Week 22 Classroom News

Hello Families,

Read on for news and updates.

Whole School:

Look for a conference sign up coming soon.
Please read an important safety message in Mr. Sharp’s update below.
Hoodoo’s Winter Carnival is this weekend. This is not a BBS event, but many families enjoy the event. If your student needs a lift-ticket voucher, we can get them one; email Ms. Kassie no later than Friday morning.

Bebop (2nd/3rd) Math: Today we started talking about the divisibility rules. They can be a little abstract so we explored them first by using manipulatives. We specifically talked about the rules for 2, 3, 5 and 10. Check in with your student to see if they can explain what we did today. I am curious.
Hodag (4th-8th) Math: The upper grade math class keeps chugging along with the 8th graders graphing (and graphing and graphing) linear equations. They are becoming experts. The 6th grade group totally rocked their equations test and moved on to integers. The 5th grade group continues to practice multiplying and dividing decimals.
Health Class
- The younger students: We talked about the bones in our bodies and how important they are. Next week we will start exploring nutrition.
- The older students: The upper grade health class is learning about nutrition. We are going to take a dive deep into what we eat for a 24 hour period and just look at it with curiosity and kindness. Hopefully we can find one not so healthy item we eat and replace it with a more nutrient dense item. Example, drop the Capri Sun and eat an apple!!

K/1 Math class: In k-1 math kindergarten students have been working to combine shapes to make new ones with both flat and solid shapes. First grade students are working on word problems that compare amounts. Work with your first grade students to figure out more and less word problems that compare. (Ms. Kassie has 3 more cookies than Ms. Steele. Ms. Kassie has 7. How many does Ms. Steele have?)
K-3 Science: We finished our Invisible Forces unit today in science class. Students made connections to our lives based on what we have learned, and shared with each other what they learned in the unit. See pictures of students’ work. Students also brought home papers from other little experiments and work we have done in this unit. Ask them to explain what they have learned to you.

Mr. B’s K/1 Literacy: Students are expanding their sound base by using a phoneme/grapheme mapping chart (Do you know how many sounds are present in the word ‘fox’?).
Mr. B’s Bebop Literacy: Students have been introduced to a few diphthongs(-oy / -ow / -ew) and are working on identifying generalizations.
Mr. B’s Art Literacy class: Students viewed works by Emily Carr and Stuart Davis, discussed the use of a ‘subject’ for an artist and how a viewfinder can help eliminate excess. All students were given a postcard and created an abstraction on what was present. See examples below!

Humanities class: It was a short week with the President’s Day holiday this week. In Humanities class we are continuing to work with the story “Leavetaking.” Students will read another story next week about the Oregon Trail before doing some writing on the topic in a couple weeks. We haven’t had Field Study class this week as we did our Valentine’s Day celebration last week.

We had an action packed Ski and Ride day last week. We had the whole school on the mountain in some challenging conditions. We are seeing great progress on the slopes as we move toward the end of our season. I did spend time talking with my Hodag snowboarders about safety last week. Some of the students seem to be more focused on going fast and being cool than being safe. We are emphasizing safety as the top priority as their skills improve and they become more capable of doing more on the mountain. I appreciate you reinforcing the safety message at home.