End of February update
Dear parents,
I wanted to start off by saying that I am just so grateful to be your child’s teacher. Each day, they bring me and each other so much joy. When I was off for the week after my knee injury (recovery is going well, finally), the two TOCs informed me that they worked so hard in my absence which made me feel so proud and appreciative. I also thoroughly enjoyed receiving the daily emails from students telling me about their day and reminding me of how much they missed me and loved me. I missed them dearly so that made my absence at least bearable. I thoroughly enjoyed responding to their emails too! I’m sure it helped with my healing! 🙂
This past week was really tough because our sweetest guinea pig, Hazelnut, passed away on Family Day. I knew that going back to work the next day would be hard and it was. It was very hard but you know what I knew was going to make a difference and lift me up? Yes, you guessed it…spending time with your children. Their smiles and their love filled my broken heart. Honestly, it was them that helped me heal a little more each day so thank you for sharing them with us.
Pink Shirt Day
Mr. Phelps read a story to us in the morning called A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. Then we watched a video about how the day was created by Travis Price. Click here to watch. I was hoping to be able to share with you our class PowerPoint on the theme for us year: Lift Each Other Up but it is not quite finished yet. Each student was assigned a slide to share what that means to them. I love what I see so far!
Check out the video that Mr. Greenwood put together. It can be found on the Gilmore website.
We are mathematicians.
We have been learning about measuring perimeter and area. Please feel free to review these videos at home:
On Thursday, we did a quick Show What You Know (so far) and a number of students can use some extra review at home so please check with your child, thank you. We will continue to solidify and deepen understanding this week.
Black History Month
We learned about Harriet Tubman and did some reflective perspective writing. The writing I saw about slavery was so expressive and truly knocked my socks off.
We are readers.
Students have learned a new technique to practice increasing their reading fluency. I learned this from Jim Kwik. He is a brain and memory coach who wrote a book called Limitless. I recommend reading the book or listening to his podcast. I’m a new follower and find that his tips for learning are insightful. He has some great tips on studying you may want to dive into especially as your children move into the intermediate grades and highschool.
Here’s what we did. We read as many words as we can in one minute. Then we did this again. It is truly incredible how many more words they can read in that period of time. We did it again to discover that we hadn’t reached our potential yet! Of course, the most important part of reading is to fully comprehend and to make connections but this is just one strategy in increasing fluency, which is what some students need to work on.
Report cards go home this Friday. Please sign the envelope and return to school on Monday. Thank you!
As always, we are so grateful for your continued support at home.
With great appreciation, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)