Search This Blog

25 January 2010

West Ottawa Art Week

All week this week (January 25-30) at the Holland Area Arts Council, the talents of student musicians, artists, and thespians will be on display! Middle school and high school students will be the focus, but what a great way to get to know more about all that is offered through West Ottawa Schools!

The culminating activity is an open house on Saturday night from 6-10 p.m. with performances by the Jazz I Big Band, Vocalaires, Jazz Combo, soloists, and small ensembles. The evening will also feature the cast of the upcoming West Ottawa production of William Shakespeare's, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Admission is free.

Classroom Updates

Looking at the calendar the other day, I was slightly shocked to see the date reflecting that it's almost the first of February. Where has the time gone this month? Many of us have probably done this, but in my case it also pointed out to me that I've been neglecting the classroom news blog!

Sorry about that!

We've actually been very busy this month in the Upper Montessori classroom! President projects, lessons and research into the executive branch of our government, learning more about the states of matter in science, workplan, writing workshop, spelling bees...

Congratulations go out to Will and Juliette--our classroom representatives at the Waukazoo 5th grade spelling bee. Both students represented our class admirably! All of our 5th graders this year are dynamic spellers; I'd like to take a moment to honor all our 5th grade spellers. **Congratulations to you all!**

PRESIDENTS

Join us Thursday afternoon for our "Presidential Presentations." We will begin our presentations at 2:15 p.m. Students have been spontaneously sharing key president points in the classroom these past few weeks; I've learned so many new things from their efforts! Students also researched and presented on several of the departments that make up the executive branch of the federal government. We learned about the Departments of the Interior, Homeland Security, and Transportation, just to name a few! We also learned that the president's order of succession includes all of the department secretaries (also known as the Cabinet) in order of that department's creation. Therefore, the Secretary of State would become president before the Secretary of Defense, as the State Department is one of the oldest in the executive branch!

WRITING WORKSHOP

I continue to be very impressed with our student writers. Students are more and more often getting excited about our writing workshop time! They will occasionally bring home their writing notebooks to do a bit of writing. We have been reviewing ALL the writing strategies we learned in the fall and also this winter. It's wonderful to hear the students mention when a strategy has been put to use, such as the character strategy of external features/internal thought. Ask your child about a strategy he or she has successfully put to use! Please also respect their hard work and efforts, make sure to let them know you would love to see a story in their notebook or hear their favorite read aloud!

As we continue to refine our writing efforts, students will soon be facing their first "publishing" deadline. Publishing means that something will be shared with the class--read out loud and displayed on our Writing Wall! All students will have published at least one story/personal narrative prior to parent/teacher conferences.

VALENTINE'S DAY

With February fast approaching, we will soon have to begin thinking about our valentine's day party. To prepare, begin saving shoe boxes. We'll be jazzing these up as card holders! I would also appreciate it if everyone would also begin saving large canning jars or spaghetti sauce jars for a spring project (something in May...but we need 26 of jars!). Please send in boxes and jars whenever you have them, thanks!

WAUKAZOO WALK-A-BOUT

Today all students in the school participated in the Waukazoo Walk-a-bout, an activity to positively reinforce the zoo rules at key points in the school: lunchroom, bathrooms, playground, classroom, hallway, and office. (Perhaps you've seen the zoo rules posters all over the school featuring teacher caricatures?)

***Something I discovered today: if a student comes to school late--after 9:30 a.m.--he or she should plan to bring a lunch from home. Lunch count has already been called in by the Waukazoo office and we are no longer able to add to the building totals. (Let me know if you have any questions about this.)

Another point to make: Students are not allowed to switch their lunch order after 9:30 a.m., so even if those chicken Z fries no longer sound tempting...you take what you first ordered! :)

GEOMETRY LESSONS

4th graders will soon be moving to angle studies, but most recently have been learning about perimeter and measuring in both inches and centimeters.

5th graders have been studying the circle. We have been reading several books from the Sir Cumference series. The first, Sir Cumference and the First Round Table, tells the fictional story of how the first round table was created, thereby introducing students to the vocabulary of the circle as well as how to find certain measurements. I personally love using children's literature to teach and reinforce skills in other content areas!
**********
I would like to close by saying thank you to all the Montessori families (ALL Waukazoo families!) for their generous support of the Waukazoo coin challenge! We raised approximately $3200 this year...amazing! Some of the money will be used to help a WZ family rebuild their home after a devastating fire in December. However, we will also be sending money to support the Haiti Relief/Rebuilding Efforts. Thank you for helping to make this possible!

Mrs. Perrien

13 January 2010

PTA Sponsored Box Top Contest

I LOVE MY TEACHER contest starts Monday!
Box Tops for Education: Save your General Mills box tops!

This is a school-wide contest to see which class can collect the most Box Tops. Classes will collect Box Tops until Friday, February 19th. The class that collects the most Box Tops will win a Pizza Party! Bring in your Box Tops and put them in your classroom's heart.

12 January 2010

Classroom Updates

VOLUNTEER SCHEDULES

I have completed the volunteer schedules for January-March. However, doing these schedules takes an incredibly amount of time, as people often have specific times they would like to work, certain "unavailable" days and more. To make this scheduling a little easier I have come up with a plan!

When parents come to Parent/Teacher Conferences at the end of February/first of March, I will have available a calendar and a schedule. Parents will then be able to sign up for days/times that will work with individual schedules. We'll use this system to schedule volunteers through the end of the school year.

PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

The students are currently working on their "performance reviews." These are self-evaluation tools for analyzing classroom behavior, social skills, and also academic effort and progress. Mr. Edwards and I will use these documents and work together with each individual child to determine if a raise is appropriate! Some of this reflective work is being done as homework. Please allow the children to complete these without your input (I know this is hard!), it is important these are the work of the students. Thanks!

UPPER MONTESSORI SLEDDING

This year the Upper Montessori students are sledding on two different days. This allows us maximum hill time, without the usual overload of students wanting a turn. Our sledding days are Mondays (lunchtime recess) and Thursday (afternoon recess). Please make students have snow pants for sledding days--they are REQUIRED by Mrs. Perrien for sledding!

Have a great week!

11 January 2010

Read FIVE and see the Pistons Live!

The Michigan Education Association and the Detroit Pistons are partnering up to encourage and reinforce student reading! Students may earn *free* Pistons tickets for each five books they read. The following website explains the program, allows you to track books, order tickets, and also links you to book recommendation lists, The Detroit Pistons homepage, and much more!

http://michiganreads.com/

**I would encourage you to pick books that are age-appropriate and of a suitable length for your 4th or 5th grade student.

Happy reading!

03 January 2010

Writing Lessons

Writing instruction in the Upper Montessori classroom is going through an evolution this year! What and why…

Always interested in improving my skills in the teaching of writing I signed up to take a class through the OAISD in the Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop model. This class is a year-long commitment; that commitment includes two day-long sessions as well as monthly evening sessions. Luckily I am able to receive graduate credit for my participation and work in the class! As you know, writing is one of the basic subjects in elementary school and its importance continues to grow as standardized tests, college, and employers demand writing samples as evidence of one's ability to communicate effectively. In our classroom, there is a great emphasis on writing well. Let me tell you more about what I'm learning and putting into practice.

In our classroom we set aside time almost every day for writing. This time is called writing workshop because it's a term used by published authors. It makes sense to use this term because the children are following the writing process; and we use published authors from many different genres as our mentor writers.

Writing workshop lasts between 45 minutes to one hour. Our time begins with 8-12 minute writing lesson (we call it a mini lesson) in which I explicitly teach the skills of good writing. During this time students are sitting in a large group for direct instruction. The focus during this time is a strategy or method that students can use to make their writing stronger, clearer, and more correct. After the mini lesson, students individually work on their own writing for 35-40 minutes. As the students work I am doing small strategy group instruction or meeting with writers for individual writing conferences. At the end of our workshop time students return to the large group for a teaching/sharing time. This is an opportunity for children to share with each other what they've accomplished.

Throughout the school year we are working on writing in multiple genres: personal narratives, short fiction, essays and literary essays, and poetry. Each unit of study is taught in approximately four to six weeks. Students are and will continue to be required to publish every few weeks. However, publishing in our classroom doesn't necessarily mean students need to "publish" at the Waukazoo publishing center. It means that the writing is shared or posted as a final piece. During each unit students will study the work of published authors, plus learn about the qualities of good writing and the writing process. They'll also learn a variety of strategies to draw upon in each step of the process.

You may wonder how you can help your child to prosper as a writer throughout the year. The first thing I want to remind you is that writing can be seen as frightening or difficult for many children. Please encourage your child by helping him or her realize that daily life brims with stories that deserve to be told. A walk in the woods, sledding on Saturday, the squirrel you discovered living in your garage…remind your child that these would make a great entry in his or her writer's notebook! When you get the chance to see some of your child's writing, for now it would really help if you give him or her what every writer needs most of all: an interested, appreciative reader. Read the child's writing not as a judge, but as a reader, paying attention to the content. If you do this, you will make your child feel like an author, and you'll make it much more likely that your child will care about writing and will be ready to invest in the hard work required to grow as a writer. To encourage your writer, compliment his or her ability to paint a picture in your mind. Does the writing make you laugh out loud? If so, please share this with your writer!

The children and I are partners in the writing process. Furthermore, I consider the parents as partners in the incredibly important work of helping the children become strong and confident writers. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.