newsletter

Peregrine Press

June 1-5

   

 

 

Schedule

Monday: Trip to the Beach!  Please make sure that your child will be at the school by 8:35 because we are leaving at 8:45.  I will have my classroom back door open at 8:15 if some kids want to come even earlier.

Tuesday:  Science Fair 9:30-10:30 (This was an optional activity for Level 2 students.)

Wednesday: PE; Celebrations of Learning 5:00-6:30

Thursday: Fundraising Run! 10:00 at Lincoln Park; Art

Friday: No School, Grading Day

Saturday: Overnight Camping Trip

 

Last Week

We had a great week last week.  Our Out and About to Safeway was a success.  Students were well behaved and very respectful when they were hunting through the store for specific food items.  They compared the prices of lunch items for healthy foods and non-healthy foods.  Later they found the class average for the food item comparisons and found that it was less expensive to buy healthy foods!  That afternoon the students that wanted to presented their literacy projects.  There were a variety of  interesting presentations.

Wednesday we spent some time on the Forest Grove Grid Project blogging about the photos that had recently been taken by all the groups and responding to discussion questions.  I was happy to see so many students remembering what it means to be a good digital citizen.  They were respectful to each other and wrote thoughtful comments and responses.  We then had presenters come and share more information on Leave No Trace (an outdoor education program).  Laura and I felt very proud when the students were asked lots of different questions about how to respect nature and they knew all the right answers.  It proved that these students really are great stewards!  That same day we also spent time with our ELC buddies.  We played parachute games like "popcorn" and "cat and mouse."  It was a bittersweet day because it was our last time with our buddies.  Our students really made great connections with their buddies and I saw tremendous growth in their patience, kindness and mentoring abilities.  Not to mention that over the course of this experience they worked on reading fluency, note taking, typing, clay arts, map making and just all around fun!

Thursday morning was spent at B Street Permaculture Farm where the students took some great photos to add the to Forest Grove Grid Project.  It was a beautiful day to be outside and it was one of those days that as Becky would say "puts a rainbow in my heart."  This class is so well bonded together that is sometimes seems unreal.  How did I get so lucky?!!  That afternoon we spent time working on Math Life activities connected to the Safeway Out and About.  Students also got the chance to write checks which is always fun to do when you are a kid!

Friday we spent more time in the computer lab blogging on the B Street Photos and had our final routine of spelling tests, goal reflections and weekly summaries.  Whew!  What a week!

 

This Week

Are you ready for this week???  It is going to be jam packed.  We will start out with our beach trip.  Please remember that we are leaving at 8:45 sharp.  We will be returning at 2:30 so dismissal time will be normal.  Tuesday we will be attending the Science Fair that was set up by some students in Gretchen's class.  It will be held in the middle school portables and parents are welcome to come to this event.  It will be similar to the World Fair in set up but the participation of students was optional and I am not sure that any students in our class are participating.  There should be some fun things to see though.  Wednesday we will spend some time getting ready for our final Celebrations of Learning to be held at the school from 5:00-6:30.  I will be gone that night because I have class at PSU but Becky will be hosting for our class so please come and check out all the great things she has done with our class this spring.  She has been amazing!

 

Thursday is another big day with our first annual Fundraising Run!  It will be held at Lincoln Park starting at 10:00 at Pavilion One.  We could use another volunteer to help out if anyone is interested.  Your job would be simple, I promise.  Also, if you would like to participate in the run itself that would be great.  You don't need a sponsor sheet, but any donations are welcome!  The run will last for 30 minutes.

 

Finally, no school Friday, but the big campout is Saturday!  Please email me if you have any questions.  Hopefully you all got the permission forms back with a map and a bright notecard that specified what I need you to bring (if you can).  I am heading out to my parent's place today to start getting stuff ready!  Thank you so much for all your help and support with this.  I have never planned anything like this before, not to mention planning a beach trip, a fun run and a bridging ceremony all at the same time!  I have learned some valuable lessons through all of this.

 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1 Out and About to Seaside	2 Science Fair 9:30-10:30 at the Level 3 Portables	3 PE   Celebrations of Learning 5:00-6:30	4 Fun Run at Lincoln Park 10:00 am   Art	5 No School (Report Card Prep)	6 Overnight Camping Trip Drop off	7 Overnight Camping Trip Pick up
8	9 Field Day	10 Bridging Ceremony and School Photos	11 Last Day of School Dismissal 1:05

 

 

newsletter

Peregrine Press

May 26-29

   

Schedule

Tuesday: Out and About to Safeway (Healthy Eating on a Budget)

Wednesday:  Leave No Trace Presentation;ELC; PE

Thursday: Photography at B Street Farm

Friday: Art

 

***I am waiting for a few more permission forms for the beach and the camping trip.  My plan is to get final info out to everyone this week. Many parents have offered to help with whatever is needed and what I am trying to do right now is determine what is still needed.  Thanks so much to everyone that is helping with this!

 

Last Week

We just completed our last full week of school for the year!  Our Out and About to Lincoln Park involved a great deal of math and exercise.  We started out by calculating our average stride/gait length.  Once each student figured that out by using a measuring stick, taking 10 steps and doing some math calculations we were ready to head out to Lincoln Park.  When we arrived we all walked around the "Fun Run" Track and counted our steps.  This was then used later in conjunction with the average stride length to calculate the distance around the track.  It was quite complicated but many of the students began to get a grasp on it. Once we had all walked around the track once, we had Running Club for 30 minutes to see what we could run in that amount of time because the Fun Run will be 30 minutes long.

 

Becky introduced a literacy program called the Daily 4.  It focuses on the different components of literacy including reading to self, reading to someone, writing and word work.  I was really surprised and pleased at how receptive the students were to the program because it is so close to the end of the year.  I could see it really being a great component of my literacy program for next year as well.

We spent some time looking at food costs and health in preparation for our Out and About to Safeway.  Becky created a really fun "Price is Right" game to play to introduce food item costs.

The Forest Grove Grid Project consisted of some photographing through town on Thursday and then all the pictures were uploaded on Friday. The students wrote their weekly summaries on the blog instead of on paper for the week and many chose to do their goal reflections on the blog as well.  If you haven't yet seen the site, ask your child to show you.  There are some really fun blog posts.

 

On Friday we also went to spend time with our ELC buddies.  They recently started learning about insects so we joined them in creating insects out of clay, buttons and pipe cleaners.  It was another great day with our buddies.

 

 

This Week

The activities this week will continue to be focused on the Forest Grove Grid Project and Math Life.  Our Out and About to Safeway will focus on purchasing food on a budget that is healthy.  Tuesday afternoon students that want to, will share their literacy projects.  (Everyone was supposed to have completed a project, but it is not required that they present anything in front of the class.)  Wednesday we will have a special presentation on a program called Leave No Trace that Laura introduced us to earlier in the year. Wednesday will also be our last day with our Buddies at the ELC which is very sad, but I do hope to continue that again next year. We will head out to B Street Farm on Thursday to get pictures for the FGGP.  Friday will be our LAST HOMEWORK AND SPELLING WEEK.

 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
25 No School (Memorial Day)	26 Out and About to Safeway Healthy Shopping on a Budget	27 Leave No Trace Presentation   ELC Buddies   PE	28 Photography at B Street Farm	29 Last Homework Due   Art	30	31
1 Out and About to Seaside	2 Science Fair 9:30-10:30 at the Level 3 Portables	3 PE   Celebrations of Learning 5:00-6:30	4 Fun Run at Lincoln Park 10:00 am   Art	5 No School (Report Card Prep)	6 Overnight Camping Trip Drop off	7 Overnight Camping Trip Pick up
8	9 Field Day	10 Bridging Ceremony and School Photos	11 Last Day of School Dismissal 1:05

 

 

Peregrine Press

May 18-22

     

Schedule

Monday: High School Student Presentation

Tuesday:  Out and About to Lincoln Park, includes Running Club (getting ready for the Fun Run)

Wednesday: ELC Buddies; PE

Thursday: Art

Friday:  Homework Due; Literacy Projects Due (they have been working on these at school)

Book Fair is happening all week long.  It is buy one get one free.

 

Last Week

It was great to have a full week of school for a change.  We had a different type of Running Club where we ran for less time, but then did some circuit training.  The "Game of Life" aka "Math Life" was introduced with a very warm welcome.  The students drew jobs out of a hat that ranged from a Les Schwab tech to a Maggie's Bun Barista.  The students created their "characters" and then also drew the aerial view and front view of their place of employment.  They used google maps to do the mapping part and then we turned one whole wall in the classroom into the city of Forest Grove.  Students glued their buildings and people onto the map of Forest Grove.  It looks great! The class then had a great discussion about how to decide what kind of place to live and where that place would be.  We discussed the different types of transportation that would make most sense depending on where you chose to live relative to your job.  They searched online for different rental properties and started to look at how to budget money accordingly.  It has been really fun to connect the math life components like gross and net income, hourly wage and rental budget with mapping.

 

For Out and About the students went on a great photography scavenger hunt.  They worked in groups and walked through town taking photos of different things like: something fluffy, something that represents anger, diagonal lines, friendship etc.  It was very impressive to see such artistic pictures.

 

Next Week

This coming week we will continue our two major projects: Math Life and the Forest Grove Grid Project.  The students will head back into town to take more photographs and then upload them to share.  Becky is working hard on trying to find a different avenue for sharing photos.  For Math Life students will focus on expense budgeting and begin to look at groceries and health in preparation for an activity at Safeway the following week.  They will review gross and net income and start working on calculating percentages by figuring out the distribution of their income on the different expenses. 

We will combine Running Club with the Out and About because we need to measure the distance around Lincoln Park in preparation for the Fun Run.  We will also figure out where to put signs, refreshments and cones. 

 

Upcoming Events:

June 4^th: Fun Run (I still need a couple more parent volunteers to help with this event.  Your job would be to simply stand en-route and help mark student laps, or help pass out refreshments.)

 

June 6^th: Overnight Camping Trip (Thanks to everyone that has volunteered to help.  I feel so lucky to have such great, supportive families!  I will be sending another letter probably in a week that will confirm what I need people to bring. I am still waiting to get those yellow forms back from everyone so I can figure out what items I will still need to get.   I know many people have offered to bring certain things, but I want to look through everything that I get, and then send out updated information.  I will also include a map at that point.  I hope this makes senseJ)

I have decided to include a calendar for this last month of school.  If things change I will try and highlight those changes. 

 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
18 Book Fair	19   Book Fair   Out and About to Lincoln Park & Running Club	20 Book Fair   ELC Buddies   PE	21 Book Fair   Art	22 Book Fair   Homework Due   Literacy Projects Due	23	24
25 No School (Memorial Day)	26 Out and About to Safeway Healthy Shopping on a Budget	27 Leave No Trace Presentation   ELC Buddies   PE	28	29 Last Homework Due   Art	30	31
1 Out and About to Seaside	2 Science Fair 9:30-10:30 at the Level 3 Portables	3 PE   Celebrations of Learning 5:00-6:30	4 Fun Run at Lincoln Park 10:00 am   Art	5 No School (Report Card Prep)	6 Overnight Camping Trip Drop off	7 Overnight Camping Trip Pick up
8	9 Field Day	10 Bridging Ceremony and School Photos	11 Last Day of School Dismissal 1:05

 

newsletter

Peregrine Press

May 11-15

 

Schedule

Monday: Math State Test; Running Club

Tuesday:  Out and About Photography Through Forest Grove; All School Photo and All School Meeting; Math State Test

Wednesday:  ELC Buddies; P.E.

Thursday: Art (painting murals in the hallway)

Friday: Homework Due

    

 

Last Week

Last week was packed full of fun, minus the swine flu scare!  Due to the 2 missed days, we had a great deal of work to accomplish in a very short amount of time. The two main activities were the pill bug experiments and the Forest Grove Grid Project.  The students conducted their own experiments on the pill bugs and were responsible for doing a complete scientific report explaining the whole scientific method.  This took them through asking a question, doing research, writing a hypothesis, designing and executing the experiment, creating a table to record data, analyzing the data and drawing conclusions.  All in all, it was a very complex activity but almost every single student seemed engaged and excited to do their experiments.  Some of the pictures above, show the different experiments that were conducted. Some students created mazes to test intelligence, some tested food preferences, and some tested habitat preferences (among others).

Becky did a great activity on safe internet/web activity in preparation for the "ning" that she has created for the class.  I will be emailing a letter to you from Becky, that all of you need to please read carefully because it explains how your students will be able to access the "ning" and all the security measures that are in place.  The students also wrote up proposals for what they would like to photograph in Forest Grove in the upcoming weeks.

The not so fun activity that we also did this week was the Reading State Test.  The students did great!

 

This Week

The main activities for this coming week will be the Forest Grove Grid Project, Math State Testing and Math Life.  We will be doing the Math State Test Monday and Tuesday so please be sure to send your children prepared with good rest and healthy snacks.  Tuesday our Out and About will be to head out into Forest Grove with our digital cameras to take photographs that will be posted on the "ning."  The students will be taking the photographs, not the teachers.  Tuesday will also be the All School Photo at Ash St. Field (we did this last year too) and an All School Meeting.  Because those two things will cut into our Out and About time, we will probably head out another morning to continue taking photographs.  We will attempt to finally head out on the Treasure Hunt we planned a few weeks ago with our ELC Buddies on Wednesday.

 

 Finally, we will start a unit titled Math Life.  We did this last year and it was a hit with the class.  The main objectives for this unit are personal budgeting and a great deal of math calculations like multiplying decimals when computing interest rates and learning concepts like gross vs. net income.  Each student will pull a "job" out of a hat that will tell them their hourly wage, they will later pull out a "family" that they will need to support.  There will be days that they encounter a "financial struggle" such as a flat tire, or a dentist appointment.  Through all of this they are building up this "character" and dealing with all the real life math that a person really encounters.  They will have to find somewhere to live by looking in newspaper ads and they will have to create a personal budget that will cover their expenses and grocery bills. 

 

Upcoming Events

May 25^th No School, Memorial Day

June 1^st Out and About to Seaside

June 4^th Fundraising Run 10:00 at Lincoln Park

***I need parent volunteers to help with the Fun Run so please let me know if you can help.***

June 5^th No School (report card prep day)

June 6^th Overnight Camping Trip

June 11^th Last Day of School

 

**Overnight camping trip update**

So, I have received a great deal of emails about parents willing to help out with the camping trip.  I am very excited to hear that! I will send home a paper copy of the updated plan for the trip this week.  For all of you parents that have offered up tents, I want all the tents we can get.  I plan to let the children choose who they want in their tents (obviously only same gender in a tent) and if parents don't want to actually sleep in a tent with their child, the extra tents will come in handy. 

newsletter

Peregrine Press

May 4-8

 

Schedule

Monday: Reading State Test

Tuesday:  Out and About to Dark Room at Pacific University (Learn about Photography for the Forest Grove Grid Project)

Wednesday: Reading State Test; PE

Thursday: Eco-Theatre Performance; Art

 

      

Last Week

We had another very eventful week!  Running Club was a bit more “strict” but we had much better running results.  We finished up our yo-yo unit with the spin wars where three students tied as Master Spinners: J.R., Michael and Ivan.

Our Out and About to B-Street Permaculture Farm was a huge success!  I loved seeing all of the students so engaged in the different activities.  Students were creating paths, trimming branches, spreading bark chips and mulch and picking thistles for rabbit and chicken feed.  I didn’t hear anyone complaining, they all just did what they could to help.  We had a great discussion about permaculture when we returned to school as a follow up.  I was so inspired to hear students share how they could see the cycle of interactions.  One student put it so perfectly: we pick the weeds, we feed them to the rabbits or chickens, they go to the bathroom, we use that as compost that we put in our garden and it helps our veggies grow!  We then get to eat the delicious veggies!

We did some measurement math as part of our Forest Grove Grid Project and also met with our little buddies at the ELC. 

Thursday and Friday we dove into the scientific method with an experiment on pill bugs.  We conducted an experiment and practiced writing up a scientific report.

 

This Week

This coming week is going to be packed full of fun!  For Out and About the students will get to go inside an actual dark room at Pacific University, to learn about photography as part of the Forest Grove Grid Project.  The students will be conducting their own scientific experiments with pill bugs as a scientific inquiry project.  This project will be intense and may require some homework.  We will have time at school to conduct the experiment but the write up might require some extra time at home either during the week or over next weekend.  The class will be taking the State Reading Test on Monday and Wednesday so please encourage lots of good sleep and a healthy breakfast and lunch.  Thursday we will head back over to Pacific University to watch a short Eco-Theatre Performance put on by Pacific Students.  We will be postponing or canceling Running Club this week depending on how we move through the other activities.  We are canceling ELC also, but will resume the following week.

 

Upcoming Dates

• Math State Test May 11^th and 12^th

 

• All School Meeting and Photo: May 12^th

 

• FGCS Fund-Run: June 4^th (More information will be coming soon.)

 

• Out and About to the Beach: June 1^st (I am looking for a few more parent volunteers.)

 

• Optional Overnight Camping Trip to my parent’s nursery/farm in Gaston: June 6^th (I will need at least 4 parents that can sleep over as well but they need to pass a background check.  If you have already volunteered at school then you should already be approved.  I will also need some help coordinating meals.  I am thinking students will come in the early afternoon after lunch.  We would have to plan a dinner and the following breakfast, and of course an evening treat!