Week of December 1-7, 2008

Hi All,
I hope this blog finds you in good health and winter cozy.
This blog will discuss:
announcements
standards
creative endeavors
current events and peoples in our classroom.

Announcements:
Swimming is happening. Please pack a bathing suit and towel if your child has signed up for swimming, which most of the rainforest room has.
Also, we have a number of students who do not have snack at snack time. This is very sad and disheartening for all involved, so please don't forget to send a snack.


Standards:
For those of you who are curious about what standards we are covering, they are as follows:
MR 1.2, Music 5.1, 5.2
Life Science 4.4, 4.5, 4.7
Language 2a,b,e
LE 4a
If you want the specifics of what this means, please see me, I have a binder in the classroom you can reference to.

Creative Endeavors:
We have put off our Gardening this week due to the soggy field and overcast weather in favor of journal writing and writing more in general. The children are writing about their Thanksgiving Breaks. They are also learning how to pick out a "just right" book and write a meaningful book report on it. We also went ice skating on Wednesday, which was awesome and invigorating! Please join us next Wednesday. We've been doing a lot of sharing in the mornings. On Monday, I went to the Children's School in La Jolla and saw that the morning meetings consist of a lot of sharing and we have really gotten into that and learned a lot from one another this week.

Current Events and People in our Classroom:
I am proud to announce that Innovations Academy is working with Roots and Wings. Our classroom is essentially the pilot run and it is already fruitful. Roots and Wings is a two team partnership between Aisha (a licensed counselor) and Megan (an early childhood teacher). Together, we are working on all the tools available to us as teachers without using behavior modification as a crutch. They are both very pleasurable to work with and the kids already love them!

This concludes the weekly blog. I appreciate your feedback. Hope to see you soon.

Meital