Monthly Archives: December 2023

December 15, 2023

Who knew that the sloth used to stand upright on its two back legs AND was HUGE! Check out the mystery science link down below to see just how big they used to be! 

Now that we have learned all the Secret Stories for the short and lazy vowels, we are moving on to some new, a bit more complex, secrets! This week, we focused on Mommy E:

             “When Mommy E sits at the end of a word, or is one letter away from another vowel,                    she will tell that vowel, “You say your name!’ Then she covers her mouth and won’t talk. But, if Mommy E is not at the end of a word, or is MORE than one letter away from another vowel, that vowel gets to be short and lazy…just like you’d be if your mommy weren’t right there, close enough to make sure that you do what you should!” 

For example, tape/tap, hope/hop, cute/cut, super/supper, biter/bitter. Of course, there are some acceptable exceptions such as river and have that we will continue to learn about. Maybe you can help your child come up with some over the weekend!

Besides being super busy with special surprises for you all this week and rehearsing (always with gusto), we began discussing the Ice Age and watching a great Mystery Science video explaining what exactly an ice age is. Afterwards, I asked the class to participate in the suggested activity of writing/drawing/reflecting on what they would do if they had to live through an ice age. I think we have a couple of survivalists amongst us! What would your child do?

Our class REALLY enjoys the weekly Scholastic Let’s Find Out and monthly Science Spin articles. Please don’t forget you all have access to these at home so your child and you can discuss at home, too! Our shared classroom password is “Werock123!” and I have included the direct link down below. This week was so perfect! It was a holiday one that talked about….TRADITIONS! How great! 

Home Connection:

Books we read this week:

  • Wonder
  • Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace by James Proimos

Announcements:

  • Holiday Program TOMORROW! Please meet us at the Des Plaines Theatre at 9:45 a.m. dressed in your holiday best! No pajamas, sweats, or gym shoes please. Make sure your child uses the bathroom before you bring them to their seat.
  • Boots, snow pants, hats, gloves, etc. will all be sent home NEXT TUESDAY! Please be on the lookout, but also, some of our friends don’t have appropriate winter weather gear and they are very cold:/ Ask your child to check their backpacks with you for all gear needed for the day. 

Have a great rest of your week and see you all (hopefully) tomorrow! 

-Ms. Anna

—

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein

December 8, 2023

Hello Room 103 Parents and Happy Friday!

We had a great week and it ended on such a fun note with the Holiday Shop today! We all had such a great time choosing special gifts for the special people in our lives. It was also a great lesson in learning to budget and track spending;) Math is everywhere!

That’s a wrap on the savanna! Some friends had a few more things to write down under the L column of our KWL such as caracals can growl, ostriches run fast, their acacia trees in the savanna, and the lion is the apex predator of the savanna. With the holidays right around the corner, it seemed like the perfect two week exploration to learn all about different cultures’ winter holidays and festivities. We learned about so many cool traditions from around the world! For example, in Iceland, children will put their shoes out on the window sill to either be filled with rotten potatoes or candy, and in Japan since the 1970’s, it’s tradition to eat KFC for Christmas dinner-sometimes resulting in hours long waits and pre-ordering meals month in advance! The home connection links down below are some of the videos we watched. We didn’t finish a couple, but I highly suggest watching them and talking about them with your child. I hope your child brought their representation of their country’s tradition home yesterday and was able to tell you a little bit more about it:) Some of the countries we’ve “visited” so far are The Philippines, Germany, Austria, Australia, Japan, Iceland, Canada, South Africa, Italy, and Sweden.

On the topic of traditions and customs, our Scholastic News this week was about a little girl named Jheneli Skye Huff. She is a member of the Seneca tribe and she plays lacrosse. Her mom played lacrosse and it is a very common sport for girls in her tribe to play. These were sent home on Thursday so you and your child can read and talk about them together, too!

This week’s Secret Story was about short u! What kind of sound does short u make? What’s his secret? See if your child can show and tell!

We read a few more chapters of Wonder this week and today we read one of my favorite chapters. Mr. Brown is going to be Auggie’s English teacher for the year and on the first day of school he instructs the class to write down the word PRECEPT in their journals and asks them what it means. The class starts listing off various important things after he told them a precept is a rule for something important. After the class finishes coming up with their list, he tells them they forgot the most important thing: who we are. Rather than a chapter check-in, I asked your children to do a little self-reflecting and write down in their journals who THEY are. The answers were incredible: “I’m kind because I help my family clean our house.” “I’m good because I help my friends when they fall.” “I’m nice because I make people laugh when they’re sad.” Wow! Love these answers and the wonderful, thoughtful, KIND mouths they came from!

Books we read this week:

  • What Does Peace Feel Like? by Vladimir Radunsky
  • If You Were An Elephant by Leslie Staub
  • My Bibi Always Remembers by Toni Buzzeo
  • Wonder

Sight words of the week:

  1. help
  2. make
  3. can
  4. I

Home Connection:

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDlbVewBUsk
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8L4LjqOKmE
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7Ei78g65cU
  • https://www.mobymax.com 

Announcements:

  • Holiday Program NEXT FRIDAY! We will be meeting at the Des Plaines Theatre at 9:45. The show will begin promptly at 10:00 a.m. Please have your child dressed in their “holiday best” attire. No gym shoes, sweats, Christmas pajamas.
  • Are you checking your child’s backpack every night? We began our class library check out this week and some friends forgot they had a book in their backpack to read with an adult at home. Please make sure you are frequently reading blogs and emails for current events happening in our class and school:) Let me know if you have any questions!
  • Wednesday, December 20 is an early release day with a PTO sponsored lunch! Winter break begins the 21st through January 8th.  

That’s all folks! Have a fabulous weekend and see you Monday! Go Bulls!

-Ms. Anna

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein

December 1, 2023

Good morning everyone! I opened my laptop up this morning and once again saw that I didn’t send out our newsletter! Apologies🫣

Thank you everybody for making it out to conferences! It was wonderful to see you all:)

We had a GREAT final week in Africa, I mean Plato Academy;) We wrapped up our exploration on the African savanna this week and you may have noticed a special little 3D project brought home today! We tried to make a diorama, but some friends wanted to include more animals in theirs that wouldn’t fit in the boxes we had so your child may have just built upon a flat sheet of construction paper. Ask them what animals they included and see if you can tell what animal they learned all about (hint: it’s the only clay model). So long savanna! 

Our Field Museum trip was a HUGE success! Your children did great:) They were real troopers when I had to rush them a bit from exhibit to exhibit, were respectful of the space and other patrons, and our chaperones were incredible. By FAR, I would say the dinosaur exhibit, and more specifically Sue, were the BIGGEST hit (pun intended!). If you take a look down below in the Home Connection section, you will see a link on youtube for a virtual tour of Sue that we watched on Tuesday, one day prior to the field trip. It is about an hour long so we didn’t watch it all if you and your child would like to finish watching it at home. It was very exciting and interesting to learn more facts about Sue and then of course get us pumped to see her Wednesday. 

This week’s Secret Story was about short and lazy O! Short and lazy O is always so scared of getting sick will often go to the doctor. He imagines that the doctor does not sanitize his tools and the tongue compressor used on him was just used on someone else! When O is there, he opens his mouth reaaaaal big in the shape of an O so his lips and tongue don’t touch the dirty tongue compressor. Some short O words we came up with are ON, OLIVER, OCTOPUS, OCTONAUTS, ONTO, and OUT. Can your child come up with anymore at home?

We have been practicing a lot this week for our Holiday Program in a couple weeks! I will include the links for the all school songs below (English, Spanish, and Greek). I ask that your children are dressed in their Holiday best for the day of the program, December 15 at 10:00 a.m. It will be at the Des Plaines theatre for a second year in a row and we do not have school afterwards. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them!

Books we read this week:

  • Wonder
  • We’re Different, We’re The Same (Sesame Street) by Bobbi Jane Kates
  • Across The Savanna by Libby Walden
  • Friends: True Stories of Extraordinary Friendships by Catherine Thimmesh

Home Connection:

Holiday Program all school songs:

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__57em8kPDQ
  • https://youtu.be/grUA3djnY7Q?feature=shared

Thank you to everyone who donated a book, puzzle, or both to our classroom from the book fair! As you can see from the pictures, your kiddos are already hard at work on one of the 300 piece puzzles! Have a great weekend! 

-Ms. Anna

—

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein