Dear Families

Dear Families,

 

Today I am sending home a permission slip to be signed for a field trip to the Saline Fairgrounds for "Rural Education Days" this Thursday. We learn about Michigan Agriculture.  It's presented by high school students in 4H. The permission slips were in their mailboxes. Ask about it. Special accolades for any students to remembered it!! If they forgot today, remind them to bring it tomorrow. I would like to have them all by Wednesday.

Wednesday is the Chicken Fun Run. I forwarded you some information about it.

Next Thursday, April 25 we will be releasing the Salmon!!! Watch for another permission slip for that. We will go by school bus with Edie's class to Huroc Park, Flat Rock, Michigan. On our way back we will drive out to the mouth of the river. The trip will take place within the school day. We will need a few parent volunteers for that.

We are finally official for Camp Talahi!! I have a contract for May 22-24. Next step, raise the additional funds needed. I told the kids today that we would do a Read-A-Thon. I will send the pledge forms and reading records home tomorrow.

Check In

Dear Families,

Sorry, I didn't get to you sooner, but you may have heard that I was whisked out to urgent care on Friday. I was just going down some stairs and suddenly I couldn't put any weight on my right leg. Well, the outcome is not as dramatic as the event, luckily. I can walk now and just have to be very mindful while I heal. The kids in the class were so sweet and helpful. After the evaluation at Urgent care, I bought a cane and went on to a wonderful Open Classroom Conference! Glad to see some of you there.

This last week before Spring Break we have Focus Studies in the afternoon. My contribution this round is to facilitate kids in offering Focus Studies. I have worked with the groups on planning and preparing. If your child is one of the 'teachers' and you have questions feel free to check in with me. We are offering "Unicorns", "Poems, Poems, What a Marvelous Thing", "Knock, Knock, Who's There? Comedy!!", "Russian and Danish Language and Traditions", "German Language and Culture", and "Paper Airplanes". The groups will be held under my supervision.

Tuesday is the field trip to Hill Auditorium for Link Up. We will be out of the building 9:30-11:45. We will be back in time for a normal lunch.

I am still stuck on the Spring Camp field trip. I contacted Dainava and tried to get them to let us sign up for May, but they are not willing to make a commitment until they are sure the bathroom renovations are finished on schedule. I contacted Camp Talahi, a camp I have used in the past. It's a beautiful location, west of Brighton about a 35 minute drive. They have dates available in May. This camp provides a program. Nice, but it is also more expensive. The 3 day camp is $110 per student ($2640.) plus $40 per chaperone. I don't have a price yet for going to the camp for 2 days, one night. Our Class Trip account is currently at $2181.22. and we still need money to cover a bus to release the salmon. I paid for a charter bus to go to Wolf Lake to get the eggs before I knew we would have trouble getting Camp Dainava, which has been very cheap the last 8 years. Lynn and I will send out a survey to get your feedback. We have to make a call soon.

Back on the ranch, we are continuing to work through multiplication, division and geometry. We will dive into fractions after spring break. In writing, I have been challenging the kids with dialog. They like to write dialog in their stories without any formatting, so we are working on quotation marks and paragraph indentation. We finished our read aloud "Watson's go to Birmingham--1963." Such a great author and an opportunity to talk about the American Civil Rights movement. Next we are exploring women in history and how women in America have actively demanded equal rights and recognition. We continue to maintain our salmon tank and watch them grow.

Meanwhile, I continue to watch your children grow, what a wonderful and caring group we have.

Dear Families,

Here's hoping for a "regular" school week schedule!

This Wednesday is "Global Play Day." We participated in it last year and it was a wonderful, community building day.

Wednesday, February 6 is Global School Play Day

Global School Play Day is an international event raising awareness of the need for unstructured play. Here is a link to a TED talk by Dr. Peter Gray about the effects of the decline of unstructured play.
With our crazy scheduling, the date caught me off guard. I will talk to the kids about it on Tuesday.

Students can bring anything they wish to play with to school on Wednesday, February 6, 2019. The only restrictions: they must bring toys and these toys may NOT require batteries or electricity. No devices.  Some ideas: board games, dolls, Legos, blocks, trucks, cars, racetracks, playing cards, empty cardboard boxes, markers, jigsaw puzzles, blankets (for forts), social games (charades, Pictionary, etc.)

Update from Bette

Dear Families,

Hope you are all managing the cold wintery weather, not to mention the alternate arrangements for child care when school is closed. Gotta love it. Last week's snow days took me by surprise. Now I long to get on with our regularly scheduled program. Even so, tomorrow's closed and Thursday is in question with the forecasted temperatures. Here is a link to the Winter Weather Guidelines for AAPS. I think the chart to show how wind chills are determined is cool. I went over it with the kids today as a teachable moment for how to read tables.

The school closings have messed up our focus study schedule as well. Check messages form Karen Siegel  to keep abreast of that.

Alexis, our music teacher, is trying to prepare the kids for the Coffee House coming Feb 7 at 6. She only has our class one day a week. Today she handed out the recorders that were ordered so kids could practice at home.(lucky you).

It's time to prepare for the upcoming Science Fair, scheduled for February 28. I spoke with the kids about it today. Next time we have school I will have "I-Search" contracts for the kids to fill out. The I-Search this time will be science or maker fair related and we will display them at the science fair.  VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR VOLUNTEER SIGN UP, STUDENT ENTRY FORMS, AND HANDBOOK: Science Fair Handbook and volunteer link

In October I tried to establish dates for Camp Dainava. We have a slight complication. The Camp is upgrading their bathrooms, which is great news. However, the completion date is May 1.  My contact for camp rental is worried about the possibility of construction not meeting its deadline, so she asked if we could wait until April to secure a date. I was looking for camp dates May 8-10, May 15-17 or May 22-May 24. I usually like to give families more lead time for making arrangements to be available for camp. If anyone is skilled at creating online surveys I'd like to get feedback from families about this. Let me know.

The salmon are doing great. We're still working on multiplication and division. This will be ongoing, but we will start geometry when we reconvene.

Bette

Update for Field Trip

Dear Families,

We're all set and excited for our  field trip tomorrow! All the permission slips are in, yay!

One adjustment. we will not go swimming before leaving after all. The drive is 1 hour and 48 minutes, so we should leave by 8:40 to get there by 10:30 for our program. So, if looks like we will gather for attendance and load the bus!

Chaperones include  Molly, Dina, Carola, Jill,  Andrew H. plus Heidi

Make sure the kids:

• bring a lunch and water bottle
• dress for the weather (High of 39, possible snow in the am)
• bring a bag or back pack for lunch and outerwear/

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last note is that we will be going to Project Lead The Way (PLTW) at the end of the day every day until Winter break. We will dismiss from PTLW, room 109, so we will go all packed up.

Field Trip this Friday!!

Dear Families,

I'm excited for the big trip on Friday to the Wolf Lake Hatchery to pick up our salon eggs!  We sent the permission slips home last Friday. (Margaret watched each one go into its backpack, wink, wink). We  have a majority of the permission slips in.  Second chance permission slips were passed out today to the 8 that are still out. Here's the agenda for Friday:

8:30 Swimming

9:15 Load the bus, snack served on the bus

10:30-12:00  Tour of the hatchery

12:00- Lunch, tour museum and show pond

1:30 load bus

3:00 arrive at AAO

Children should BRING A LUNCH. They should be dressed comfortably for the weather. The children can bring a "purged" backpack to keep their lunch, extra clothing and a book or notebook in.

We have some individual packets of cheeze crackers for the bus ride. I would love it if someone could send in some juice boxes. I have one "G" rated movie for the bus ride. We need one more.

Confirmed chaperones so far are Lynn, Dina, Carola. Heidi will be with us. There's room for one or two more. If you are interested let me know!

Multicultural festival is coming up. Today we voted to study "People of the Great Lakes"! It's a rich topic and I am sure everyone will be able to find a topic of interest. We're already talking about making the entrance to our room the St. Lawrence Seaway and making Niagara Falls with the Welland Canal going by it. I am reading "Death and Life of the Great Lakes," by Dan Egan right now, and the first chapter has a great outline of the history of human interaction with this magnificent resource. In addition, through SEMIS place-based education coalition I have met an incredible historian who has researched and studied the true histories of the early people who lived around the Great Lakes before the Europeans arrived. There's also a lot to consider about, not just the past, but the future. You'll be hearing more as we get into it.

I'm working on report cards. Expect them to come home next Tuesday.

Bette

Bette Diem, Teacher

Notes from Bette

Dear Families,

We survived Halloween . Thanks to all of the parents who sent in treats and came in to help with the parade and festivities.

I so enjoy I-Search presentations! We've had students share what they've learned and show their expertise about a wide array of topics, from the periodic table to the human body to Halloween and Football, just to name a few. The presentations are well done and the kids are proud to share their work. Thanks so much for helping.

As I mentioned on Curriculum Night the I-Searches are about process and love of learning. I've had some questions about due dates. I see the "due dates" as training wheels, just to help the kids learn how to have a target date. When they are older they may have consequences for their grade, etc. Through I-Searches, they will have learned how to handle it without pressure.

Reggie has done some literature lessons with the kids on Tall Tales and writing Circle Stories. In math we are continuing with addition and subtraction with 3rd grade and factors and multiples with fourth grade. The kids are making acrostics with the math terms "Sum" and "Factors," to help them retain the meaning. These are terms I have noticed that they learn in the moment, but cannot define later on, so we are trying to get the meaning to stick by creating acrostics with them. Today we are constructing line graphs with our Halloween Candy data.

Speaking of Reggie, next week is his last week with us. He has a job teaching in Wayne-Westland already. Next Friday we will have a farewell party with him.

Here are some upcoming events:

Remember, next Tuesday- No School for Election Day.

Next Wednesday, Nov. 7 we have a UMS field trip to Hill auditorium to see Jake Shimabukuro, an amazing virtuoso ukulele player. I have 3 tickets for chaperones. Here's a link to his website.  http://jakeshimabukuro.com/

Permission slips are coming home today.

I am really excited to announce that I have arranged a field trip to take the class with me to pick up the salmon eggs this year! We will be traveling by charter bus to Wolf Lake Hatchery in Matatawan on Friday, November 16. We will still swim, then we will board the bus. We will tour the hatchery and visitor's center. More details upcoming. Here's a link to the visitor's center. https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-350-79136_79236_80247_80504_82189---,00.html

Don't forget the time change this weekend.