What a busy week we had!  It is a great feeling seeing so many students working hard on different works and projects.  We have wrapped up our first Literature Circle groups this week and it was very successful.  We will be starting the second round with the students choosing new books on Monday.  The students have really enjoyed having more opportunities to read together and discuss what they have read in a group.  There is a great excitement for reading in the classroom.

This week, the students wrote their first letters to their Kindergarten buddies.  Kindergarten buddies is a tradition in Morado, where each student has a Kindergartner in another classroom that they communicate with and get to know and help throughout the year.  They will be inviting their buddies to have lunch together in a couple of weeks.

A fun lesson we had this week was called the “Tree of Life.”  We have talked about how people like to organize things and scientists have organized all the living things on earth into different categories.  We made a tree out of students which each branch was based around a type of living thing like bacteria, algae, plants, and animals and how they were all connected to one common ancestor at the trunk.  Students also got to learn different examples from each of the kingdoms of life and their similarities and differences.

This also worked out nice because the upper elementary was out for most of the week on a field trip to Islandwood.  They came back with great pictures and amazing stories to tell.  They were also eager to share what they had learned on their trip about the natural world around them.  Some students took lower elementary students outside and showed them different plants around the school and surrounding wetlands and how to identify them.

We would like to remind everyone that this Friday, October 2nd, school will be closed for Goal-Setting conferences.  Please make sure you and your child are there during your conference time.  If you haven’t yet filled out the Goal-Setting forms, we have attached a copy of them to this email.  It is very important we get those before the conference to be better prepared for the meeting on Friday.

One last thing, we would like to invite parents to Morado’s Parent Education Night on Tuesday, September 29th from 6pm-8pm.  Childcare will be provided with a pizza dinner.  This year, we will be going over the Five Great Lessons that we do at the beginning of each school year.  This is a great way to get to experience some of the really cool things we get to do in our class and how we connect everything we do during the year to those five lessons.

 A very warm welcome to everyone, it is great getting to see everyone after the long summer and getting to know all the new people in our classroom community.  We hope everyone is having a fantastic 3-day weekend.  Everyone in Morado worked so hard this week that it is great having an extra day to rest.

In the start of the school year in lower elementary, the first main theme and focus is on Creation Stories.  We introduce students through different stories from around the world on the creation of the universe and talk about similarities and differences between them.  We also tell our own version through the 1st Great Lesson.  It tells the story of the Big Bang and the creation of everything in the universe.  Students were then given lessons on how stars are formed and different types of matter from their knowledge of the Big Bang.  They also really enjoyed learned Planetary Distance by walking a very long model of our solar system.  It is so big that it has to be laid out in our parking lot!  Students also got working in small groups to make up their own creation stories and sharing them in front of the rest of the class.

Some highlight lessons from this week were Ms. Khavitha giving a lesson on different types of elements and students having opportunities to research on them.  Ms. Mary also gave lessons with new materials for students to explore nature and on different art materials we have in the classroom.  Mr. Ben gave lessons in geometry finding and naming different 3D shapes in the classroom.  Students are also in the middle of assessments for Math, Spelling, and Reading.

A special thanks to everyone who made it to Morado’s Parent Night on Wednesday.  It is always an amazing feeling to see such a big turnout so early in the year.  We cannot wait for all the great things we are going to do this year.

Lastly, you should be receiving an email soon inviting you join our classroom on Bloomz, unless you signed up last year.  Bloomz is an app and website for educations to stay in closer contact with parents and the community.  Parents can also get to know each other better through it as well.  We have added a bunch of photos the first week of school and last school year.  Please check it out and let us know if you have any issues with it.
Have a good day,
 
Ben, Mary, and Khavitha