Think Spring

We've been working hard on our Oviparous Animals unit. All of the children are able to name an oviparous animal, a mammal and a viviparous animal now. Today we made bird's nests to eat - they were yummy! We expect our caterpillars will arrive during the week following spring break and we will begin our Insect Life Cycle unit then.

Farmer Schmidt, a wonderful friend to our class, will make a visit here on April 25 with some of her farmyard birds.

We'll all go to the Outdoor Center on May 11 for our field trip. We'll send permission slips home later in April.

We will be working with Ms. Momeni's class on an end of the year Feelings Celebration Program - we hope you will all be able to attend! It will be held on Thursday, May 31 at 2:00 here at Loon Lake. We want to share some of our social skills learning with you, and we think you'll be pretty proud of us too!

Exciting News!

We have exciting news to share with you, which is why we look so happy in this photograph! We just learned that our classroom and Ms. Momeni's classroom were awarded a Mini-Grant from the Foundation for Excellence. This Mini-Grant was written to help defray the cost of a visit to the Outdoor Center this spring, and will pay for our school bus and most of the program costs! Ms. Momeni's 3-5th grade students will participate in the Adventure Team Challenge program, and our K-2 class will experience 3 science programs: Spiders, Insects and Camouflage. We will go on our trip on Friday, May 11th, and because of the generosity of the Mini-Grant, we will only need to collect $5.00 from each child. We have attended programs at the Outdoor Center in the past and they have been excellent for our students. The staff there does a great job accommodating our needs and focusing on our goals. We will be working on an Insect and Life-Cycle unit after spring break, so these programs will provide wonderful enrichment. In addition, this is a terrific opportunity for our students to take their social skills learning into another environment. We'll send permission slips home closer to our Field Trip Date, but I wanted to share this happy news with you now!
We have completed our Dr. Seuss unit with great love for all of his books! This week, we read several books by Beatrix Potter - we enjoyed them as well. We are also beginning a mini-unit about oviparous animals. Ask your child what that means and ask him/her to name some oviparous animals. This mini-unit has included a lot of discussion about all kinds of animals, and we've been using words like mammal, reptile, amphibian, bird, etc. This unit will be a nice lead in to our insect unit in April.
We'll end the week with a Skills for Learning lesson about how to handle being knocked down or bumped. When children assume that someone is behaving towards them with hostile motives, they are more likely to retaliate with aggression. We'll practice how to stay calm, how to look at the other person's face to tell if maybe it was an accident, and how to talk through and solve the problem in a calm way. Your children have grown so much in their ability to look at faces and correctly "read" them - this skill alone goes a very long way in developing empathy. I also notice that as empathy increases, anxiety decreases in our students, which is a great thing!

Lot's of Dr. Seuss and handling disappointment...

We read "Green Eggs and Ham" and cooked some up for ourselves! Some children thought they were great, some thought they were disgusting! However they tasted, we all agreed...they sure were GREEN! We've enjoyed many other Dr. Seuss books this week, and they've helped us understand a lot more about rhyming words. When we read "The Foot Book" we practiced word opposites, another tricky skill. Our Skills for Learning lesson this week was about disappointment. We looked at photographs and heard stories about feeling disappointed. We played some games and role played different scenarios. We have steps we can follow when we feel upset or disappointed:
* stop
* put hands on belly
* breathe
* think about what you can do to get calm (bump it out, self-talk, talk to an adult...)

I would like all of you to try to give your children some practice with this at home too. When you say "no" or don't give your child something he or she wants/wants to do, you're giving them a wonderful opportunity to practice this real life skill. Have your children ANTICIPATE when they might not get the choice/answer they want and may need to calm down. REINFORCE their behavior with specific feedback: "I noticed you calming down when you didn't get the book you wanted. Now you are ready to choose a different one."

March Reading Activities

This month our school will be involved in many reading related activities. Our class loves to look at and enjoy books, and we start most days off reading books in our book boxes. We'll read many Dr. Seuss books, and complete a book about many of his books to share with our families at home. All of us will sign a reading oath, and I know that many children are also reading books at home and filling in the Reading Log.

Each Friday, students may join in with a special building wide reading activity. All of these are optional, but may be fun for your child to do. I've listed these special Friday activities here:
March 9 - Read a Hat Day! Wear a hat to school with WORDS on it.
March 16 - Read a T-shirt Day! Wear a t-shirt to school with WORDS on it.
March 23 - Read a Bottle Day! Bring a water bottle with WORDS on it.
March 30 - Bring a Flashlight Day READ IN! Bring a flashlight and we'll read some of our books in the dark!
(It is OK to add some words to a hat/t-shirt/water bottle if you don't have one with words on it. For example, you could tape or pin a paper with words on it onto a hat or t-shirt.)

Last week really flew by! The class came back well-rested from Mid-Winter break. We were able to complete our American symbols unit and finish our book, "Peace Week in Mrs. Ellis' Class". The kids love seeing their names and photos in this book.!

We were surprised by the power outage and the day off of school on Wednesday, but we worked hard to make up for lost time. We completed some leprechaun crafts and writing, and began decorating our door for Reading Month. We read the book, "How I Became a Pirate" and got very excited about pirates. We made parrots and we're going to make pirates for our door. We also celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss, and for the next few weeks we'll be reading many of his books.

We learned about "belly breathing", naming our feelings, and waiting for something in our Skills for Learning lessons. I continue to be so impressed by the great job your children are doing with their Home Links - thank you for your help with them! Amazingly, ALL of our students are now on Level 3 or higher on our Coping Skills Rubric!!! This means that ALL of them have been observed using a coping skill when frustrated or upset or to solve a problem. This shows incredible growth this year - and we still have several months to go!

The highlight of our week was attending the Variety Show on Friday. Our own kindergartner, Shua, played a wonderful piece of music on the piano. We were all so excited and proud to see her performance.

Our Valentine's Day party was a lot of fun. We loved opening all of the nice cards and treats that were in our mailboxes! Thanks to so many parents who sent in nice treats for us - we'll be eating them all week I think!

We've continued to work on our United States symbols unit. A favorite this week was learning about the Statue of Liberty. We were amazed to find out how big she is, where she came from and how she got to the United States! It prompted a nice discussion about our ancestors and how some of them may have traveled here from other countries long ago.

Our Skills for Learning lessons were about naming a feeling we might be having. This is tricky - sometimes we think and act like we are angry, but we might really be feeling frustration, anxiety, jealousy or sadness. Mrs. Schnieders also works with each student on coping skills that they might use once they identify a feeling. All of the children have become better at naming coping skills and using them. Lately, I've even seen some children suggest a coping skill for an upset classmate to use! We talk a lot about how Level 4 on our Coping Skill Rubric requires a student to accept help and use a coping skill instead of demonstrating a behavioral outburst. Level 4 is a big deal for our students, so we're really focusing on this skill.

One of the books we read this week was called "Peace Week in Miss Fox's Class". We loved it so much that we've decided to make a book about our class with our students in it! We're having a lot of fun taking photos for it and deciding how our room can be peaceful too.

On Friday, we'll have been in school for 100 days! It is hard to believe that some of our students are the same ones who began here in the fall. All of our little guys are able to read and write, add and subtract, sit and listen at group, and complete many tasks independently! All of our big guys are able to participate in a lengthy social work lesson with peers and have been able to use coping skills in our classroom and in general ed. classrooms! Friendships have been formed and new skills have been gained. I have greatly appreciated the help and support of all of the parents in this program. This was a challenging 100 days - we are so focused on changing behavior in a program like this, that it can often feel like a lot of work for students, parents and staff. On Friday, our students will be excited to see the number 100, and we'll do many activities about that number. But I will also spend a moment feeling amazed - amazed at the changes your efforts, your trust and your teamwork have helped create in your children.

A New Classmate and Learning about Worries...

This week we talked about feeling worried. We reviewed different coping skills that would be good to use when a worry becomes really big. These coping skills would include: talk to a friend or teacher, use "self talk" to reassure yourself, do some deep breathing or resting, or bump out the worry/upset thought and bump in a happy thought. We also talked about how a worried person might look and why a big worry can cause problems for us. Sometimes worrying makes us feel sick or unable to learn, and sometimes worries that get too big cause us to hit or scream or throw things. We call this a "Red Alert!!!" and we need to be willing to try a coping skill or accept help when we feel that upset. We have noticed that our students know more coping skills now, are more able and willing to use them, and use them more frequently when frustrated rather than other more disruptive behaviors. Several children have moved up a level on our Coping Skills Rubric! Encourage your child to use coping skills at home too - they need many opportunities to practice using them.

We have also been working hard on saying "OK" to directions or when we hear "no" so that we can earn our gold stars. I see that many children are beginning to do this more often and more easily. I also have noticed many children showing empathy and compassion towards classmates! This makes me feel really proud of them!

We have been working on learning about the symbols of the United States of America and what they stand for. We have read about Abraham Lincoln and know that his face is on the penny. We'll learn about George Washington tomorrow, and talk about quarters. We've also practiced counting nickels and dimes. I will send a little money sheet home with pictures and poems about these coins. For extra practice at home, you can have your child count out your extra change. Counting by fives and tens is also helpful practice.

We were so happy to have a new student join our classroom this week! Our new first grade boy is a wonderful friend and has been welcomed by all of us!