Our Holiday Breakfast

We looked really cute and felt really cozy in our pajamas today!

Breakfast was yummy and we all ate a lot!

After breakfast, the children opened their gifts. The "Bear" books were a big hit!

Happy Holidays to all of you! Enjoy the next two weeks with your families. I look forward to seeing everyone back in 2015!

Our Play was Fun!

Thank you all for coming to see the children in their play. All of the children felt excited and proud to have you here! I am proud of all of their progress and growth this year, and I feel I owe a big thanks to all of you - you have been supportive and open minded when we have had to discuss problems, you have all attended parent teacher conferences this year, and you are all wonderful about signing the daily notes. These things really make a difference - I appreciate each of you!

The Narrator told the story....

The Mouse, the Hare and the Badger shared snacks around the fire...

The Bear woke up and felt mad - he was in the red zone!

The Wren and the Raven suggested that he count and breathe...

The Mole and the Gopher suggested he try yoga to calm down...

Finally, the Hare asked the Bear to use his words and tell what he was upset about!

Bear was able to tell us that he was sad about missing the party. Gopher told him this problem was small, and they shared their snacks with him. Bear felt better and read a story to his friends. 

The Bear was awake, but his friends fell asleep!

Thank you all again! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and Winter Break. Remember, our Holiday Breakfast is Friday morning and the children may wear their pajamas!

BEARS!

We have had a lot of fun with our bears this week! Due to the power outage on Tuesday, I had not sent out the reminder note about the "bring your bear to school" day on Wednesday. Some children did come with their bears, and some did not. It turned out to be a great opportunity for me to see how they would handle this - they were AMAZING! Those who didn't have bears were very willing to choose a classroom bear, so we went on with our plans! We have been working hard using putty thinking instead of rock brain thinking, so I was proud to see them be so flexible. The bears were put into a cave Wednesday night...

and we expected to find them there in the morning. However, we had workmen in our room Wednesday evening putting up our new smart board and 2 new bulletin boards. They must have woken the bears up because this is what we found Thursday morning...

All the bears have been well behaved, so they were able to participate in music with Miss Marlowe. 

We have enjoyed reading about real and make believe bears and learning about hibernation. We will continue this work next week, too. 

Our play is next Tuesday at 2:00 in our classroom, with a little reception afterwards. You might want to arrive a few minutes early so that you can park, sign in and head down to our classroom.

Our Holiday Breakfast is Friday morning, and we love hungry children for that! Miss Qonja has also said that children may wear their pajamas that day! 

Gingerbread houses and bears....

We had a wonderful week in room 113! We read several different versions of Gingerbread Boy and Girl stories and then we each made our own gingerbread houses - they will be on display during our play on Tuesday, December 16 at 2:00!

We will be reading and learning all about bears next week. Your child may bring in a favorite stuffed bear next Wednesday - the bears will need to stay overnight! If your child does not have a bear, we have extra bears we can share.

Our classroom Holiday Breakfast will be on Friday, December 19. We will be cooking pancakes and sausage, and will also have fruit and juice. We love to feed hungry kids, so please send yours in hungry that morning!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today was Hat Day - some students brought hats to wear, and others borrowed from our hat box!

We have worked on adding a few more coping skills to our "tool box" of coping skills. We talk about the "size of the problem" and our "reaction" to the problem. Most problems at school are small: things like a broken pencil, someone taking cuts, not understanding how to do work, hearing a direction we don't like are examples of small problems. We might feel some yellow zone feelings - frustration, confusion, jealousy, even a little anger. We are learning that our reaction for a little problem should not be a big, red zone reaction (yelling, throwing, having a tantrum),  and our goal should be using a coping skill tool to get back to the green zone. Asking for help, positive self talk and breathing are all good coping skills for frustration and confusion.
We have added "size of the problem" to our tools and we've also added "move on". Moving on after a problem has been resolved helps us get back to the green zone. This can be challenging for children who might get "stuck", so we practice it a lot.
We did a social skills lesson about frustration. We learned that our body feels uncomfortable when we are frustrated and then practiced "stopping" and "naming our feeling" so that we can feel calmer and get help. Research shows that just naming a feeling can help decrease the intensity of that feeling.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our Room 113 families! Remember that there is no school on Monday, December 1. We'll see everyone back on Tuesday, December 2!

Thank you ALL for coming to parent-teacher conferences! 100% attendance from parents -no wonder your children are all making so much progress! Family support and teamwork between  home and school makes all the difference -I appreciate all of you! Your children will also appreciate your hard work someday (they just won't realize it for awhile!)
We had a wonderful trip to the Walled Lake Outdoor Center! Everyone did such a great job! We bundled up...

and got on the bus.

We took a walk outside to see the seeds in the garden that birds like to eat and got some seeds on our gloves. We also put food out at the bird feeder and watched birds come to eat. 

 

Inside we made pine cone bird feeders and potpourri to bring home with us. Afterwards, we all ate lunch together!

Just a reminder to everyone - the children go out for recess and need to have hats and mittens/gloves, boots and snow pants. Please put names inside of things. Your children may leave boots and snow pants here if they wish. It is also a good idea to pack extra socks in case feet get wet outside. It would help your child become more independent if you could practice putting on and zipping up winter gear. This is a skill your child will eventually need in a general education setting, so we try to encourage them and provide practice here as well. 

Pilgrims and Native Americans

We have begun our study of Native Americans and Pilgrims - this week we read some wonderful Native American legends. We read "Rainbow Crow" and  "The Loon's Necklace" and  and completed some art work to go along with them. We read "The Rough-Face Girl"  and compared it to Cinderella.  We also made Indian headbands and chose Indian names - ask your child to tell you his/hers! We are working to earn a special feather each day.
We are hard at work on our performance of "Bear Snores On" - we can't wait to show you our work on December 16 at 2:00!
The weather is colder so please make sure your child wears a warm coat and has a hat and mittens for the playground. It would be very helpful for your child to practice putting on and zipping his/her coat. Once it snows, they will need snow pants and boots. Please put your child's name inside his/her snow pants and boots. If you have extra, they may leave their boots/snow pants here.
Our Field Trip to the Outdoor Center is next Wednesday, November 19. We will be sure to post many pictures on our blog. Remember to bring a lunch and drink in a bag.

We added a few new building centers to our center chart. We feel proud when we can use a toy or game the right way!

This week we finished up our unit about day/night and nocturnal animals. Your child will bring home his/her nocturnal animal art pages to show you. We will begin our social studies unit about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans and the first Thanksgiving. We will learn about the voyage on the Mayflower, and what life was like when the Pilgrims arrived in America. We will read many Native American legends this month, choose our own Native American names, and earn feathers for our headbands.
We started a gratitude chain last week -look how long it is already!

We spend a few minutes each morning talking about what we are thankful or grateful for. You would be amazed at the many non-materialistic things your children mention!
The coping skill we are working on is "How big is the problem" -we have been talking about how it is smart to match our reaction to the true size of a problem. We are also working to understand that there are times when we will all be in the blue (sad, tired, sick, hurt), red (very upset, out of control, extremely agitated) or yellow (confused, annoyed, frustrated, jealous) zones, not just the green zone (in control, ready to learn, calm).  Coping skills are the tools that we can use to help us get back to the green zone. I have seen several students show that they can do this lately!

Big News!!! We are working on a performance based on the book, "Bear Snores On". We will work hard on it for many weeks, but we plan to perform for you at 2:00 on Tuesday, December 16 in our classroom. I hope that many of you will be able to come and see our performance and join us for a little reception afterwards. All family and friends are welcome!

Our field trip is on November 19 - we are going to the Outdoor Center to learn about birds and trees. Your child needs to pack a sack lunch and drink that day. We need you to return the permission slips that are coming home this week.
Parent Teacher Conference Day is next Thursday, November 13. I look forward to seeing you then!

Halloween Happenings!

We had a great Halloween in Room 113! The pictures tell the story...

We are excited that we are going to go on a Field Trip to the WL Outdoor Center on November 19. We will participate in two science classes there - birds and trees. The children will need to bring their lunch and a drink in a paper bag - we'll eat at the Outdoor Center before we return to school. The cost of our field trip and bus are being partially funded through a mini-grant from the Foundation for Excellence. We will send home a field trip permission slip and will ask for $5.00 to help offset the cost.
Our first Parent Support Group meeting was well-attended, and we will work on planning another one. It was wonderful to see so many of you there - I love having that extra time to work together with parents of our students!

Nocturnal Animals

This  week we began a new science/literature unit about night time and nocturnal animals. We will read fiction and non-fiction books about nocturnal animals and work on some directed art lessons to create a book of animals. These art lessons are more challenging than others we have done -they require the students to really watch me demonstrate the steps, and then use the many pieces correctly to build the animal. It takes a lot of focus, patience and perseverance - and gives us great opportunities to practice coping skills. Your children worked very hard on the first two animals we worked on this week!

In our social skills lessons we added "take a break" to our coping skills bulletin board. This is more challenging than you might think -often when we are frustrated, we resist stopping and taking a break...which leads to more frustration and upset. We also practiced using "laugh it out" when we make a small, silly mistake.  Your students are really getting good at identifying how the characters in our read aloud stories are feeling, and what zone they are in. We read "Where the Wild Things Are" and they were able to tell when Max was in the red, blue and finally, green zones!

Next week is busy:
Tuesday from 6:00-7:00 is our Parent Support Group Meeting - all parents and caregivers are welcome!

Friday is Halloween. Your child should bring their Halloween costume - we will put them on after lunch for the parade at 2:00. We will all parade out the front door of the school if you would like to come and watch. We will have a small and simple party after the parade.
Friday is the end of this marking period. I will see you all at Parent Teacher Conferences on November 13. Personally, I am really looking forward to meeting with you - your children have ALL made progress, and they are all wonderful to work with and to have in class!

Centers, owls and coping skills

We were excited to use some new Centers this week - we tried out a house center, a pirate center and a RV/camping center. They sure were fun!

We have been working hard on learning our coping skills - every single student has increased the number of coping skills they are able to name. Now, we are really focusing on using those coping skills while we are in the yellow zone (feeling frustrated, confused, upset) so that we stay out of the red zone (yelling, throwing, big anger). We are learning that the red zone is usually where a check mark or consequence will occur, so we are beginning to be more motivated to get back to green!

This was our big owl week in science and on Friday we dissected owl pellets. 

Two boys from our room were given PBIS slips for their great behavior on the bus ride home!