I am VERY grateful to those of you who have agreed to be our Spelling Specialists!  Thank you thank you thank you! You will be making more of a difference than you know!

We have been seeing some GREAT strides in reading the last couple of weeks.  As a reminder, the benchmark for Kindergarten is to have cleared a level A and be working on a B in class by this time.  Reading at home to and with your child is still the best support you can give toward your child's education.  The reality is that the way the Kindergarten curriculum is now is very very rigorous, and keeping up with reading practice, sight words, math practice, etc. is absolutely essential.  Kindergarten can't be thought of as a "breaking-in time" or an "easing into school" time, if our kids miss things here, it may seriously impact their work and abilities to keep up in later grades.  Let's get these kids ready for the rest of their educational lives.  The key, again, is reading.  Of course, play is also necessary, and we talk in class a lot about having balance in our lives.

The holidays are coming!  We will be going hard right up until the bitter end!  thanks for your support!

mr. matt

Into December!

Wow, it's really the last month of 2012! 

I would like to first thank those of you who responded to the call for spelling specialists.  For the AM class, thank you to Alison Moss, Kelly Davis, and Lisa Gleed.  We still have AM Monday open if anyone would like to help out from 855-930.  For the PM class, thank you to Melissa Burrows and Suzanne Heaton.  We still have Thursdays from 1245-135 to fill, so please let me know ASAP if you feel so inspired.  This will really make a difference in our classes!

We are a couple of weeks into our IB unit entitled "We Are Family", which falls under the transdisciplinary theme of "where we are in place and time".  During this unit we are discussing families, guided by our lines of inquiry:

• types of families
• roles of family members
• how family members interact with each other
• differences in family roles and responsibilities

We will discuss, write, role play, etc.  The central idea of our unit of study is, "family roles are determined by the relationships and responsibilities of its members".  As such, we will explore what our individual family makeup is like and how roles are determined in our own homes.  We will also explore what other family units (grandparents living with the nuclear family, single parent, etc.) different from our own look like and how roles may be determined in them. We will also look at how family roles are played out on other cultures, comparing and contrasting with our own personal experiences.  The attributes of the learner profile that we are focusing on this time are Caring and Communicators.

Thanks for all of your support for your children as well as for myself and Ms. Jennifer.  your kids are awesome!