Permission slips for a field trip to see Junie B. Jones went home on Friday.  Thank you for returning them so promtly!!  Please send in empty “Kleenex” boxes, if you have them.  We will be using these for Valentines Day.  We have started our science unit on Pebbles, Sand and Soil.  Thank you to...
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This week in our primary music classes we are starting a unit on creative movement. We are working with 4 basic body actions – walking, standing, sitting and lying down. From there we are expanding into tempo (speed), level, direction, floor patterns and place. The third grade in working in the Do Pentatonic (...
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What a wonderful time we had at the play “Miss Nelson is Missing”. The acting was superb. Our class was on their best behavior and represented Lewis School well. This week we are finishing Landmarks in the Hundreds in math and will be moving into an addition and subtraction unit working with numbers in...
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A big thank you to all the parents that chaperoned on our musical field trip to Keller Auditorium: Stephanie Sook, Laurie Wilson, and Eric Sklarz. We left and returned with the same number of students, which was no easy feat with a packed house of highly excited children. Please let grandparents know that we...
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*Our Reed College walking field trip is THIS Thursday! We’ll be leaving shortly after breakfast (around 9:10 am) then return before lunch (between 11 and 11:30 am.) Thank you to all the parents who showed interest in coming. Last Tuesday, Gregory MacNaughton did a class presentation to prepare us to view the prints and...
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This week we are welcoming a new staff member into the classroom. You may remember that last year Ineke retired. Sammy worked with us this fall and she retired. Our new staff memeber is Paul Sanchez. He has been substituting in the Life skills with Nursing classroom at Hosford and now has been placed...
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First and Second Grade Reading Groups I have been doing a making words activity with my first and second grade literacy groups  whereby we manipulate letter tiles to construct words, sort words by spelling patterns and use the sorted patterns to spell and read new words.  When we finish a lesson, I send home...
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We are half way through our Read-A-Thon, and students are adding up the pages! They are especially looking forward to our Read-A-Thon afternoon on Friday. Lots of reading material is a must, but besides that students can wear pajamas, and can bring a stuffed animal, and even a snack for the class, if they...
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Last week we had a blast studying two different types of worms: earth and red wriggler. We also created beautiful, textured candle holders to represent the amazing light and warmth we have inside us all! It’s cold outside! How do the animals do it? Hibernation and sometimes a little help from humans! We will...
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The Read-a-thon continues on this week with a party on Friday.  If you can supply some treats for our party, please let me know.  We will be reading all afternoon on Friday!  Coming soon to our hallway will be a Camp Bank where your child can weekly deposit savings to pay for their camp...
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This week Ms. Suzy Chapman will begin her full-time student teaching in our room. She will be here each day and will stay until April 6. We are all so excited to have her here; please feel free to say hello any time. Workjobs will focus on Math, Science, Literacy and creating word webs....
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This month, many of the groups I work with have been completing activities based on the book The Jacket I Wear in the Snow. For the articulation groups, this book has lots of repetitions of individual students target sounds at the word or sentence level. For language groups, students have been targeting sequencing skills...
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ESL Classes for Parents I am thinking about starting after school ESL classes for parents at our school who would like to improve their English. I will home send a letter with your children on Thursday to see if you are interested. Please come by Room 15 before or after school if you have...
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This week in our primary music classes we are starting a unit on creative movement. Our preliminary work has been in circle dances and movement games, but this week we will start exploring creative movement and how it relates to music. The upper grades are starting an instrumental piece, “Chatter with the Angels”. We’ll...
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It’s so nice to be back together again and finally able to get exercise outside during our break! Jj is our focus letter sound and name. Our poems are, “The Icicle” and “The Mitten Poem” based on the Book, The Mitten, by Jan Brett. Last week we sewed our own mittens and made character...
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The third graders have had a challenging and exciting week so far. We finished the Oregon State Reading Assessment; We went to the Keller Auditorium to see the musical Miss Nelson is Missing; Plus, we did our narrative prewrite and rough draft. The students looked like they were trying their best with the variety...
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The excitement in our classroom this past week has been learning to use the laptop computers. Mr. Lauer taught the students how to enter the narrative pieces they are working on in a program on our web page. Now, not only are students practicing their keyboarding skills, but they are also learning how to...
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*I’m not sure about you, but I had over 6” of snow at my house last week! I couldn’t get my car out of the driveway until Friday after much shoveling! I do think I heard the collective squeals of children ring out all over the city when the closures were announced, however. From...
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I hope your family was safe and happy during the snow.  I know spirits were high at our house….especially when we knew the night before that school was late or canceled.  My oldest son, however, got a taste of the “real world” as he had to get up and go to work even though...
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This week the third graders began the Technology Enhanced Student Assessment (TESA) in reading. Students read a variety of passages and were asked to answer an array comprehension questions on the reading. Our class was relaxed and worked very hard. The reading test should be complete by the end of this week. On Tuesday,...
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The snow last week was perfect. It fit right into our current curriculum subjects, which include “white” and “snow”. When we came back to school on Thursday the students played in the snow outside our classroom and now we have several snowballs in the freezer. We use them during morning circle when we read...
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Hope you enjoyed the snow last week; it certainly was a big surprise!  We pushed our Read-a-thon plans forward two extra days since we missed the start last week, and we began our keeping track of our reading this week.  If your child has not turned in their pledge sheet, please send it now. ...
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