Snowmen and Penguins

We had a short week last week, but we are back into the swing of the New Year. We've been reading snow stories and creating snowmen and women. 

We've also been learning about penguins and had fun creating some big and small penguins. We wrote about penguins in our journals too. 

In our social skills lessons we have discussed how to look for "clues" to how someone feels by looking at their faces and listening to their words. Most of our students recognize when someone is in the yellow or red zone, and they realize they don't feel comfortable around them. Using coping skills helps us move back into the green zone - we know we feel better and people feel more comfortable around us when we are in the green zone. It is also how we show that we are ready to learn. Your children feel really proud when they are able to name their feeling or zone, use a coping skill, and move on with a good day at school. 

We read two favorite Jan Brett books, "The Mitten" and "The Hat". Both are great stories for re-telling, a skill we work on a lot in our room. We wrote about an animal that could be in our mitten. 

Reminders: No School on Monday, Jan. 15

                  Early 1/2 day on Thursday, Jan 18 for Conferences

Holiday Fun!

We were very excited to wrap up our special gifts for our families - we hope you will love them! 

We had a lot of fun at our Holiday Breakfast - we ate yummy food and then we each opened up a dinosaur book from our teachers. We also thought it was very funny to be wearing our pajamas today!

I wish you all a wonderful winter break! It was a fun day here with your children and all of the festivities today!  Enjoy this time with your families - I look forward to seeing everyone on January 3, 2018! 

Making special gifts

This week we worked very hard to create some special, top secret gifts for our families. We painted, and boxed them up and made special gift cards. Next week, we'll get them all wrapped up and bring them home.We think you will love our efforts! 

We loved all of the snow...but we need to remember to bring snowpants, mittens and boots. PLEASE practice putting winter mittens etc on at home - we go straight outside from lunch, and we want to be able to get ready without a lot of frustration and tears.  Some families choose to leave a pair of snowpants here at school - that is fine with us! It is a good idea to send extra socks too - sometimes feet get wet and cold at recess. 

We enjoy warm, cozy center time inside our classroom too - we are really working on working together, using calm words, and sharing our work spaces. Center time is a great opportunity to use coping skills too! 

With all of the snow outside, we decided to create some snowy window scenes. 

We also worked as a team to create this beautiful snow scene on our board. 

Next Thursday, December 14, will be our classroom Holiday Breakfast. This will be our party before the winter break. You may send your children a little hungry that morning! It is also pajama day at Loon Lake - so your children can wear their pajamas all day long! I will be sure to add photos to our blog that day!

Gingerbread Stories

This week we read many different versions of "gingerbread stories" so that we could compare characters, problems and endings. We wrote about the gingerbread man in our journals. Here are some of the books we read and projects we created...

In our social skills lessons we talked about looking at faces to figure out how someone is feeling. Children who accurately identify emotions tend to be less aggressive. We practiced really noticing how someone's face looks as a clue to how they are feeling.  We also introduced a new coping skill called MOVE ON. Children feel really proud when they are able to use a coping skill to get back in the green zone - "MOVE ON" helps us do that. We give a lot of praise when children are able to do this. 

We were excited to see some snow on Thursday - we created some snow art and wrote about the snow in our journals. 

Miss Marlowe helped us sing about hibernation and some of our coping skills. Ask your child to tell you about "Pickle Macaroni"!

We will have our Holiday Breakfast on Thursday, December 21 (our last day before break). We will cook and serve a pancake breakfast to our students - you may send them a little hungry that morning! This will also serve as our Holiday Party. 

Winter

We have been reading many books about winter and turning our classroom into a winter wonderland. Here are a few of our art creations...

We also learned about how some animals hibernate in the winter months. We made bears in a cave, read about bears, and wrote about bears in our journals. 

We learned about "self-talk" in our social skills lessons, and added "self talk" to our coping skill board. Self talk for learning can be a powerful tool to help students remember directions and to stay focused. Self talk is when we use positive words to remind ourselves about what we need to do. It can also be used to reassure ourselves when we feel anxious. Our class really enjoys "speech bubbles" and "thought bubbles"- we can put our self-talk into pictures to help remind us of what we need to say. 

In another social skills lesson we talked about HOW to ask for help. We need to ask for help assertively, but not too aggressively. Sometimes students hesitate to ask for help or are too passive. We practiced raising our hands and asking for help with a clear voice and no screaming or yelling. 

We added some new break time "Tubs" to our routine - most of these activities involving building and developing fine motor skills. 

Pilgrims and Native American Indians

We have been learning about the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower. The voyage was 66 days long and was very difficult.

We compared life long ago in the Pilgrim village, the Wampanoag Indian village, and in our lives today. We made our own butter by shaking whipping cream really hard and we ate it on crackers - churning butter was a job Pilgrim children often had to help do.

We read books, watched videos to show what life was like long ago, and created many art projects to enhance our learning. 
We also chose Native American Indian names to put on headbands that we created. Each day we focused on a specific behavior or goal and were able to earn a feather for it. 
We had fun with Miss Marlowe and her turkey song!

We learned about a new coping skill called "Give it a Try". Our students often show some resistance to new things, or things that might be challenging for them. We want to encourage them to try things, even if they are a little hard for them. It is an important skill because real learning will require trying and practicing lot's of new things. 

We also worked on some social skills lessons about focusing attention and ignoring distractions so that we are able to learn new information and complete our work correctly. 

****** Please remember to sign up for a conference time in Skyward for Conference Day - December 14. My time slots are all for 30 minutes. If you already have a REED or IEPT scheduled with me that day, your time has been blocked out for you. Please let me know if you need any help. I look forward to meeting with you.****

Weather is getting chillier - be sure to send in hats and mittens for recess. 

Cold and flu season is here. Please talk to your children about washing hands and not touching/picking noses. If your child is sick or throwing up, they need to stay at home - our day is really busy with a lot of demands, and sick children need to be at home resting and recuperating. 

We LOVE the Pigeon!!!

We have enjoyed reading "Pigeon" books by Mo Willems all fall. Last week we decided to write some short stories about a pet the Pigeon wanted. We drew great, detailed pictures to go with our writing. We also made Pigeons, voted to decide if we thought the Pigeon should get a pet, and wrote about pets we would like to have ourselves. We can't wait to read more books by this funny author! We have begun to send our Pigeon book bag home with a different student each week - we hope you have fun when the Pigeon comes to your house!

We are also beginning to read various Native American legends and tales. This week we read "The Loon's Necklace" and "Rainbow Crow". Both tales come to us from the Woodland Indian Tribes near the mid-western part of the United States.

We worked on a new coping skill this week - Express your Feelings/Use Calm Words. This is challenging for our students when they are already upset, but is an important self regulation skill. At home you can prompt your child to use calm words when the need help or want something. 

In preparation for Veterans Day, we used our Scholastic News to talk about our military service men and women. We wrote about one of our own student's dads in our journals!