February 6, 2014

Hello All,

What a week in Turquesa! Please read carefully; this blog is crammed with lots of very important info!

Ancient Egypt history projects are in full bloom. Students spent the week composing first drafts of their written reports. We have been emphasizing two essential aspects of report writing: the skill of paraphrasing and paragraph construction.  Children are excited about many different aspects of Ancient Egypt and the report drafts reflect a huge diversity of information and inspiration sources.

Yesterday morning before our library trip, we had an Ancient Egypt Timeline lesson in our huge "third room." We created a timeline that helped us travel from the year 2000 C.E. to 5000 B.C.E. We were all amazed to walk the 30-foot timeline and grapple with the fact while the US is almost 250 years old, ancient Egypt lasted 20 times longer! It was a very kinesthic experience that simultaneously inspired an exciting amount of imagination.

They also took the time to design their hands-on history projects. Since they will be creating these projects at home with your support and resources, they wrote our History Project Contracts that elucidate the elements of the projects, the supplies and their process. Each child is bringing that contract home tonight in order to share it with you. Please talk through the project with your child and sign the contract if you agree with it. We will touch base tomorrow about the project, and it would be very helpful if you brought the completed contract to our conference tomorrow.

If you are not going to be seeing your child tonight, I am fully prepared to share their ideas with you so that you can decide if you can support their project design. If you already completed this process with your child, thank you! This project is due at school on Feb. 18 for an in-class presentation to the assembled Elementary classes. Although this will be a children's event, parents are also welcome to join us!

Speaking of welcoming people, I want to give a huge public thank you to Mindy (Amelie’s mom) and Jenelle (Jordan’s mom) for their amazingly consistent, extremely helpful and always delightful support! These two intrepid parents come to Turquesa every week to give spelling tests. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We treasure you – especially after a day like today when we had to squeeze in both post- and pre-tests! We couldn’t have done it without you.

I passed out homework today. Since next week is a short week, today's is a two-week packet that includes Choice Book Project Guidelines. Choice Book presentations will be on Feb. 21.

Next Wednesday, Feb. 12, is our annual Friendship Cafe for Valentine's Day. On Tuesday, we'll do some baking (Would you like to help us bake in our new kitchen?!  Please let me know!) so that we have delicious munchies for Wednesday. Your child is welcome to bring Valentine cards to share with classmates from Morado and Turquesa. Please send 26 cards total. Your child is welcome to write their friends names on their cards, or they can bring unaddressed cards if that makes it easier for them to distribute. Please do not send any candy or treats of any kind. Children will distribute cards in the morning and then we'll share lunch and Friendship Cafe with Morado.

I'm looking forward to meeting with you tomorrow. Please bring your child's Progress Report and all of your questions so we can look more closely at your child's learning. You can drop your child off in childcare and then meet me upstairs in our new building. I will be hosting conferences in our new staff lounge. I'll post signs so you can find me, just in case you haven't had the opportunity to go upstairs to the adult spaces.

Thank you,

Nicole