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20 March 2013

More Random Acts of Kindness

I put four quarters on the little toy dispensers and two little kids without any money grabbed them and got pencil toppers.

I helped an older girl get a dessert from the dessert table and I told her how to get a fruit tart.

I helped a kid with a jammed locker.

I left a quarter at the popsicle stand for someone to use.

I left a compliment sticky note on a box of cereal at Meijer.

I made breakfast in bed for my parents.

I held the door for almost the whole parking lot.

I carried someone's groceries for them.

I put a quarter on the pencil dispenser.

I knitted a hat for a stranger.

I let a stranger cut in front of me in line.

I gave a stranger a birthday present because I overheard her say it was a birthday.


19 March 2013

Celebration of Learning

Our celebration of Learning is next week!

Please be aware of the following:

  • All students will need to stay after school next Tuesday.  (No bus or pick ups.)  **Please pack an extra snack for this day!
  • The celebration of Learning will begin at 4 p.m. (Please try not to come early as we won't be ready.  Really, we won't...)
  • Upper Montessori students WILL NOT be able to leave early to go to another classroom.**  They will be "on display" for the entire hour!
  • All the Upper Montessori students will be dismissed at 5 p.m.  Upper Montessori students with a sibling in ANY lower Montessori class will be able to go watch the singing part of the lower Montessori's celebration event.  This song time will take place right at 5 p.m. (or so I've been told..)  Those Upper Montessori students that do not have to watch a sibling are dismissed at this time, but clean up help would be appreciated!
**There is sometimes a concern that the Upper Montessori students will be not be able to see a lower Montessori sibling's project.  We will have time during the school day on Tuesday (and in some cases earlier..) to see these displays.

Please be sure to let me know if you have any questions!  I sent out an email earlier today about celebration of learning costume needs.  Please let me know if you didn't get the document or are able to make any costume donations!  Thanks for all your help!

--Mrs. Perrien



16 March 2013

Post by Jackson: Our Zero Update


Hi, Jackson again. 

Our class has been reading for that zero count, and we have reached another weekly total. This month, we read 13,450 minutes, which means that we filled out 1,345 zeros just as a class! 

See you next time for the next weekly zero count!


-Jackson 

Random Acts of Kindness

Students submitted many notes on Random Acts of Kindness these past few weeks!  The following were discussed within the last two weeks:

  • I did sticky notes of inspiration
  • I posted a compliment sticky note!
  • Mom told Dad the dishwasher needed to be emptied, so I emptied it secretly all by myself.
  • I took the garbage in (First time in six months)
  • I watered my neighbor's plants.
  • I got my mom a baby rag for my sister.
  • I bought a pencil from the pencil machine and put it on top of the dispenser for the next kid to see it.
  • I held the door for lots of old people and everyone else.
  • I helped a second grader get a coat out of his locker.
  • I put sticky notes in stores where people could find them.  Examples include, "You are fantastic, be happy, dream big."  I also put 3 pennies on Sandy the plastic horse [at Meijer].
  • I got the mail for my mom.
  • I helped take care of my great-grandpa.  I washed dishes, made his bed, and gave him medicine.
  • My mom helped someone push a cart.  I picked up trash from the ground.
  • I let two other people that I didn't know sit with me on the bus because I knew there was nowhere else [for them] to sit.
  • I stopped a line of kids on the snow hill that wasn't letting a kid get out.
  • I helped a kid who got hurt when I was in the hallway yesterday.  I told his teacher and his mother.
  • At my Boy Scout campout I helped get wood for a fire when I didn't need to.  I  also washed someone else's dishes for them.
  • I put out inspirational sticky notes with quotes on them about life.

13 March 2013

Caps for a Cure

Join us THIS FRIDAY is supporting Caps for a Cure.  See the attached flyer for more information!

Caps for a Cure 2013 flyer

Pi Day 2013

Here are a couple great resources for more about Pi! 
We will be doing some Pi day activities in class tomorrow.  All students have a quick homework activity which I hope is a fun family activity celebrating Pi!  These should be returned to school by Friday.

Have a wonderful 3.14 tomorrow!

10 March 2013

Classroom Book Swap

This month I would like to coordinate a classroom book swap as another way to recognize March is Reading Month.

A book swap goes like this:


  1. Students bring into the classroom books they would like to turn in for trade.  The donated books can be any kind, but the more chapter books we donate, the better the swap will go.  (If we have all picture books it won't be as much fun...although we could let our K buddies  browse the picture books that are turned in for the swap.)  I will also be bringing in books from home as well as cleaning out the classroom shelves!
  2. A parent volunteer (any takers?) and I will sort the books into genre categories the day of donation.
  3. The next day,students will get to pick up to six books to take home as theirs!  (If students bring in LESS than 6, they will get to pick the number they donated.)
  4. The rest of the leftover books will be donated to the West Ottawa Book Mobile.

**Students wondered about magazines.  These would be fine, although I think magazines should only be traded for magazines.  That means students will not be able to bring in ONLY magazines and then take home books.  Magazines such as Sports Illustrated for Kids, Muse, etc. would be wonderful!  (Students should not bring back to school the classroom National Geographic magazines.)

**Books for the swap should be restricted to books such as fantasy, historical fiction, realistic fiction, classics, adventure, mystery, etc.  Please DO NOT bring in video game "codebreaker" books and the like, I do want to keep the focus on literature.  Nonfiction books are wonderful, too.

I was hoping to do the book swap the last week of school before Spring Break.  Let's have books submitted by March 27 and we'll do the trade on the 28th--the last day before Spring Break.  On this day we'll trade and celebrate by spending time READING our new books!

--Mrs. Perrien

Our Zero Count!


Hey, Jackson here. 

This month we have been reading and for every 10 minutes, we fill out a zero. This week we had 362 zeros filled out on Monday and Tuesday, 77 zeros filled out on Wednesday, 54 zeros filled out on Thursday, and 134 zeros filled out on Friday. That brings us to a total of 627 zeros!  

Just from our own classroom!

08 March 2013

News from Technology Class


Hello Waukazoo Families!

     As I was reading the Waukazoo newsletter, I came across Mrs. Whitbeck’s technology notes and I thought, “Hmmm!  That’s not what we’re doing!”  Mrs. Whitbeck and I follow the same curricular guidelines and we share ideas all of the time, but we don’t do exactly the same thing at the same time.  So…Mrs. Croel-Perrien was kind enough to share my news with you!  I may send notes bi-weekly, or it may be once each month, but I definitely want you to know what your child is learning about in Technology!
     Some children have said they are having a hard time getting to Moodle from home.  Moodle is a website that districts can manage and teachers can create.  I love the fact that it requires a password and lets me create groups.  To get to Moodle from home, go to moodle.westottawa.net.  (You can just click on that link, or you can copy and paste the link.  If you add “www,” it won’t work.  If you Google it, it’s hard to get to the correct Moodle site.)   After getting to the correct site, your child will need to enter his/her user name and password. 
     Once they get to the correct site, your child can click on my name and scroll down to find assignments and learning websites.  Our keyboarding goal for the end of the year is:
4th Grade: 10 Words per Minute
5th Grade: 14 Words per Minute
At the bottom of the Moodle course, there are some fun typing sites that will give students extra practice.  If students haven’t quite reached their words per minute goal and they only practice with me, they probably won’t make the gains we’d them to make.  If they practice a few times a week for 3-5 minutes at a time, their scores will improve a great deal!!  Several of those sites have short activities that will give the kids a words-per-minute score.  (And, they’re fun!!)
     Your child has uploaded projects in Moodle that he/she can share with you!  If they click on the name of the assignment or the forum, they will find the document they’ve uploaded.   Recently, they experimented with creating a new animal!  (Technology is so much fun!)  They used the site “Switchzoo” to create an animal.  Then they used the “print screen” function to copy the animal and paste it into a Word document.  From there, they formatted/cropped the picture to get it just the way they wanted it.  They did some creative writing to tell us how their mixed up animals got that way.  This is a very creative group!
     This week, they used a web tool called Google Story Builder.  They experimented with the tool to see what it can (and cannot!) do.  If they finished a story, they created a hyper link in a Moodle forum so they could share their story with us.  Next week, we’ll use Story Builder to create a story using characters from the American Revolution. 
** I’ll be at the Waukazoo conferences on Tuesday evening from 5:00-8:00.**
  Please stop by the computer lab.  I’d love to meet you and talk to you about your child’s technology time!  You can also reach me via email at obrienp@westottawa.net.  I’m in different buildings throughout the week, so it’s hard to reach me by phone, but my home-base number is 786-1484.
Thanks so much and have a great week! 
Mrs.  Pam O’Brien

06 March 2013

WO Art Show at the Holland Area Arts Council



The West Ottawa Schools elementary art department is holding a celebration of student work at the Holland Area Arts Council.

This show will include selected works from all the elementary grade levels and schools.  The exhibit will run from March 6 - March 26 on the second floor gallery of the HAAC.

A reception will be held on Thursday, March 14th from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Several of our Upper Montessori students have work in the art show!

Common Core Standards and Smarter Balance

Parents-

For the last several months (actually over a couple years) the educational community has been abuzz about the Common Core State Standards.  They are being discussed in Congress and among other community leaders.  To learn more about the common core feel free to visit the following site:  http://www.corestandards.org/.

The core standards have set grade level expectations at a national level.  So far, the CCSS is written for English Language Arts and Math.  It has been adopted by 45 states.  Regarding science, the standards will be called the Next Generation Science Standards.  They are currently in a draft form and have been available for peer review.  The second draft is scheduled to be released this month.  You can find more here:  http://www.nextgenscience.org/.

At this time there are no standards released for social studies.  I believe it is in the works, but it could be a while before we find out more.

To find out about national assessments for these disciplines visit the following:  http://www.smarterbalanced.org/.  Smarter Balanced is the assessment group for the state of Michigan.  At this time Michigan schools are scheduled to give these assessments in the spring of 2014.  As parents you are able to view assessment items and even take sample items and performance tasks, plus try out a few assessment questions.  To do that go here:  http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/.  You'll need to select ELA or Math sample items.  I believe that the more we know as parents, the better able we are to prepare our children (and students) for the rigorous work that awaits them over the rest of their educational career!

Be sure to let me know if you have questions!

Mrs. Perrien

Conference Reminder

Conferences begin tomorrow!  Please be sure to bring your child.  We have been reflecting on ourselves as learners this week and even practicing for our conferences.  Just a quick reminder:
  • Conferences have been scheduled in 15 minute increments.  This means it is incredibly important to start and end individual meetings on time.  The children know if the bell rings they may walk into the classroom to begin THEIR meeting.  
  • If you find at the conclusion of your child's time that you would like more time to talk please be sure to let me know me know and I'll be in touch to schedule an additional meeting.  
  • MEAP scores were sent home on Monday in a sealed envelope.  Remember that the test was many months ago (six!) and we have covered a great deal of content since October.  However, I can give you some general recommendations on ways to help your child improve his or her overall test taking skills or what your child should focus on regarding content.
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

--Mrs. Perrien

March is READING Month!

In the Upper Montessori classroom we celebrate READING all year!  We work hard to grow as readers and to become deep thinkers.  For the month of March we are celebrating many of the building's special reading events.  This Friday is Read-in-the-Dark Day!  Students may bring flashlights for this day and a pillow/stuffed animal. (Don't get too crazy!)

As a homework project we are also completing a March is Reading Month Bingo Board.  Students need to complete 4 rows of their Bingo Board by March 28.  (For every student that completes the WHOLE board I will enter my name in the human bowling game!)

Bingo Boards have been out in the classroom for days.  If your student doesn't have one make sure they grab one tomorrow!

**Regarding Graphic Novels:  I had to think about this for a bit.  I've decided that to grow as readers we need to push ourselves a bit!  Therefore, I am going to restrict graphic novel reading to Fridays in the classroom and furthermore, graphic novels may count toward 1/2 of the weekly homework reading total.  Be sure to let me know if you have questions!