A week for creativity

FALL PARTY- this week you should have received a letter from Mr. Murphy about Halloween costumes and the parade. You should have also received a note from me as a reminder if you are signed up to bring items or help. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are unable to send something in so we can try to get it covered. THANK YOU! I am also copying Mr. Murphy's note into our blog, in case you missed it or misplaced it.

FMI Halloween 2013

Dear Parents:

FMI will celebrate Halloween, October 31st, this year with a party that will begin after last recess. Students wishing to dress up in costumes may bring their costumes to school and change into them at that time. No costumes should be worn to school. Costumes are welcome, but please leave the props (weapons, blood, hair spray, etc.) and make up at home. Costumes should be appropriate for school. If you have a question regarding the costume’s appropriateness, please contact your child’s teacher. If you have doubts, it’s probably not appropriate for school. Students do not have to dress up to enjoy the party. Parents are welcome to watch the students parade around the track. We ask that parents do not go into the classrooms to attend the parties unless they are the room parents in charge. If you are going to stay at school and pick up your child after school, you are invited to come into the workroom/music room and enjoy some treats while you wait. If it’s raining the students will parade through the gym. Parents may sit on the bleachers if rain changes our plans.

If you don’t want your child to participate in these activities, please let us know. You may pick up your child at 2:05 PM or they will read in the library.



Timeline:

1:45-200 Last Recess
2:00 Students into classrooms to change into costumes
2:15 Start parade around the track
2:40 All classes should be done
3:00 Students who need to change will do so
3:15 Dismissal

Parents welcome to the playground area or gym if raining.
 
Happy Halloween,
Mr. Murphy
FMI Principal
10-21-13



This week the kids were full of questions as they walked in on Monday morning to have doughnuts sitting on their desks. After a lot of questions we played a little "inference" game. Which also fit with one of our reading skills this week! :) Yeah me!
"I wanted to tell you something in a sweet way." 
"Why would I have blue and pink clothes pins on them?"
"They might mean I need to buy new clothes. I have a lot of bins of pink clothes at my house, but may need to buy new clothes if they are blue." 

And so on... it was great to watch the kids' faces when they started to piece it together. Even the kids who already knew I was expecting took a minute to piece all the information together. We talked about how we may need to have gender reveal cupcakes in December! :) 

 

Math- This week Ms. Wild started teaching math. They are working on making different collections and sequencing, adding, subtracting the numbers. They have also discussed how to break a large number into groups of 10's and 100's.

 

 As part of the unit, Ms. Wild had the class vote on an item they would wish to collect to show them the size of 1,000 objects. The kids voted on collecting pop tabs. If you have any EMPTY pop cans around your house, please consider sending the little metal tab to school with your child.

Reading- This week we read The Harvest Birds by Blanca Lopez de Mariscal.

In our story Juan Zanate likes to sit under his favorite tree enjoying nature and dreaming of becoming a farmer. However when his father dies at the beginning of our story, there is only enough land for his two older brothers. Juan learns to determine his own destiny, and asks for land from other people in his town. When no one is willing to give him land, because they do not believe in him, Juan visits Grandpa Chao. Grandpa Chao gives him a small patch of land on the condition, if he is not successful, he will have to come back and work for him for free. Juan is very excited, although the people of his town do not share in his excitement. While working in the fields the Harvest Birds offer lessons on the traditions of rural Mexico, the importance of respecting nature, and the possibility of making dreams happen. Juan ends up surprising the town with his bountiful harvest.

Writing- This week we finished color coding our T-charts and paragraphs. We will continue to practice this many times this year. However, we are moving on and starting a story about Frankenstein. This stirred a lot of excitement in our classroom. We are in various stages of the writing process. I am so excited to read and see their stories come alive. 

The ideas we came up with as a class. I am creating this story as an example.

Science- As a way to summarize our unit, the students had a chance to build plant and bee models from various materials. Not only did we work on reviewing the specific parts and following a rubric, we worked on time management when they had 5 class periods, almost a total of 5 hours to plan and build their models, responsibilty for staying on task as well as for their materials, and respect for others, their projects, and supplies. Thursday and Friday, the kids had a chance to work on some public speaking skills and show off their creations. Projects can be seen on the student work tab above. I was very impressed with the level of creativity.

Upcoming dates:
Tuesday, October 29th- Happy Birthday Justice and Vincent!
Wednesday, October 30th- Mrs. Yuska's birthday
Thursday, October 31st- Fall Party

Monday, November 4th- I am at Grant Wood AEA all day for a PBIS meeting 

                                        (Mrs. Bullis and Ms. Wild will be teaching)

Tuesday, November 5th- Picture retakes (please bring packet of pictures in), SuperSkate Night

Wednesday, November 6th- Happy Birthday Noelle and Rebeckah!

Friday, November 8th- No School, teachers will be at school working on report cards. 

Wednesday, November 20th- BIG BLAST PARTY (from our fundraiser)

Thursday, November 21st- 1:15 Dismissal, Conferences 1:30-5:30

Monday, November 25th- Conferences 3:30-7:30

Wednesday, November 27th- Friday, November 29th- No School, Thanksgiving Break

Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Jodie Yuska