Jasmine Kindergarten News from Ms. Diana:
This week we attended the dress rehearsal for the Grade 3/4 play and next week we are invited to another play produced by Grade 2.
Ms. Kim and I would like to thank you all for your love and care during Teacher Appreciation Week, for all your offerings, lunches, gifts, flowers, cards and hugs! We've felt truly appreciated! Also, my gratitude to you for supporting us throughout the school year! Wishing you and your families, a serene, beauty filled Mother’s Day!
Magnolia Kindergarten News from Ms. Heidi:
Oh my goodness, y’all totally made Will, Frances and me feel like the most beloved teachers in the universe last week! Thank you for the thoughtful gifts, sweets, flowers, plants, notes, cards, surprise lunch, drawings, and the tent money!!!!!! Real thank you notes will follow, but we all wanted to tell you how very touched we felt to receive so many surprises from everyone. Thank you from our hearts. Additional gratitude for the birthday treats and gifts!
We have a busy week ahead of us, as we work on our flower crowns and finish up projects for the year. We’ll follow our usual rhythm for the week, holding a Forest Kindergarten in the coming weeks. To combat the heat and humidity that have been steadily increasing, we will spend our day at the beautiful children’s wading pool.
Grade 1 News from Ms. Contento:
We had a great week in first grade. Students worked very hard to retell the story about the first armadillo. I was thrilled to hear all of the sentences that they could come up with to describe the story. I went around the room to make sure I had one sentence from every student.
We worked with the “ch” and “sh” sounds this week. While reading with your child, please start to point out the words that have these sounds. Students are progressing nicely with reading. I have read with most of my students and the others are right on the edge of reading books. This is the most exciting event for a first-grade teacher. To witness that excitement in reding for the first time.
Morning reading time is going well. Students are enjoying this quiet start to our day. Some students are reading with a partner while others are working on packets with small words and sentences. Math morning time is also going well. Students are showing me that they are remembering their math skills. I hope all of you are continuing the card games at home. This is a fun way to keep those addition and subtraction skills fresh in their minds.
Grade 2 News from Ms. Mullen:
The children are working hard on the play. If you want to work on lines in the evenings, I am happy to count this as reading homework. Our play got moved up a little bit and with the field trip being rescheduled, we have lost a few main lessons worth of practice time. I am confident they will be able to handle this, but if they feel inspired to practice at home I say go for it! :) This is, of course, supposed to be a fun and positive experience so I only really want them to do extra work at home if the spirit moves them. We are also beginning to work on sets and costume pieces and we are all very excited about how it is beginning to come together. They are such hard workers and I love hearing their input and thoughts on the creation of this play.
Grades 3 / 4 News from Ms. Flores:
They did it! Despite the heat and extremely crowded room, your children made it through their play beautifully. I know some students felt disappointed that things did not go perfectly in the night performance, but please assure them that it was a success! Each of them gave their best and truly took ownership of the play. I could not be more proud of them for that!
For the final few weeks of school, we will have a short Geography block. This will really be an introduction to Geography and History, and we will continue this work in the fall. During this block, we will mostly be focused on the neighborhood our school is currently in. Aside from talking about the history of this area of the city, the students will be working to create bird's eye view maps. My husband does Garden District and Lafayette Cemetery #1 tours that are rich with history, and he is willing to do a tour for our class!
Grades 5 / 6 News from Ms. Nelson:
MAIN LESSON: GREEK AND ROMAN HISTORY / BOTANY - This week we prepared for and took the block quiz for the Greco-Roman History block. The students performed well as a class, with an impressive average score of 80%. Some students need to retake the quiz (those who scored below 70%) or are being encouraged to retake it on Tuesday (5/14) during Homework Club, or if this does not work for your schedule, by appointment. There are notes available from our thorough review of the quiz Thursday to assist the students in studying - hopefully they got them Friday. Tuesday we also switched seats (as we do for every block) and delved into the wonderful world of plants. We began by speaking about the Linnean classification system that we use in modern taxonomy, and coming up with some mnemonic devices to remember the order of the groups from kingdom (most general) to species (most specific). The students also then began their first technical drawing of a plant, using a plate from an old botany book as a guide or samples of the plant, which happened to be the dandelion, that they were able to bring in from home. Next, the students worked in groups of four to draw and then make observations of an unknown plant. I have asked the students to bring in samples of plants from home that we can identify, understanding that these samples must be taken appropriately and with permission. We didn't get a chance to look at everyone's samples Friday due to our shortened class to see the fabulous 3/4 Grade play, Iduna's Apples, but we will pick that back up on Monday. We will have a short block quiz on Botany Friday, May 24. Botany books will be due Tuesday, May 28.
Grades 7/8 News from Mr. Pauzolis:
This week we dove into the post-Civil War Reconstruction, one of the most challenging subjects to tackle due to the complicated politics of the time, but it also involved a tremendous amount of painful social issues. Much discussion was held regarding how the formerly enslaved population was treated, and I could see that the students found these subjects difficult to hear. Many of the children were shocked to hear about things that took place in our very own state and city, but despite the seriousness of these discussions, I thought they all handled these topics maturely and we had some enlightening and sensitive conversations as a result. To conclude our Early American History block, we held our block quiz today and I was absolutely thrilled to see how well so many students performed! The average score for the class was a whopping 90 points, which really impressed me considering the depth of the information we covered. There was not a single student who gave anything less than their best on this, regardless of their scores.
We're wrapping up the school year by studying Organic Chemistry, and we have a jam-packed schedule of class and school activities on the calendar, so buckle up and hang on! Summer is almost here!
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