Hello Blackberry Families,

Welcome back everyone after a week long Fall Break. Unfortunately, Leslie was out sick this week! We hope she gets well soon! I just would like to send another reminder for students to wear appropriate clothing for colder weather. In the afternoon, it is a bit warmer but towards the end of the day – the weather drops again! If children are not feeling well, it is better they stay home than to get others sick. If they are feeling better to return to school, encourage children to wear a mask to protect others in their community.

We have explored new themes and revisited some subjects in our academics. 

Math has been a revisit of coins. We did some new activities using prop money, adding pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. We provided the price of things like bananas (.29¢), pizza ($1.25), and a house (for .63¢) – and students needed to show which coins would equal that amount. We also took a day to focus on quarters. We added mixes of coins together to get our totals, and we practiced counting by 5s, 10s, and 25s. This will be a theme and subject area that we will continue to explore for weeks to come. 

In Spanish, we welcomed visiting artist Jesus Sosa Calvo! He gave us an introduction of how to make alebrijes, traditional folk art from Oaxaca Mexico. Students were able to watch Jesus demonstrate the carving process for the wooden sculptures as well as painting them. Students were able to paint their own alebrije animals.

This week for writing we focused on opinions. We went over what is an opinion, how others have different opinions, we can agree to disagree, and most importantly always respect others’ opinions. We learned about how opinions are our feelings towards something and we give a reason and a supporting detail when doing opinion writing. An important part of opinion writing is using the word because, followed by the details. We created lists of our opinions with the prompts, “Would an elephant make a good class pet?” We viewed examples of opinions vs facts. We then wrote our opinion on our favorite fruit, apple or banana. 

 

We began to view our new vocabulary words for the week. The new vocabulary words are: decorate, fog, soil, and demolish. 

 

Cultural studies was very interesting with discussing Culture and diversity. We also had the chance to view what an early childcare school looked like in Japan! Students were able to see the similarities and differences of this school with our school. We followed up with viewing school lunches from around the world. Our conversations included which was our favorite lunch we would enjoy and incorporating respecting our opinions. We emphasized we do not “yuck someone’s yum” – meaning we do not react negatively, judge, or taunt other’s preferences, likes, or customs. 

 

As you can imagine, it can be challenging to take photos and update the blog every week with so much going on in our day so thank you for your patience and understanding!

 

Gracias y Saludos,

Mark