February 17, 2023
Preschool
Our preschoolers had so much fun swapping Valentines and celebrating happy hearts day this week. Everywhere we looked we were seeing red and we even had cheerleaders for our classroom party!
These precious kiddos are so resourceful and I love helping foster their independence. Whether they’re tackling a task together like building a house, or learning something new like serving themselves breakfast, there’s nothing this amazing group of kids can’t do! Let’s go, Tigers!
Kindergarten
We enjoyed telling our friends how much we care about them on Valentine’s Day and everyday we are at school learning together. This week we enjoyed bringing food items in for the Mother’s Cupboard can food Valen-drive. We enjoyed bringing stuffed animals and wearing hats with our friends.
In OG,
- We are learning about the letter Ww.
- We are learning how to blend and segment words with the letter W.
- We are reading, spelling and writing words with the letter Ww.
- We are learning the red words: my, into
In Math,
- We are learning how to identify 1 more and 1 less with objects and numerals.
1st grade
First graders met with their reading buddies in 4th grade. The fourth graders prepared several books and questions to read to our class. Next week, we will read several books to our buddies and prepare some questions for them too.
First graders also made Valentine’s boxes that were disguised as something else!
2nd grade
Second grade is working hard this week learning how to tell time to the nearest five minutes. We are breaking down how the hour hand and minute hand work together to move around the clock. We are also playing knock-out in math to review counting collections of coins.
In reading, we are using the book “Robot in Love” as an anchor text to work on making predictions in a text using the illustrations and our schema. “Robot in Love” led us to our social studies idea this week: inventions of the past!
In phonics, our OG skills of the week are suffixes -s and -es changing words based on the ending of the root word.
This week we had lots of fun sharing the love during our Valentine’s Day parties and enjoyed the dress-up days we earned by bringing in canned goods for Mother’s Cupboard.
3rd grade
In Social Studies, third grade students are learning all about careers. This week we learned about being a teacher and a firefighter. We had special guest Andrew Hedger come talk to us about a day in the life of a firefighter. He’s been a paid firefighter for 21 years for Indianapolis Fire Department. We learned so many new and amazing things about this career!!!
4th grade
Mrs. Joy’s class worked on reading like writers this week and drafting poems. They read poems and noticed what they loved. Then, they identified the technique the writer used to write what they loved. They tried these techniques in their poems.
This week Mrs. Middleton’s class partnered with Mrs. Fultz’s 1st grade class to create book buddies. Each 4th grade student chose a picture book to read to their buddy. This lead to some great questions and discussions about the book. Next week the 1st graders will read to the 4th graders! This is a great opportunity for students to practice their fluency, speaking, and listening skills.
5th grade
This week, the 5th graders started the week with lots of fun Valentine’s celebrations. We did a Valentine’s Day math mystery, and read a Valentine’s-themed story. The students also had a competition to see who could make the most creative box for their valentines. The one rule was that the box had to be disguised as something creative. We had a robot, a kitchen sink, a computer, a camper, and more! Students worked on their boxes at home, and then voted for their favorites on Tuesday. After the box challenge, we enjoyed more friendly competition with our baby picture guessing game. Over the last few weeks, the teachers secretly collected baby pictures of each of the students. On Valentine’s Day, they had to see if they could guess which picture belonged to their classmates, and themselves!
We also started our Biztown curriculum this week. Students took the citizenship pledge and learned what it means to be a productive citizen of Biztown. They are also learning about our economy, and how businesses need natural, human, and capital resources. They are so excited for our field trip in April!
PTO
Our next Movie Night will be February 24, 2023 from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Science
Our Scientist of the week is Sadie Roberts!
Students in science learned about sound waves and vibrations by making paper cup telephones and used ropes to mimic high pitch and low pitch sounds. They also used balloons to feel vibrations.
Speech and Language with Mrs. Williams
HeadBanz is one of my favorite games to use in speech-language therapy. By changing the rules a little, we work on carryover of speech sounds, fluency skills, categorization skills, grammar skills, vocabulary skills, and descriptive language skills. In our version of the game, we provide descriptions of the items rather than asking yes/no questions. For example, when giving someone a clue, I might say, “You are an animal that lives in Africa or a zoo and you have a really long neck.” Do you know what you are? A giraffe! You can work on the same skills at home without buying a thing! Play ISpy, giving similar clues. Make your own HeadBanz game by writing or drawing pictures. Or make up your own riddles!! It is so much fun!
5th grade Ambassadors
Our student ambassadors held a Valen-Drive for Mother’s Cupboard! We had such a fun week collecting goods to help others. We had themes such as bring a stuffed animal, wear a hat, come dressed as a superhero, and wear your pajamas, if you brought in canned goods. Our goal was 1,500 items. We surpassed our goal!!! We collected….. Thank you student ambassadors for your hard work on this project and thank you to all who donated! “No one should ever go hungry.”
Mobile Dentist
The Mobile Dentist is coming back to our elementary schools and will serve grades K-5. They will be at Helmsburg March 10th. Packets were sent home January 30th. Please fill them out and send them back to your child’s school by February 21st. This allows us time to process if your child qualifies to be seen.
Beable and the World of Work
We had three winners in the Beable Winter Power Up contest! Oren Spalding, Henry Clifford, and Daniel Billingsly all in Mrs. Baughman’s 2nd grade! These students have worked hard leveling up their Lexile levels and have won the most Beable points during this contest round! Way to Go!
