Catch Up and Fall Festival

     While I have a few minutes to break away from Fall Festival preparations, I'll update you on the highlights of this week!

Monday morning, we were joined by "Doc" and "Grammy." Rose's grandparents were in town visiting from California and stopped in to read us a story. Doc read Hooray for Fish by Lucy Cousins.

     

Thank you so very much for squeezing time for us into your visit! 

     Today, we had another special treat. Katrina, a middle school teacher at CS, kicked off our very first Math Workshop. She first read Apples, A to Z by Margaret McNamara. In this book, each letter has something to do with apples (C is for Cider, etc.). The children then did a taste test of 3 different types of apples: red delicious, honey crisp, and granny smith. We then did a chart to see which apple was the favorite. Honey crisp was the tie breaker.

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     The children are so excited about Fall Festival! We will leave promptly tomorrow morning, so please be here on time. If you are needed to come to CS to pick up a child that will ride with you, a blue note is taped on your child's folder. Please take note of the following chart. If you're child is listed to meet at Community School and travel with us, they are either riding with someone else or you as the parent are driving children in addition to your own. If your child is under the list to meet us at the field trip location, you're only driving your child and we'll see you there around 9:30am! If your child is riding with someone other than you, I must have their labeled car seat left at school during morning drop off. 

     If you have ANY questions, please don't hesitate to email me. I will check my email this evening and in the morning before school. If I don't reply, I didn't get it!

Thursday

This morning, we read McElligot's Pool by Dr. Seuss. In this story, Marco talks about all kinds of fish that he just might catch while fishing in McElligot's Pool. From this book, we decided on our class name for this year. We will reveal that name tomorrow during name skits. Name skits will begin at 10:30 and we will go first. Our performance is a total of about 30 seconds, so please know if you can't make it across town from work for a 30 second performance, it's ok! If you're able, please do join us for this Community School tradition as we perform and then become part of the audience and watch all of the other classes at school perform.

     After fruit break recess, we headed down to Betsy's class for Buddies. We had help from our buddies in making "costumes" that we will wear tomorrow. Here's your hint! Any guesses on our class name?!

     We have been busy both yesterday and today finishing up some fish projects. We have one more to complete from the past couple weeks' projects. 

     After buddies, we returned to the classroom and used TAG Readers with Karen. After that, we had just enough time to squeeze in one more book before recess. I read One Less Fish by Kim Michelle Toft and Allan Sheather. This is a counting book that begins with twelve fish and counts down to zero. 

     As you're looking over paperwork from Gatherings, please let me know if you have any questions. There are two forms in there - one is orange and one is blue - that I need for you to fill out and send in. These papers are about our upcoming field trips for Fall Festival and Communication. Thanks so much!

Monday

This morning we were lead through morning meeting by Max. Afterwards, we dove right into some talk about fish. We read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss. They then asked for another story (talk about melting my heart!), so we read Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.

      

     We then decided to make our own fish, by decorating cds with gems and jewels. We'll finish them later this week by adding more jewels and gems to the other side and adding fins and a tail. We then cleaned up for fruit break and fruit break recess. After fruit break recess, we had music class. They listened for sounds and identified the air conditioner running and people talking. They also did the wiggle dance. Be sure to ask them to show it to you!

     After music, they asked for yet another story. I didn't want to disappoint, so we read Fish Eyes by Lois Ehlert. This is a counting book. We discovered after counting the fish, there are ten total in the story. We then counted our classmates and discovered that if we were fish, we'd have eight fish.

Later this morning, we used some watercolor paints and painted fish. It's been a fishy morning! ;-)

Have you been added to our closed group on Facebook yet? I sent messages to most of you all from my personal Facebook account. Sorry if I missed anyone! If you're not a member yet, please go HERE and request to join. I will approve your request so you can be a member. If you have trouble getting to the group page or being added, please let me know. I am using the closed Facebook group to share pictures with you all. You can't search for this group nor view anything in it unless you are a member. I'm hoping this will keep your children's photos private. If you have any questions, please let me know!