Fourth & Fifth Grade: June 1 - 4

What a delightful last week we had!  We  finished our Botany II block, finally, with some exploration into the lives of bees and butterflies, and the students made more carvings of soap.  The rest of the week was spent creating good things to go in the treasure boxes.

The thick-leaved tall plants in the planters are gladiolas.  They need full sun, and they will tolerate being transplanted. They need to go down about 4 inches into the soil.  The other tall plants are corn.  Corn does not like to be transplanted. It may not develop fully, and it will definitely need to be supported.  The primary reason for our planting was to see which of our plants were monocots and which were dicots, and to see how long it would take for each kind of seed to put out a second set of leaves.  There are two plants that look similar, but with the second set of leaves will begin to look very different.  The first set of leaves on both plants are rounded.  The second set of leaves for the cucumbers will look a little fuzzy, and will not be even around the edges.  The other plants are zinnias.  Both of these will transplant well into any established beds, or you can leave them in the planter, but be prepared for the cucumbers to vine about 10 feet. The light green, closely planted leaves are lettuce.  This needs to be thinned soon, and would not survive transplanting.  Once the temperatures get into the nineties, the lettuce will “bolt,” and will taste bitter, so enjoy it now.  If there are other things growing….. You have some weeds from The Garden School forest. The planters will need to be watered at least every other day, except when it rains.  I would love to see pictures as the plants develop!!

What a great Field Day we had, thanks to the efforts of Molly Parker.  A lot of water - water toss, water slide, kayak ride, water balloons, plus corn hole and badminton.  Two hours filled with absolute fun and so much laughter.  Thank you, Molly!!

Today’s reception and ceremony would not have happened without Brooke Frasier, Sara Walsh, Lesley Lang, Molly Parker, Sarah Darby, Priscila Benson, BJ Benson, Gaby Farrokhi, and Derek Chriscoe.  Many thanks for all that you did to make it a lovely day.  I am still smiling with pride as I remember the wonderful performances of all of the children.  Today was my last day, but it is not the last time you will hear from me.  There will be an email coming soon, and the EOY reports will be issued in about two weeks.

As your family transitions into the new phase of educating your child, please know that I will still be available to answer any questions you may have, or help you in any way. I hope to stay in touch.

Have a great summer!

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: May 24 - 28

This week, the focus on Botany at the beginning of the week was on the many varieties of grasses and flowers that grow, both wild and in cultivation, and how many of those provide sustenance for humans and animals.  

We then turned our attention to the parts of a flower, the way seeds are formed, and how seeds are dispersed once the flower releases them.  It is indeed a wonder how interdependent all aspects of nature are on one another to create a balanced environment.  Some flowers have stickers on their seed pods that stick to animal fur, and can be carried far distances before being deposited onto new soil, to lie in wait for a new season of growth.  Some seeds are scattered by birds.  Some seeds are very lightweight and are dispersed through the air, or they float and are carried by water.

In our final week we will discover the wonder of bees and the beauty of butterflies, and their importance to the process of pollination.  It has been beneficial to have our own plant life growing, so that the students can make daily observations about the process of germination.  Please be prepared to take these planters home on Thursday.  They are rectangular, approximately 27” long and 6” wide, and they have been sitting on the ground, so they will be dirty on the bottom. The students will bring them up to the picnic tables during the day and they will be ready to go into your vehicles at pick up.

We will have a busy but short week.  Thursday afternoon will be Field Day.  Friday will be ½ day, and the end of year ceremony. Each day we will be revisiting something special the students have enjoyed and asked to repeat, so that their last week at the school will be fun filled and memorable.  The year is coming to an end, and we will all be going our separate ways, but I hope there will always be sweet memories of learning and growing together, and threads of love will be woven in our minds.

Have a great week.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth: May 17 - 21

We have had a good, but somewhat disjointed week.  At least one student was absent every day, and on three of those days, two students were absent. Rather than have those students who were absent miss new content in our Botany block, the explanation of the reproductive cycle of the plant will be given next week. 

Our seeds and bulbs continue to thrive, and the bulbs are now about 1½” tall.  There is one other monocot that has appeared from seed, but the students have not yet identified it.  They are documenting the growth of what they planted in their Botany Journals and will have a history of each plant's growth cycle.  As the plants grow and flowers appear, they will have the opportunity to watch the pollination process, and understand the importance of bees and butterflies.  This part of their experience will most likely happen at home after school is out.  They will be taking the planter home with them on the last day of school.

The first trip to the creek happened this week!  As you can see from the pictures, they had a great time.  We are still hoping for a trip to the wetlands area and another trip or two to the creek before the end of the school year.  It will feel good next week, since the temperatures are predicted to be in the 90s.

The students have been working on their second soap carving project this week.  They are working on a heart, a whale, a fish, and an owl.  They continued to work on their treasure boxes.  We will start putting things in the boxes on the Tuesday after Memorial Day.  

Be on the lookout for an invitation to an end-of-year assembly on the last day of school.  Our class, among other students, is being honored, and we want all of the parents to be there.

Have a wonderful week.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: May 10 - 14

We have been busy this week.  We gathered soil from several different sources around the campus and mixed it and put it into planters down by the outdoor classroom in a spot that gets maximum sunlight.  The students then planted the seeds of five different kinds of flowering plants and one flower bulb, so that they could observe the process of how differently monocotyledon plants and dicotyledon plants begin their lives. The plants got a good soaking shower of rain on Wednesday, and we watered them especially heavy on Friday, in hopes that our not being able to water over the weekend will not deter their growth.  The students are recording their observations in their Botany journals.  This journaling will continue until the end of school.  The potted plants will be coming home with the students on June 4, and most of the plants will need to be transplanted since we packed the planter pretty full.

The Mod Podging ( the students have named it SWS for sticky white stuff) is going well, and the treasure boxes are going to be fun to fill with memories.  The grades classes are going to record an end-of-year, aging-out ceremony on the last day of school. Our class collectively wrote a recitation, which we are in the process of memorizing.  Each of the grade pods is going to sing a song.  I anticipate that it will be a very special recording.

We will continue to explore the world of flowering plants - trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, and non-woody stemmed flowers for the next week.  The old crone has come to pick up the umbrellas, but we are trying to talk her into hanging around another couple of weeks because there are still places we want to go. The math workbooks, although not the most popular book in the room, are doing their job, and everyone is becoming more confident.

Have a great week!

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: May 3 - 7

This past week, the rains came down and the waters came up!  The beginning of the week was wet!  We stayed inside, safe and dry, and finished our State Fact Sheets.  When the sun came out, we went down and got our outdoor classroom all spiffed up, ready for us to be down there for the rest of the school year.

The students have all chosen their final book of the year to read and report on, and those reports will be due on May 23.  It has been rewarding to see the improvements in their reports as they become more comfortable with the format.  They have now been tested on the spelling of all 50 states, and are getting close to the end of the Fractions workbooks. 

We will be doing some planting of seeds next week as we explore the differences between monocots and dicots, and we will be dissecting some dandelions as we continue our block on Flowering Plants. We will have just enough time left in our year to finish this Botany block and then to return to Ancient Greece for a brief time to finish our year out with an in-school, 4-8th pod pentathlon circus!

The students suggested that we make a treasure box to commemorate our class. I have the boxes and materials with which to decorate them.  If you think of special moments in our Garden School time together that you think we should mark with something that we put in our boxes, please let me know via text or email.  I hope this will be a special keepsake for them to remember our trips, our plays, our songs, our stories, and more, memories they will cherish for a long time. 

Our school auction, Hope Blooms, was a wonderful experience for all involved.  Thank you to all of you for donating, participating, and helping to make it a success both in-person and online!  

Have a great week.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: April 26 - 30

Each student brought their unique talents to their state presentations this week.  I had hoped we would be able to display their posters somewhere in the building, but I realized that it would be better to take pictures of them and post them here in the Monday Messenger. The fact sheets are going well.  Ki Rachel, Ki Emily, and I are supplementing the states that the students have researched so that each student will have a book of fact sheets about each of the states of the USA.  I plan to make one extra book and leave it in the school library.

We will spend Monday and Tuesday finishing up the fact sheets, taking a look at the US presidents, and identifying the states on a blank outline map of the US.  There will be a couple more tall tales and we will learn a few more American folk songs, and then we will turn our attention to our second Botany block.  I had hoped that we would be back in the forest classroom on Monday; however, it looks like we are in for some stormy weather Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so we will wait until Thursday to migrate down, and then hopefully we will be there for the remainder of the year.

Sarah Darby is finishing up our Auction bowl and needs the finished labels for the soap no later than Tuesday if you have not already sent it in.  Please have your child give it to Hazel.

As we move toward the end of the school year, there will be times when we get wet.  Please help your child pack their wet bag, an extra pair of shoes and socks, a change of clothes, and, in case of rain, make sure their ponchos are in their backpacks.  I know they are getting older and should be responsible for their gear, but gentle nudges and checks can help keep them prepared and ready for the adventures we have at our school.

Along these same lines, please remember we have a dress code and that large words and logos on clothing are not allowed.  A quick look at what your child is wearing to school under their jackets will save them from being asked to change clothes or the need to turn shirts inside out.   

This was my first full week back, and it felt really good to be back with my students, and back to teaching music in the afternoons.  I am looking forward to the last 5 weeks with your children, and I'm hoping for some very special times. 

Please join us this Friday if you are able. We are looking forward to seeing you on Friday evening to preview all the wonderful items that will be auctioned. You can purchase your tickets here to pick a time slot. All participants, whether joining us in person or online, will require a ticket to bid! Bidding starts Friday at 5:30 PM and ends Saturday at 12:00 PM. The proceeds benefit our school and therefore our entire school community.  Your participation in our first annual school auction is boundlessly appreciated!

Have a great week!!!

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: April 19 - 23

What a joy it was to be back in the classroom with my students this week!  We had a wonderful time getting our rhythm back.  We spent a lot of time working on the U.S. Fact Sheets research and the preparation of the sheets.  This research, and the sheet prep, will continue into next week.  The State Reports, with poster and oral presentation, are due next week.  Each student has been given their date for presentation.  We will begin a “sweep” of the nation, beginning with the Eastern states, and continuing across the country, ending with those states that are farthest west, the newest states, Alaska and Hawaii.  Since there are only 5 students, the reports will be scattered, so the state reports, letters we have received, and the research done by Ki Rachel, Ki Emily and myself, will give the students a good overview of what our nation is like from region to region, and state to state.

The class has finally completed the memorization of the poem, The Parts of Speech, which is quite long.  We will be videoing it on Monday for the next First Friday video.  The next step will be putting the poem to practice!

We continue to make good progress in the Fractions workbooks.  Two students are working on the practice test for book three, and everyone should be working on book 4 by next week.

Music class will resume next week - I will be resuming my full-time duties, so please make sure the recorders return to school….. I know, they might have to dig deep for them!!

Friday, May 7th is our school auction, Hope Blooms.  Please buy your event ticket at www.fundraiser.support/hope to bid on the many wonderful class projects and donated goods we will have to offer.  You may join us in person that evening.  Bidding will take place online, so if you are unable to attend in person, there is still an opportunity to participate.  We hope you can join us to support our wonderful school!

Have a great weekend.

Blessings,

Kathee

4th & 5th Grade: April 12 - 16

It was great to return to the campus today to continue teaching the US Geography block in person. Last week contained a brief overview of how North America transitioned from a border-free vast space where multiple tribes of people migrated from place to place as needed to a place where explorers and conquistadors — seeking gold and spices — arrived upon looking for trading routes to the Far East. When these explorers found land more valuable than gold or spices and told their kings and queens, the race was on to colonize this very land for their country. 

The intent was to integrate the brief history of colonization, the establishment of the United States as an independent country, and western expansion with larger than life personalities, folklore, and folk songs that enriched the early history of our country. 

Beginning this week, we will focus on the Fact Sheet Book project and we will continue to share folktales and folk songs. Please remind your students to bring their ukuleles to school all week along with their tablets. 

We will also continue to become more familiar with where states are located by playing Ticket to Ride and USA Bingo. 

The students have been challenged to freehand draw a map of the states. It is a difficult task , and my hope is they will take the challenge a little bit at the time.

Word problems have been eased in this week to build up some math confidence. Caughtya’s continue, as do Reflections.

It is such a rewarding experience to watch your children grow. We’re going to make the most of the next seven weeks we have to spend together!

Have a great week!

Blessings,

Kathee

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Fourth & Fifth Grade: March 29 - April 2

The 4/5 class enjoyed a week of active measurement review and games with Ki Rachel while Ki Kathee was at home.  After sharing lessons via Zoom with Ki Kathee early in the week, they ended the week with a scavenger egg hunt and a spring cleaning of their classrooms.  Thank you to Asher's mom for donating the eggs and goodies for the hunt.

Ki Kathee is home and doing well and she is beginning her recovery and therapy for her hip replacement surgery.  We cannot wait to have her back at school with us once again!

Fourth & Fifth Grade: March 15 - 19

Norton Juster, the beloved author of The Phantom Tollbooth, passed recently, and his passing reminded me of our reading that book together. His passing may have had some influence on my choice to revisit some of the things we have previously learned in math.  Visiting old friends is often rewarding.  We find out things about them that we never knew or understood before.  When I was a child my parents used to go see several people in an afternoon and they called those visits “ drop-ins.”  Between now and next Friday we will have dropped in to visit multiplication of numbers up to three digits, long division, calculations of time, money, and speed, and measurement of length, volume, and weight.

Since St. Patrick’s Day was during the week last week, we wrote some Limericks.  They were fun.  We started with fill in the blank limericks, then progressed to write your own.  I couldn’t help it.  It’s the Irish in me!

Magnus Chase has returned!!!  The pace of our math review has given us enough time to return to a read aloud, and enjoy the antics of Magnus Chase.  I have missed the read alouds, and I think the students have too.

I want to leave you with a thought.  Jamie York, a Waldorf math teacher, and a person who stands tall on my list of Waldorf master teachers ( and who has several wonderful lectures on YOUTube) reiterates two things about math over and over.

  1.  When you introduce a new concept in math, do not expect the child to be able to fully understand it and do it the first year, or the second year, but in the THIRD YEAR, they should own it.   I could expound for days about this statement.  I believe that some of you would not have failed a math class in school had you been given the opportunity to absorb the concepts in your own way, in your own time… well, you don't have time to read my exposition.  Think on that, though, and know that this is the way I am approaching your child and their understanding of math.

  2. Math is not just learning math facts.  If a child does not understand WHY, they will never understand math at all.  This particularly comes into play when we enter the world of “take away” and add to “when it relates to place value, but has even greater ramifications in upper division math classes”.  I was fortunate to have a high school math teacher who encouraged the word WHY.  Unfortunately for my parents, I carried that over into every part of my life!

Have a great week.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: March 8 - 12

I have begun to look forward to Mondays.  We have started a series of watercolor paintings - sometimes using watercolor pencils, sometimes using water colors, entitled Spring.  Each week we discover something new that is green, or something new that has bloomed around the campus and we paint it.  My joy has been in watching for growth.  That is also the joy of teaching your students.  In the past several weeks there have been some pivotal moments for each of them in the learning process, an “aha!” Those are truly wonderful moments to watch.

We will be inside the building or at the picnic tables until our outdoor classroom is repaired, which I anticipate will be following our Spring Break.  And just a reminder….  for the 2 weeks following Spring Break the students will be at school and I will be at home zooming lessons with them while I am recuperating from my hip replacement surgery.

We took our time and slowly finished the drawings and recapitulation for Greek Mythology and will spend the rest of the time before Spring Break concentrating on a math review and an introduction to decimals.

Spring arrives this week!!

It’s the favorite time of the year for the Irish!

The earth is alive with beautiful colors!

Enjoy the outdoors!  Dance a jig (and one for me too).  Have a great week.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: March 1 - 5

We spent most of the week talking about the Olympians, then we ended the week, and our Greek mythology block, with the story of Helen and the Trojan Horse. We will try to return briefly to Greece before the end of the school year to talk about several historical figures that helped shape the development of science and democracy. 

The class has almost finished learning the lengthy poem about the parts of speech, and their understanding of sentence structure and punctuation is improving. Thank you, “Caughtya”!  Fractions 2 is almost finished. This practice work will continue even as I introduce decimals in the next block. 

I still need items to add to the bowl for the auction. Please send items in by the end of the week. Otherwise, I will have to purchase them. Spa tools such as a gel eye pack, massage oils, manicure supplies, or bath salts are suggested. Thank you!

Have a great week. The forecast looks good for next week, but it isn’t Spring yet. Layer, layer, layer!

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: February 22- 26

The weather was kind this past week, and we enjoyed having class outside all the way to Friday.  We are continuing our exploration of Greek mythology; however, we have disbanded the read aloud of Black Ships of Troy. The language and inclusion of every character mentioned in the original Iliad were difficult for the class overall, so I will be telling the story next week.  We turned our attention to The Olympians, and we’re making a set of cards for each of them.  If you have a copy of D’Aulaire’s Greek Mythology at home, please sit down and read some of the storie of the Nymphs, Monsters, and lesser gods.  Greek mythology is filled with great life lessons.  The drawings in D’Aulaire’s are wonderful too, and my students are feeling successful at drawing their own images with the help of viewing the pictures in the book as well as my drawings on the blackboard.

Our spelling test on Wednesday identified the need for students to practice and study the words more.  We had a retest on Friday.  MUCH BETTER!!!!

All of the students brought their Fractions 2 books home this weekend.  The students should finish through p. 28 by Monday.

The book reports were all turned in early or on time, and are well-done reports.  Yay!!  Without prompting, everyone has already picked out the next book to read.  Those reports will be due on Friday, March 12.

Our students will be shaping/carving homemade soaps and making washcloths for the upcoming auction.  The soaps will be placed in an antique kneading bowl that was donated by a friend of mine, and arranged so that it looks like a bowl of fruit and flowers (we’ll be folding the washcloths to look like flowers).  To enhance the “auctionability” of the bowl,  please consider donating spa-type tools - loofah sponge, nail brush, diffuser for oils, etc., and have those items to me by the end of next week.  Watch for announcements about the auction, and plan to “attend.”  I’ve already heard about some really great auction items.  If you want to offer a service or an item for auction, please do that.  The more items that are offered, the better the fundraiser will be.  Thanks in advance!!! 

We may be inside on Monday if it is raining hard and it’s windy.  We should be outside for the rest of the week.  Remember to pack ukuleles for Tuesday and Thursday.  Don’t forget ponchos.  And have a great week!!!

Blessings,

Kathee

Clean-up the desk, box, bag day!

Fourth & Fifth Grade: February 8 - 12

We got a good start on Greek Mythology this week. As we began a class read of The Black Ships of Troy, a translation of The Iliad, the students were somewhat overwhelmed with the number of characters, how to pronounce their names, and who was married to whom. It is a struggle I have as well, and I've been reading Greek myths and legends for a long time. I tell you this so that you can be encouraging to your child and emphasize to them the fact that the most important thing is to listen to the stories and know that we will be taking them slowly.  Talking about them also helps, if you would like to query them. Thus far we know that Menelaus, the king of Sparta, has assembled a body of warriors to go with him to get Helen, his wife, back from Paris, the son of the king of Troy. The back stories that lead to this event include the wedding of Peleus, a hero, and Thetis, a sea nymph, Paris’ challenge to give an apple to the fairest of the goddesses and Aphrodite’s response to being chosen, and why Achilles was hidden by his mother, dressed as a princess, on the island of a friend.  These might be conversation prompts to help your child begin to recapitulate the epic poem in their own words. The book they are reading is not in dactylic hexameter (which may have been the reason I never grasped the story line :-), but in prose. There is much soul matter in the Greek myths and legends, and I am looking forward to several more weeks of exploration with your children. The inserted links are pronunciation guides for the names.

We started the practice book Fractions 2 this week, and I assigned a new book/book report.  The book they choose can be any of their choice.  The format for the report is the same, and is due on Friday, Feb.26.

Two of my global goals this semester are:

1.)  to help the students get better organized, i.e. write details about assignments in their journals, attach loose papers to their clipboards, copy spelling words neatly onto a single page of their spiral notebooks, etc.

2.)  to help them approach quizzes and tests more like scavenger hunting with the brain and to relieve the stress of not wanting to miss anything.  For the most part their concept of “failing” a test or quiz is “you miss one, you fail.”  Having a discussion about grading is a great lead in for our next math block, which will be decimals. Both of these efforts have produced some anxiety for everyone, which I hope will subside once they adjust to the daily logging of information and the preparation they make for assessments.  

I hope that all of you will enjoy this break, and that everyone remains well and gets some good sunshine into their bodies.  

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: February 1 - 5

Our “hybrid” classes worked quite well this week, thanks to the efforts of the admin team, Ki Molly, and Ki Kate.  I will say, however, that it was SO good to be back in the forest on Thursday and Friday.  

Some of you have not yet signed up for Parent Conferences next week.  Please do that as soon as you can.  I provided two slots for each conference so that each parent who will be attending can sign up.  The 1:00 time could be on campus if you’d prefer it, so if you signed up for one of those slots let me know and I’ll stay at school for the conference.

The approach I took with North America had a nice rhythm to it. Thanks to a wonderful book I found in our library, Turtle Island, and some additional research I did on my own, I was able to guide the students across the continent and show them where the very first humans settled.  We time travelled back from 13,000 to 2,000 years and visited the Haida Gwaii canoe builders, the Prairie buffalo hunters, the Pecos cliff dwellers, the Great Lakes people, the more advanced Mayan people, and the Mississippians, who were known for their mounds and towns.  The students had the opportunity to draw pictographs on rocks, much like the Pecos people did, and they all tasted pemmican, which almost everyone liked.  The response of the one who didn’t like it was, “My taste buds are ruined forever!”  

They have drawn some beautiful maps in their main lesson books.  Drawing multiple maps of the continent to apply biomes, topography and water systems, and where the first humans settled gave each of them confidence in their drawing/mapping abilities.

We have resumed “journaling” this semester, but are calling it Reflections.  They have a section in their Bullet Journals for their reflections.  Sometimes they choose to share what they have written.  I got permission to share from the two students who wrote the following.  The prompt  was:  Choose one of the groups of early settlers and pretend to be one of the tribe members.  Describe your day.

“I wake up.  The fire has gone out.  I am hungry.  I eat some meat and I go outside to catch new food.  I go with a hunting group.  We chase some buffalo to a cliff.  As we chase we throw rocks and they fall off the cliff.  Others [at the bottom of the cliff get them ready to eat.]

It is warm but breezy.  I start the fire.  [We sit around the fire and eat and tell stories.]”  (Some of the story got cut off when I took a picture of it.  Thus the brackets.  I remembered what they had read aloud.)

“It was early in the morning.  I had just waked up.  I had many chores to do, but that didn’t matter.  The first thing I did was to help mama.  It was Spring….. I love Spring more than anything.  I [planted] beans and corn and helped mama plant and sow seeds.  Now the day was over but I was ready for the next one.”

The rest of the class guessed where these two young ones were from, based on their activities.  I thought to myself as I heard them reading, “This is so much better than giving them a multiple choice test to see if they were absorbing what I said.”  

Because of the increasing content of the lessons, the students are beginning to take a few notes, which means I have had to show them the art of note taking - I didn’t mention doodling, which I do a lot of.  They are listening, they are absorbing, and they are holding these ideas in their hearts.  

None of them were pleased to hear the story of herding buffalo, so we talked briefly about their necessity to do this, and also the necessity to clear cut thousands of acres of land in the Mississippian forest in order to feed “the three sisters” to all of their people.  I emphasized that we now know the consequences of such actions, and we can try to protect the earth from this continuing to happen.

The predicted weather patterns for next week indicate that we can be on campus all week.  I will let you know if that changes.

Have a wonderful week.  I look forward to seeing you, either live or on the screen, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: January 25 - 29

It is such a refreshing experience to see North America without borders and imagine what the first explorers saw as they crossed Beringia and entered the continent.  This week I introduced students to the biomes of North America.  Each biome has its own page in our Main Lesson book, and as I introduce people to the continent we will add plants, animals, and minerals to these pages as we study the primary ancient cultures of North America, including the Inuits, the Mayans, the Pueblo’s, Mogollons, Hohokams, Plains, and Mississipians.

Most of the students have been successful in their practice of fractions, and they will continue on to book two very soon.  The spelling test this week was more traditional, however, I will continue to mix it up with dictations of sentences that have our spelling words in them, define words and have them write the word correctly. We may have another crossword puzzle coming up this next week.

The students painted an icy tundra picture this week, and will be painting other pictures of biomes next week. 

The books they are reading should be finished by Monday.  I will provide the format for the book report during the main lesson on Monday, and their Book Reports will be due on Friday.  

Since we know the forecast for next week includes very cold mornings Monday and Tuesday, I will be teaching remotely on those mornings, and will be on campus in the afternoons for music. 

Please encourage your child to practice ukulele.  Their assignments are listed in their Ukulele notebooks.  This week’s check offs include playing a C major scale, playing the primary chords in the key of C major, and learning to play and sing “You Are My Sunshine.”

I continue to enjoy teaching your children and watching them grow.

If you have not yet RSVP’d for the All School Meeting, you can do so here. This meeting will be held on campus, outdoors and socially distanced. One member of each family is strongly encouraged to attend. This is a great way to get to see our campus and all of the amazing additions and improvements we have made to help our outdoor learning be comfortable and successful, and to hear more about the school and ask questions.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: January 19 - 22

This has been a busy week as the students and I adjusted to a somewhat faster pace of giving assignments, and as we continued to practice organizational skills.  We began the North American block by looking at the continent from an historical perspective, and envisioned how it might have looked during the Ice Age, and then began to add lakes, rivers, and mountains to our map.  This storytelling map drawing proved to be a great exercise for all.  Their maps are beautiful, and I was able to give them a lot of geographical history by telling the story as I drew.  I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did!

Spelling tests this semester are going to be very different.  This week, I gave them a dictation which included the spelling words. This was a new experience, and it may take some of them some time to adjust.  My goal is to have each student spelling at 80% accuracy.

We began a review of the parts of speech and will be memorizing poems for each of them. Last week’s poem was “The Verb.”  Please ask your child to recite it to you.  I have put it up as an assignment on Classroom, and will continue to add the other poems there as we proceed.

The students continued their math practice with the Fractions workbook and several problems per week for 3 digit multiplication and long division with remainders.  If your child is having difficulties with these problems I will be glad to spend some one-on-one time with them either after school or on a facetime/zoom session.  Just let me know and we will schedule it.

It’s almost time for Parent Teacher Conferences  Here is the link to Sign Up.  If you are not available for any of the times listed, let me know and I will work with you to find a time.  

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0844AAA928A0F58-parent

Have a great week!!

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: January 11 - 15

Hello from the land of Digitopolis!!  Multiplication, division, fractions. We’ve had a good week getting better at all of the above. I have loved being able to watch the way that each student began to become at ease with new concepts and then ask for more problems to solve - well, not every student made that request. 😊. I am pleased that they were all able to reach the benchmark of 80% accuracy in solving equations. Backup practice at home, done so in a problem solving way - measuring in the kitchen, measuring length and width, estimating distance, etc - will be a great help to all. We will continue to have practice problems each day as we now move into our next block, which will be North American geography. 

The first week of the block we will focus on the physical geography of the continent without borders, identifying deserts, mountains, tundra, plains, rainforests, and rivers, lakes and  surrounding oceans. Stories from the people who settled in each of these areas will be the lead-in to the second week of study, which will focus on identifying the way North America was inhabited and by whom. In the third week, we will explore the natural resources of the continent, again without borders. In the second block, which will be later in the semester, we will look at the history of the borders between the United States, Mexico, and Canada and focus on the regions of the US. 

The students got a good start on their Journals this week.  Organizing, making lists, prioritizing, and journaling through reflection and creative writing will all be in one place for them, 

Our activities that usually fill the MLK Day are curbed this year. I encourage you to do something as a family to make your community a safer, more just place to live.  The school community has a great project planned for the next two weeks.  Please read the announcement, download a flyer, and send something for the food pantry or a hygiene pack. 

We only spent one morning inside this week because of the cold.  The weather forecast predicts a little milder weather this week, with some rain at the end of the week. Every student should have a hat, gloves, and a thick jacket. Scarves, throws, thick socks, and weather proof shoes are all a plus along with a thermos of warm liquid. 😉

Have a great week!

Blessings, 

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: January 4-8

The week of virtual learning is over and I look forward to being back in our little cabin without walls in the beauty of the forest beginning Monday.  I got thermal underwear for Christmas (too much info??) and a new longer down jacket, so that when I sit down I’m sitting on the jacket.  Please help your child make wise decisions about what to wear to school.  It is possible that it will rain Monday and Tuesday, so please help them double check to make sure they have a rain poncho and waterproof shoes in addition to another pair of shoes and socks.  This would probably be a good time to restart bringing one thermos of hot beverage and one thermos of water. And a warm throw. 

We began our first block of math this week, with a focus on long multiplication and long division.  We didn’t actually get to long division.  They have a worksheet of problems that should be completed and ready to turn in when they arrive Monday morning.  The grid paper is especially useful when they are computing these problems in that it is a visual cue for place value.  This will become even more important in our next math block, which will be an introduction to decimals.  

Our Form Drawing has improved by leaps and bounds as they draw geometric figures without the use of tools.  And the Caught-ya sentences continue to help them discover grammar, punctuation, homophones, sentence structure, and other language arts nuggets. 

Spelling has been resumed this semester.  There will be a list of words each week related to the subject matter we are exploring in Main Lesson, plus some new words that will broaden the scope of their vocabulary.  This list will accumulate through the week, and they will look up the definitions in their dictionary and write a sentence with the word.  This week they had 5 words.  On Tuesdays we will have a spelling quiz that will require them to know how to use the word (verb, noun, adjective, etc.) and spell it right.  I will begin to grade these (gently) and the expectation is that they will be able to spell, define, and use these words with 80% accuracy.

Any work that isn’t completed during the school day will be assigned as homework.  I am working this weekend on gathering supplies for them to start their own BuJo (Bullet Journal) so that lists of assignments, deadlines for assignments, etc.  plus daily journal entries from prompts will all be in one place.  If you have supplies you would be willing to donate - washi tape, sticky notes, fine tipped markers - we will accept them gratefully.  

Our students have become much more tech savvy, possibly because of their increased exposure during our virtual sessions.  I want to introduce them to the right way to use the internet, and we will have one session each week this semester to talk about etiquette, pitfalls, accuracy of information, and, most importantly, the kinds of sites to stay away from.  I have some concerns about things I have heard during snack time conversations.  Please stay on top of their online usage, and encourage them to use the web for good, and not necessarily for pleasure.  Perhaps you and your child can keep a log of computer time.

The right fractions workbooks have arrived (so sorry), and there will be daily assignments in these books.  I will be using Classroom to track these assignments.

And last but not least we will be returning to the ukulele this semester.  Please make sure the ukulele is in their hands to bring to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Have a great week.

Blessings,

Kathee

Fourth & Fifth Grade: December 14 - 17

The final week of the first semester was fast-paced and wonderful.  I gave each student an informal assessment during the week, to inform me of what I needed to review and continue having them practice.  I am looking forward to next semester.  By the time we all get back together in January, the longest night will have passed.  I do hope you have a clear night tonight to see the convergence of Saturn and Jupitar.  Each night they move closer together, and it is quite a sight.

We will finish several pages of the Ancient Civilizations main lesson book during our virtual week, and we will begin a math block that week.  By the time I finished teaching Ancient Egypt, I decided I want to be an Egyptologist!!  The advanced technology that the Egyptians were able to use to build the pyramids, to make the wheel, which led to the use of chariots, and to make paper is one of the most amazing stories in history.

One of the assessment assignments last week was to write a story, given a prompt.  The stories were delightful!  If your child is willing to share the story, you will be impressed!

Friday we built a fire in the fire pit and gathered with the Middle School at the picnic tables to sing Christmas songs, do a Christmas puzzle, and make date balls.  We walked the Advent Spiral, which while different, as it was outside during the school day, was still beautiful and a wonderful experience. So fitting for our outside experience this year.  Linnea Geiger took a lot of photos, as did other teachers.  Thank you to Linnea who stood outside all the blustery morning to take the photos!  You will be able to find pictures on our FB Families website posted there by Linnea.  I tear up every year as I watch these wonderful children walk the spiral.  This year they looked so tall and grown up.  After the spiral the class gathered with the Middle School students and they exchanged their Secret Santa gifts. It was a lovely way to end the semester.

My wish for all of you is that you will have a wonderful holiday season.  It may actually snow on Christmas this year.  I hope it does!

Happy New Year!

Blessings,

Kathee