn their homework in on Friday. 

 

We will be starting our grade level math this week on Monday.  Gretchen will be teaching all the 4^th graders, I will teach the 5^th graders and Charlie will teach the 6^th graders. 

 

Colonial Life

This week we will be completing our Colonial Unit.  The students will be finishing final drafts of their journals as well as a booklet they made that includes maps of the colonies and a timeline of the major events that led to the American Revolution.  The culmination of the unit will be the Colonial Day on Friday.  Students are encouraged to dress in some sort of colonial attire.

 

Many students have expressed interest in bringing foods that are "colonial" in origin.  I am happy to serve food, but I would like to get confirmation on what people will be bringing.  It would be helpful if you could email me what your child plans to bring so that I will have the appropriate utensils.  I have requested that nothing be brought in that requires a bowl.  I will provide paper plates and silverware.  I also have 13 tea cups, but will need 12 more if anyone can bring in tea cups, please email me.  A permission slip will be sent home on Monday that you will need to sign letting me know that your child does or does not have permission to eat homemade goodies.  At this event students will have time to present some of their journal entries that they wrote that share what life was like for them in the colonial times.

 

Celebrations of Learning

The Celebrations of Learning on Wednesday evening will be an open house for the community and families.  Please come by and check out some of the things your children have been working on.  It is also a great time to check out other classrooms and see what they are working on.  I will be recruiting a couple of ambassadors to welcome people into our classroom for the evening.  Last year I had a few students that stood at the door and then welcomed people in and toured them through the room.  I would like the same for this year, so if you know that your child could do that, please let me know.

 

Last Week:

We had a really fun week!  Tuesday's trip to Abundant Harvest CSA was perfect!  The students were very well behaved and learned all about Community Supported Agriculture.  We were able to harvest a ton of cherry tomatoes which turned out to be the best part of the trip for most kids.  It was beautiful to see them all smiling and having such a great time while they were "working."  On Thursday as a follow up we were able to make some very tasty salsa in class.  We also had two great presentations on food preservation techniques that were used in colonial times and are still used today.  These kinds of learning opportunities are so great because the students really get their hands dirty and it becomes much more meaningful.

We spent some time working on a timeline that shows the events that led to the American Revolution.  We also had some interesting discussions about rights and responsibilities as citizens and students. 

 

Upcoming Events:

Sunday October 5^th: I run my very first full marathon in Portland with Gretchen so wish us luck and a sick free week!

Tuesday October 7^th: Visit the Election Office in Beaverton (I will need 2 more parent volunteers if anyone is interested.  It will be from 9:00-1:30.)

Wednesday October 8^th and Thursday October 9^th: Goal Setting Conferences (more details later)

No School October 8^th, 9^th and 10th

Monday October 13^th: AT Smith House Solv Project

 

Newsletter

Here is the newsletter for this week. Remember, they will be posted on the school website on Sunday nights, or Monday mornings.  If you have any questions please let me know.

Peregrine Press

September 22-26

 

Schedule for the Week:

Monday: Running Club

Tuesday: Out and About to Abundant Harvest at Dos Sequoias Farm

Wednesday: PE

Thursday: Art; Food Preservation Demonstration and Activities

Friday: Early Release 1:05

 

Work at Home AKA "Homework"

Many students forgot their homework this week but it was the first week so we will let it slide this once. J

Students will bring home a homework folder every Monday and it needs to be returned every Friday. I have a log for each student that they fill out as the week goes on.

Even those students without regular homework should get into the routine of keeping a log of what they do at home that could be working towards their goals.  Some examples could be if they go to a sport practice, they practice an instrument, read at night, or keep a journal at home.  These first few weeks the homework will be a bit different for some students and in particular the 5^th grade math may be challenging.  I just want the students to do their best and not stress out if they don't understand everything.  Like I have said before, these first few weeks with homework are more to get used to the routine.

 

Last Week:

Last week we spent some time drawing maps of the 13 original colonies.  They were broken up into the New England Colonies, the Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies.  As a follow up, maybe ask your child if they could share something they learned about the geography of the colonies or the names of the colonies.

We also were fortunate enough to have two different presentations.  We had a parent come in and demonstrate how to make soap.  The students really enjoyed holding and smelling the different soaps and it posed some interesting questions about how soap was made in colonial times.  The other presentation was through the Mobile Museum on the  Atfalati Native Americans that lived here during the time of the American Revolution (and much earlier as well.)  The presentation included some great artifacts that the students were able to try on and use, such as animal furs, and a mortar and pestle.

**We met our new Out and About Coordinator, Laura.  She is joining us from Michigan and we are very excited to start working with her in the upcoming weeks.  We are lucky enough to have her join us this week on our trip to the farm!

 

Focus for the Week:

This week we will focus on the American Revolution and some important events and people involved.  The other main focus will be about farming and food preservation. The connection to local and seasonal food is a nice way for students to learn about their "place" and connect it to history.  With such a strong focus on living sustainably this is a natural connection to colonial times because so many of the food preservation techniques were started at that time.

We will start spelling words this week.  Half of the list will be content based words so they are related to what we are learning.  The rest of the list will be words that students have spelled wrong in their other writing works, which will be individualized to some degree.

 

The recess play yard is not turning out to be big enough for three classes so we will be going to Central School a couple of times a week.  We are just going to have to be very creative and careful when we are playing in our play yard.

 

*If you have not already done so, please sign the permission slip for B Street Farm and send them in with your child.

 

RE: Weekly Newsletter

Hi Veronica,
 
I would be happy to go with you on the farm trip. 

Thanks,
Amy

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Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:10:28 -0700
From: dolbyv@gmail.com
To: v.dolby@fgcschool.org; dolbyv.peregrinefalcons@blogger.com; hayesgray@verizon.net; lindsley@easystreet.net; ktorry@msn.com
Subject: Weekly Newsletter

Hello Peregrine Falcon Families,
    Here is the first newsletter for the year.  This year I am using Word, so I hope that people will be able to open the attachment.  If you are not able to open it, please let me know.  (Also, if you would like a hard copy, let me know.)  I will be posting all of these newsletters, and other important updates on the class blog that you can access off of the school webpage.  Click on "classroom info" and you will see an option to click on my blog.  Many times last year I would send out a newsletter and then an hour later I would think of something else to add, so please don't be surprised if that happens this year as well. :-)
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  It was a bit hot for me, but I shouldn't complain with the rain coming soon.
Thanks,
Veronica

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Newsletter Sept. 15-19

Peregrine Press

September 15-19

Important Dates:

Monday: Running Club in the morning (bring a water bottle and tennis shoes)

Tuesday: In and About

Wednesday: P.E. (bring a water bottle and tennis shoes)

Thursday: Mobile Museum Presentation on the Atfalati Native Americans

Friday: Picture Day

I would like to say that this first week of school was beautiful! I could easily think of a hundred things that were my favorite, but I would like to highlight two particular high points for me. One was when we were singing songs together. In particular I loved the enthusiasm of the class when we were learning the 13 Original Colonies song. The second major highlight of the week was Friday afternoon when we had Appreciation Day. Students were selected randomly to say something that they appreciated about a classmate. The students receiving the praise were blushing!

We have already begun our study of the colonial times. Each student chose a new colonial “character” out of a hat. They will be developing this character as they learn about what life was really like during the colonial times. This week the focus will be on the geography of the 13 colonies. The students will also continue their journal entries as they continue researching their new colonial characters.

We will also begin our Running Club at Central School where students will run/walk for 20 minutes and count their laps. When we return to school we will compile our data and find the mean, median, mode and range. There is an “totally awesome” rap titled “The Triple M R Rap” that helps teach what these things are. (As you can probably tell, we sing a lot of songs in this class!) I really like the way that running and math are integrated and it is really neat for the students to see that over time they are able to run more laps, or at least feel better when they are running, and they also really get used to data collection.

Lunch Suggestion

The students all know that they are welcome to use the microwave in the classroom, however, a very large line has formed every day this week which resulted in some students waiting more than 10 minutes to eat their lunch. Because our lunch time is only 20-25 minutes, that is a lot of time wasted in line. I would like to recommend that students don’t bring things to heat up EVERYDAY but maybe just once or twice a week. I would also like to have Fridays be a “no microwave day.” We will have two snack times on Fridays but I would encourage a simple sandwich or granola bar, yogurt etc. instead of things that require heating. If this is going to pose a problem please let me know. I would just rather see students sitting at the tables eating and socializing together, not waiting in line, boredJ.

Some upcoming events:

We will be going to Abundant Harvest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) at the Dos Sequoias Farm on September 23^rd. This will be to learn about how our food grows, and what our local and seasonal foods are as well. We would love to have 2 or 3 volunteers join us, so please email me if you are interested.

The class and I would also like to host a Colonial Tea Party with costumes to celebrate the unit coming to a close. We would like to do it October 3rd. Please let me know if you have tea cups and or costumes that could help create the right mood for the event.

Weekly Newsletter

Hello Peregrine Falcon Families,
    Here is the first newsletter for the year.  This year I am using Word, so I hope that people will be able to open the attachment.  If you are not able to open it, please let me know.  (Also, if you would like a hard copy, let me know.)  I will be posting all of these newsletters, and other important updates on the class blog that you can access off of the school webpage.  Click on "classroom info" and you will see an option to click on my blog.  Many times last year I would send out a newsletter and then an hour later I would think of something else to add, so please don't be surprised if that happens this year as well. :-)
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  It was a bit hot for me, but I shouldn't complain with the rain coming soon.
Thanks,
Veronica

Events for September 15-21

These are important events that I feel you all should know about. The weekday events are during school, and the weekend events are just fun!

Monday: Running Club (Students need to wear tennis shoes.)
Tuesday: In and About (Demonstration on candle making for Colonial Unit)
Wednesday: P.E. (Students need to wear tennis shoes.)
Thursday: Mobile Museum presentation of the Atfalati Native Americans; Art
Friday: Dismissal at 1:05
Saturday: Sidewalk Chart Art Festival
Sunday: Peace Day Event at McMenamins; Corn Roast