Polar Animals

We continued our study of polar animals. I am so impressed that the children have grown in their understanding of the earth's regions and geography as well. On Wednesday our discussion included talking, and acting out, how the earth rotates and revolves around the sun. This definitely is an area of interest to them, and we'll want to expand on it more.

 

We introduced many new ideas and vocabulary this week as we learned about polar bears, walrus, and Emperor penguins. We learned that male Emperor penguins stand out in the cold for two months with an egg on their feet. They do not eat during that time. The females are off swimming and eating in the ocean. When the egg finally hatches, the father feeds it until the mother returns and relieves him. We acted this out too - here are some father penguins huddling to stay warm. The girls are off at sea! Ask  your child to tell you all about it.

We also did a measurement activity comparing our height to the height of an Emperor penguin. Mrs. Nancy helped to measure us.

Report cards went home on Thursday, along with progress reports for IEPT goals and objectives.m

Parent Support Group meeting is next Thursday, February 7, at 6:30. I hope that many of you will be able to join us!

Self-Talk

Our Skills for Learning lesson this week focused on coping skills to use when we feel upset. We have been practicing deep breathing, or belly breathing, and this week we practiced self-talk to calm down. Positive self -talk, or even the bump it out coping skill, can both help engage the thinking part of the brain and helps divert our attention from negative self talk, which can escalate strong feelings. We want to help students interrupt the upset feeling so that they do not make poor or unsafe behavior choices. You can help give your child more practice at home by ANTICIPATING when they might need to use self-talk to calm down. When your child does calm him/herself, REINFORCE the behavior with specific feedback: " I saw you were frustrated, and then you calmed down. What did you say to yourself to calm down?"

We began learning all about penguins, and next week we will also learn about some other cold-climate animals. We learned that penguins and polar bears will never meet because they live at the opposite parts of the earth! Polar bears live north of the equator, and penguins live south of the equator. We talked about the equator, the Arctic and the Antarctic. I bet your child is able to tell you some interesting things about penguins!
On Friday we did a great experiment with blubber - we put a "blubber glove" on one hand and plunged both hands into icy water. We found out that the blubber glove kept our hand really warm - we couldn't even feel the ice cold water. Some of us also rubbed a little "blubber" (shortening) on our skin to see how it felt. It made our skin feel soft, and we decided that it would also help keep us warmer if we were outside in the Arctic.

We have worked very hard on our behavior at Group Time. We expect the children to sit quietly, with their bodies in control during a lesson. They need to watch, listen and not interrupt when we are presenting new information. This is a crucial learning skill for your child - in the years ahead, as he or she begins to attend a general education class for some academic portion of the day, your child will need to be able to focus and learn. Much of the curriculum will be new information on overheads or smart boards, or the teacher will be demonstrating a new skill. We work so hard on this during our Group Time because we know that acquiring this skill will help your child experience more school success in the future. We also transfer this skill to other situations - we had to focus and listen during Ms. Marlowe's music lesson. Here is a photo of us during her hibernation song - we had to listen carefully and follow her directions. (these animals are fast asleep!)

I will send home a paper copy of your child's report card next Thursday, January 31.

Our next Parent Support Group meeting will be on Thursday, February 7 at 6:30. We will meet in our classroom and parents and grandparents are welcome. If there is a particular topic you'd like us to cover, just let us know. You are always free to bring anything up at our meetings as well -we are all there to help and support one another.

Thinking ahead to February...we will have our Valentine's Day on February 14. We will make our valentine mailboxes at school. Opening up our valentines cards is always very exciting for us! If you would like to send a snack in for the party, just let me know.

 

This week in our Skills for Learning lessons we reviewed "strong feelings". We talked about our stop lights - Red to remind us to STOP, Yellow to remind us to BREATHE, Green to remind us to Use a COPING SKILL. Although many children now know several coping skills, they don't always understand that the time to use them is when they have a strong feeling of frustration, anger or upset. You can help your child practice this at home too - prompt them to stop, breathe and use a coping skill when you give them a direction or task or answer that they don't really like. We also did a lesson on calming down big anger. We remind the children that everyone feels angry sometimes, and calming down helps us think clearly and make better choices with our behavior. Using the "stop" signal helps children interrupt the escalation of emotion. Breathing slowly helps lower blood pressure and heart rate, which helps calm the body. (Fast breathing can cause students to feel more upset). When students are able to "stop", even briefly, it also allows us to intervene and help them more successfully.

We have continued to work on all kinds of snow art and writing. We painted crystals on snow scenes and marshmallow painted snowmen in the wind. We have enjoyed many great snow related books as well. Our students have enjoyed all of their snowy recesses outside - please make sure that they have boots, hats, mittens and warm jackets for the playground. They have more fun when they are able to stay warm!

Next Friday there is a Professional Development Day - no school. There is no school on Monday, January 21 as we honor Dr. King's birthday. We will be learning more about Dr. King next week.

Snowmen!

 

 

I was able to resolve our Blogger problem, and thought you might like to see some of our cute snowmen! They sure brighten up our hallway!



Happy New Year to all of our Room 113 families! I hope you all had a wonderful Winter Break.
We will be reading and writing about snow, snowmen, and wintertime animals over the next few weeks. We painted snowflakes and created snow people this week. These types of art activities help us to develop and strengthen our fine motor skills (the same skills we will need for writing!) and they allow us to be really creative.

Now that we have snowy, cold weather outside, it is important that your child have warm clothes for outside recess. Children are welcome to leave their boots and snowpants at school if you would like them to - just let us know. It is important to put your child's name inside his/her boots and clothes. Sometimes children get wet feet or pants at recess -it is a good idea to send in extra socks and even a pair of pants that they can change into. Please practice putting snowpants and boots on at home with your child, along with zipping their jacket. We encourage all children to try these things -we want to help them become as independent as possible, and these things are great ways to develop fine motor skills. We also work on hanging snow clothes up on our coat hooks. Your son or daughter may also like to keep an extra sweatshirt or hoodie here at school to wear when they feel chilly in the classroom.

I apologize that there are no photos this week - we are having difficulty with Blogger, and it suddenly is not letting us upload our photos. Hopefully, the issue will be resolved, or we will figure out a different way to upload our classroom pictures!

Happy Holidays!

Today was our Holiday Breakfast - we enjoyed eating yummy food together. We especially liked wearing our pajamas to school today!

The children worked hard on their family gift to all of you - I know that it is often challenging for your children to talk about their day, so I am hopeful that the Conversation Jars will be helpful at the dinner table.
I wish you all a wonderful Winter Break - I know you will enjoy this extra time with your children. Our class of 12 has been fighting the flu and colds all week long, and I know that your children will appreciate the extra time at home to slow down a little bit. I look forward to seeing each cheerful face back at school on January 3, 2013!

Our Loon Lake Student Council has been collecting blankets and slippers and socks to donate to Mott's Children's Hospital. Several of our students brought in things to contribute - look how full the tree and table by the office look!



Ginger has been busy in our classroom too - on Monday we found him flying on a bluebird!

Here he is driving in a van (from our toy cupboard!) with some friends!

Our Skills for Learning lesson this week focused on recognizing when we have "strong feelings" so that we can use a calm down strategy or coping skill. We practiced putting our hands on our tummies and saying, "STOP". Next we can name our feeling, and then ask for help or use another coping skill. By using the "STOP" signal, students are able to interrupt the escalation of emotion, which helps keep the problem small, and allows us to intervene to offer assistance. Here is a picture of a stop sign that we use in our classroom. Mrs. Schnieders also worked with each student to make a stop sign of their own.

We had a new student join our classroom this week, and will be adding one more new friend - for a total of 12 wonderful children in our class!

Next Friday, December 21, we will have our Holiday Breakfast - please send your children in a little hungry for this special event in our classroom! This will be our Holiday Party.