24-25: Week 9 Classroom News

Hello Families,

Photo above shows K-2 science class out in the forest. Read on for news and updates.

Whole School:

Halloween Bonus Blog: See all the photos here!
11/7-8 NO SCHOOL: Conferences
11/11 NO SCHOOL: Veteran’s Day
Candy Wrapper Recycling: Save your candy wrappers! Send kids with wrappers to recycle at school.
Volunteer Sign Up: Check this link and find a shift that might work for you.
Portrait Orders: Pictures will arrive next week and will be distributed along with digital images. Thanks for submitting your order forms!

Administrators (5th-7th): Hello Families, It’s been pretty mellow and uneventful in the Administrator classroom lately. Everyone continues to work on new math concepts as they come up in their textbooks. Occasionally we all come together as a class to talk about a particularly confusing idea. We recently started a new unit in our literacy curriculum. We are going to be exploring how fairy tales help us all make meaning in our lives. The readings are very challenging but so far we have had some great discussions. I am asking the students to work really hard on staying focused in November because we have a lot of time off. We need to use our limited time in the classroom wisely. Looking forward to seeing you all at conferences.

K-1 Literacy & Math: In k-1 literacy we finished up our Leo Lionni author study. You will get to see their work and see the books we read when you come by for conferences. In math, kinder students have been playing with solid (3-d) shapes and understanding weight. First graders have been solving tricky word problems with addition and subtraction.
K-2 Science: We have been learning about soil and micro climates by hearing stories and exploring in the forest. We have also learned the connection between soil and our food. Ask students to share the “Soil Made My Lunch” song.
⇒ Work & Play to try at home
- Have first grade students try spelling nonsense words with short vowels a, i and u and the digraph sh or th
- Examples: fush, shup, duth bith, pash..
- Have kindergarten students work on segmenting three sound words that you provide for words like cap= (/c/ /a/ /p/), fun = (/f/ /u/ /n/) win= (/w/ /i/ /n/)…
- For both kinder and 1st students, work on addition and subtraction problems around you

Bebop (2nd-4th) Math & Literacy: Mr. B and students have been busy ironing out expectations for conferences, completing/revising math and literacy work, adding goals to their portfolio and refreshing their understanding of BBS’s habits of work. We embraced the mask/costume season through pattern blocks in math class. See pictures below – the kids did these without looking at any animals! Wow!

Field Studies: We ended last week with a festive Halloween party. It was the first time in my life that I got to be a costume myself (thanks Gary!). But we have also kept the classroom routines going this week and tried to stay focused on learning. In Field Study class we are studying forests. Students have been tasked with learning 13 species of trees in the Metolius basin. We went out on Monday to learn how to identify trees and students will have a quiz in December. We are also learning about the parts of a tree and what the characteristics of a healthy forest are. We will continue to be outside most Field Study classes this month. Dress warm!
- ⇒ Make sure students are dressed to go exploring in the cold, rain, and snow for upcoming field study afternoons.

Performing Arts: We officially started rehearsals on our play. The kids are learning the warm up sequence, and starting to find their place on the stage. They have their scripts and completed a worksheet to help guide them to dive deeper into who their character is. This worksheet should be in their script folder. Please reach out with any costume support you might need!
- Scripts were sent home with the kids on Tuesday. Please practice with your child by reading the parts of the other characters and helping your child learn and memorize their lines. Memorization is due 11/22.
- ⇒ Winter Performance 2024 Information for Families
- ⇒ Costume Information