Level Updates

 Kindergarten

The kindergarten team is off to a super start. We are making new friends and learning routines. We are exploring our Unit of Study for Inquiry:

This Is Us

Central Idea:
We are unique.

Lines of inquiry:
How are we unique
What makes others unique
What makes a learning environment unique
How are we all connected


We are showing that we are caring and can cooperate nicely. Friends are sharing with each other while we learn and play and help each other adjust to kindergarten.

We have read A LOT of books and story time is a favorite time!

Exploring math materials is really fun too.

We love our kindergarten play time on Fridays when we get to see our kindergarten teammates!!!

We love our new school!

Primary

The primary team is off to a great start! We have been learning routines and working on being a classroom family! In reading, we are getting groups up and running if they are not already. Look for books to come home soon. Older friends should read each night for twenty minutes and younger friends should spend ten minutes reading at home. Read aloud stories count toward these minutes and are a great way to spend time together while modeling fluent reading. Don't forget to talk about the story together too! In writing, we are composing narrative stories that are true stories that have happened to us. Please help your child come up with ideas to write about by talking with them and reminding them of events that have happened. For example, holiday stories, summer stories, vacation stories, tooth stories, etc. Please help your child make a list of topics that they can write about during writing time and send it in to school. 

In math younger friends are counting and beginning addition and we are playing lots of games to reinforce this. Older friends are learning to recognize and count coins, tell time to the hour and half hour, practice addition and subtraction facts, and will be starting story problems soon. Our first planner is How We Organize Ourselves (Government) and involves inquiring into democracy, the purpose and levels of government and patriotism. We are all learning to sing some patriotic songs! Next, we will be moving into a science planner next that is about the Earth's features. We love teaching your children and are excited for the rest of the year!

Elementary

The Elementary Level is off to a great start! Our first unit of study is all about forces, interactions, and energy. Students will be looking at how energy and matter interact, how energy can be transferred, and how humans use their understanding of the natural world and its resources. The unit started off with students learning about kinds of energy and identifying the types of energy different everyday objects represent. Classes made solar ovens to convert the sun’s energy into heat energy and cooked s’mores inside the ovens. Students will also be working with electrical circuits, building a “roller coaster” to see how speed and energy go together, and learning about renewable/nonrenewable energy sources.

The Elementary Level classes are beginning routines to incorporate more Spanish into our day. Students are completing Spanish Language sheets on a regular basis and practicing speaking in Spanish while in their classroom.

Intermediate

Intermediate students have been busy this school year. Our current Central Idea is analyzing data and cycles helps us make predictions. We have been exploring The Got Water kit which has us looking at Earth's systems and how they interact. Ms. Reese has arranged for Glen Johnson to come to speak to our kids about the weather and how patterns and data are used to predict the weather. In writing, we have been focusing on informational writing pieces and how to write with the purpose of informing our audience. We are all reading Esperanza Rising and investigating the historical context as it applies to the story. In math, the 6th graders have been learning about factors, multiples, prime factorization, and order of operations. The 5th graders have been exploring and learning different whole-number multiplication strategies for finding the products of 2 and 3-digit numbers.