Photos from the Last Day

Here a few photos from our last day of school.

The end has come...

WOW! It has been an AMAZING year!

I couldn't have asked for a better group of students for my first class overseas. I have grown to love each and every one of your students and I was very sad to say goodbye today. We have laughed, learned, played, studied, and enriched our lives together this year. I cannot thank you enough for sharing your children with me. I give your student back to you heavier, taller, wiser, more responsible and more mature than they were at the beginning of the year. Even though they would have grown and learned without my help, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to help and see their personalities grow day by day and help them develop in their learning.

I owe the wonderful experiences I have had here in Egypt to all of you. Your children and yourselves have been so great to me and I really appreciate everything. Please know that I will always be interested in your children and their destinies, wherever they go, whatever they do and whoever they become. I would be happy to share in their life.

I wish you all a great summer and all the best of luck in Grade 2! Your students are more than ready and prepared to be successful next year.

Please keep in touch through my gmail. The teachers will be around at the school until June 27 and report cards are available for pick up on the 25th. Feel free to come by the classroom and visit on that day.

Again, I will miss you all and feel so fortunate to have been a part of your lives and you a part of mine. Thank you for everything! 

Last Day

We still have books and supplies to send home tomorrow, so please send a backpack to school with your students.

Thank you!


Also remember that it is out of uniform tomorrow. 

Leveled Reading Books

Please return any of the Guided Leveled Reading books to school if you have any at home.

Thank you! 

Phew! We made it!

It was a very busy week but we finished assessments and had our last trip! We had so much fun at the movies and it was a great time!

Next week we will be finishing up our portfolios and cleaning up the classroom and packing up and bringing home the rest of the class supplies and books.

On Tuesday, the last day of school, we would like to have a small dish party to celebrate the end of the year!     If you could send in some simple snacks, that would be great! We will also use this day to celebrate the summer birthdays in our class, Salma, Yassin and Eyad, whose birthdays are in late June or July. I will bring in a treat for the class and we will watch movies and play games.

Tuesday will also be out of uniform.

Only three more days left! :)

Have a nice weekend! 

Homework Updated

I have updated the homework for this week on the homework tab. 

This will be the last week for homework. Please return it on Thursday and I will grade everything that has yet to be graded and send it back home next week. 

Also, over the next several days, your student will start to bring home their workbooks and classwork. I will try to send it home little by little so their backpacks do not get too heavy. Please make sure to check and empty their back packs every day. 

Any workbook or classwork that comes home is your to keep. We are about finished with them in class, so we are going to start cleaning things out. 

Thank you for your cooperation. 

Production Clothing

Please send your student in normal clothes for the day tomorrow. Preferrably something easy to change out of and into because we will be changing into the costumes prior to the show. They will wear their costumes during the entire show.

However, please make sure to send them in BLACK shoes.

Also, don't forget to send water and food with them as there will be nothing for them to purchase at school. Water is not available. You can send what you normally send them for lunch, or something to act as a dinner since they will be there late.

Thank you for your help!

See you all tomorrow!

Please feel free to email me with any questions. I will check my email often.

General Announcements

- Tomorrow is the last day to send in the trip money. Please remember to send it in because we will not accept late money.

- Please remember to send a sweater with your students. The AC is on in the classroom again now that it is hot out and some students are complaining of being cold. If your student is cold in class, please send them a sweater.

- Also, many students have been running out of water in the middle of the day. Please send extra water with them every day so they have enough for the whole day.

Thank you! 

Production Day Information

v There is no regular school for KG and Elementary students. Rather they should arrive to school either by car or by bus at 2:00pm. Please make sure you arrive on time. Before 2:oopm there will not be supervision for your students, so please bring them at the correct time.

v We have a rehearsal at 2:30 so again, please be on time so that your student may participate in the rehearsal. If they are late, this could cause problems.

v Parents and guests should arrive at 5:15pm. The show will start exactly at 5:30. Please come at 5:15 so that you may find a seat and be ready for the show. If you show up late, you may miss some performances.

v There WILL NOT be food or drinks for your students to buy while they are here so PLEASE send plenty of food and water for them to last them through the evening.

v Immediately following the show, please come to your student’s classroom to pick them up. The teachers will be leaving right after the performance so we need you to come pick up your students as soon as possible.

v Mr. Abaza has requested that your students wear all black shoes for the performance.

Thank you for your cooperation. We look forward to sharing our performances with you! 

Several Important Announcements

~~My flash drive was found!!!! It was returned to me on Thursday. Thank you so much for your help looking around at home. It paid off! I really appreciate it!

~~A field trip permission slip was sent home on Thursday. It is our last trip of the year and we are making it a fun one! Please return the slips with the fee as soon as possible.

~~You may have noticed that on Thursday your student brought home a copy of the Mother's Day video in their home file. I am sorry that it took me so long to get it to you. There were a lot of mishaps in making them, but we finally completed them. I hope you enjoy it! We had lots of fun making it!

~~I know it's nearing the end of the year and we only have 12 school days left! However, we still have TONS of learning to do to finish out the year. Since we don't have exams in Grade 1, we continue learning new things all the way until the last week of school. Therefore, if you could, please try to make sure your student comes to school each day and arrives on time at 7:45am or they could be missing out on valuable lessons. It's hard to for them to complete lessons or projects when they are absent. Thank you for your cooperation.


--Thursday is our annual production. There will be a separate post coming with more detailed information about it soon. However, I just wanted to let you know that you can send in money to purchase tickets, but the tickets are also available for purchase at the door on Thursday evening. Also, your students who are performing are free but everyone else needs a ticket. However, if you have a young child who may be sitting on your lap, you do not need to purchase a ticket for them. You only need to purchase a ticket for individuals who will need to sit in a chair.



12 more days of school!!!! Our monthly value this month is perseverance. Please help us remind your students to keep working hard and being focused all the way until the last day. Thanks for all your support this year. Let's finish the year out strong!

Lost Flash Drive

Yesterday when I was absent, it seems that a flash drive of mine was misplaced. This flash drive has all of my classroom teaching resources on it and lessons plans for the rest of the year.

The teachers in the room last saw it sitting on the computer table in class.

I just wanted to ask that you check and see if you notice it around your house or check your student's pants pockets from Sunday or Monday. It is a very small flash drive so it could have easily fallen off the table into someone's pocket or backpack if they bumped the table or anything.

It is a small, dark blue, HP 8gb flash drive.

I don't think it will be at any of your homes, but I figured I would ask you to keep an eye out for it anyway, just in case it made it that way. There is a lot of irreplaceable resources and files on it, so I'd just appreciate if you could take a quick look around for me.

Thank you so much for your help!

Announcements

We were so happy to have everyone back at school today after the break!

Today, in the homework file, you will see two Journeys books. In the bottom corner, it will say Volume 1 and Volume 2. Volume 1 is the one we have been working in since the beginning of the year. It is now finished, so we are starting volume 2 this week. Please keep Volume 1 at home, it is yours to keep.

There is also some graded homework in the Homework file. Please keep that at home also.

The homework for this week is posted on the homework page. Please remember to check the homework page from a computer or laptop as we have been told that it does not work correctly on ipads/tablets.

I updated the calendar on the side of the blog with important dates.

Lastly, over the break my laptop screen was broken, so I can no longer access the school email from my personal computer. So if you need to email me, please contact me at my personal email that I use for classroom business, mrs.benfer@gmail.com. Thank you!



Our monthly value this week is Perseverance. Ask your students what this means! We learned about it today. It's a big word, but they should be able to tell you all about it!

We are having this value because even though it is almost the end of the year, we still have so much to learn before we finish Grade 1, so we need to make sure that we come to school each day ready to learn and ready to try our very best! 

Welcome back!!!

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing break! We are excited to be back at school and finish out our learning for the last few weeks of Grade 1!

The homework for this short week is just to read for 15-20 minutes each night and to complete two Math worksheets that were sent home in your students's blue file today.

Thanks,
Miranda

Spring Break Homework

We had a great day on Wednesday! Thank you so much for sending dishes for our party. We had some much fun and had great food!

I sent homework home in the home files for Spring Break. There are two parts. One is a journal. There are five pages. This is just for your student to journal five days from break. They just need to write about what they did that day. The second part is 6 pages of Math. I realized today that the three addition and subtraction pages in the back are a little too hard for them. I had already pre-made them and I noticed right at the end of the day today. So, for those three pages, you can either have them not do it, or have them try and if they can’t it’s no big deal. It will give them practice for what they will learn when we come back.

Also, if you could clean out their backpacks and their files over the break of any old papers that would be great. 

Also, we are running low on pencils so if you could send a box of pencils and one eraser when we come back, that would be great to help us through the rest of the year.

Thank you so much! Have a great restful Spring Break!

A few photos of us on Egypt Day!

This Week: Egypt Day and Field Trip

Reminder that tomorrow is the trip to Plein Air.

Please remember to send your student in proper uniform. Also, please send an extra shirt that you don't care about if it get's paint on it.

Also, please remember to send healthy food and snacks. A trip is just like any other day and the school policies still need to be followed. Also, please send your student's regular backpack and files to school just as usual. Thank you.


Also, on Wednesday, we are celebrating Egypt Day. We will do fun Egypt related activities. Your student can come dressed out of uniform if they are dressed in Egypt clothing. This means they can wear traditional Egyptian clothes, like a Galabaya or they can dress in Egypt's colors.

We will also have a dish party in class. Please send traditional Egyptian dishes such as fuul, tameyya, koshary, etc. The Arabic staff sent home a note about this as well. Please only send enough food for our class. Keep in mind that most everyone will send a dish so there will be a lot of food for the students to share. We don't want to have too much extra food that may go to waste.

Thank you for all of your help and cooperation to make our Egypt Day a success!

Field Trip - April 22nd

Yesterday the field trip permission slip forms were sent home.

Next Monday, April 22, we are going to Plein Air. The cost is 65le. The permission slip and fee needs to be returned to school by this Wednesday, April 17.

Also, for the trip, students need to wear the school uniform, but please send an extra t-shirt that will be ok for the student to paint in. We will be doing different activities, including painting and planting so we may get dirty. So please send a shirt that you don't mind if they get paint or dirt on.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Homework

Homework for the week is posted.

Also, some students have said that when they checked the blog, the homework wasn't there. We noticed that there was a problem with the blog if you check it from an Ipad or a tablet. You need to check the homework page from a computer or laptop.

Thank you!
 

Announcements

I had a few meetings today so I was unable to grade the homework for last week. I will grade last week's and this week's together next Sunday. I also did not have time to print new behavior charts for this week, so tomorrow we will color it for today and tomorrow. I apologize for the inconvenience.

I was able to get up the new homework and make a monthly lay out. I left the math off of some days because I don't know what chapter we will be working on next, but I should have it planned very soon and I will change the homework calendar as soon as I know.

New Schedule

I have updated the schedule tab to show the new schedule with the Swimming changes.

Swimming Reminder

Swimming classes went very well.  

Please remember  to:

Label all students belongings

Swimming caps (for boys and girls) are mandatory

Swimming floaters are mandatory.

Students will not be allowed in the pool without the previous items.

Lunch Procedure Reminder

We have been having some problems with the buying lunch procedures. Here is some information to help you.

Snack costs 7le
Lunch costs 20le
Small Water Bottle 3le

You may not send cash, you must come to the accounting office to purchase coupons and only send coupons to school.

There are no choices for the students. They either choose to order snack or lunch and they get whatever the cafeteria has on the menu for that day. This is different from the procedures in the upper grades. But KG - G2 do not get to choose different things to order.

If your student is not buying, please make sure to send enough food for them to eat at snack AND at lunch. Many kids are running out of food after eating at snack and then they have no food for lunch and complain about being hungry. Now that the weather is getting hotter and with the student swimming their appetites will be larger. Please send enough food so that your child may be focused on learning in the classroom rather than on being hungry.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Costume Money

Mr. Abaza asked me to pass on this notice.

The costume money was due on Thursday. We need you to send the money tomorrow because we need to place the order. If you do not send the money tomorrow, your student will not get the costume for the production. It is 110le.

These are the students that are missing the costume fee:
Hashim
Omar N.
Salma
Zeina
Ziad
Dareen

Homework

I posted the new homework for this week.

We will not have math homework this week as we are working on a project in class.


Also, I need you to send the parent meeting slips back to school by tomorrow. I stapled the meeting time slip inside of the channel book. I must turn in the schedule to the office tomorrow, so I need you to return it tomorrow. If I do not receive a slip back from you, I will assume that you do not plan to attend. Thank you for your cooperation.

-Miss Miranda

Announcements

~~Please send in 110 le for the costume for the end of the year production. The costume money is due by this Thursday, March 28. 

~~ Next week, we start swimming. Every Monday, you student will take swimming instead of PE. Please make sure that you send with them a swimsuit, large towel, swimming cap, goggles, slippers and noodles/floaters each money and all of these things MUST be labeled! Thank you. 

~~ Please make sure that you label the GP sweatshirts. I have three in my class that have no names on them and none of the students are saying it's theirs. If you think you are missing one, let me know. 

~~ This Thursday will be out of uniform. 

Reminder

Also, please remember to email me a photo with your student and their mother. I need it no later than 5pm today. Thank you. 

Mother's Day and Transportation

Tomorrow is our Mother's Day Celebration in our class!  We will do the celebration at two different times so that you are able to attend other classes if you have more than one student. The times are 10:15 and 10:45am. Please note that this is a day ONLY for the mothers our class - we love the rest of our family too, but the celebration is only for our moms. You can celebrate with the rest of your family after school. Thank you for your cooperation.

Also, some of you have already sent the transportation changes. They were due today. If your student usually rides by bus but you want to take them home with you after the celebration by car, then you should call Ms. Marwa today before 3:00pm. On half days we don't allow transportation changes on the day of. 

I am looking forward to see you all tomorrow. The students have been working very hard for the celebration and they are excited for you to come spend time in our classroom! 

See you tomorrow!

Homework

I apologize, I meant to post this yesterday but the internet was not working.

There will be no homework this week, as we will not be learning anything new. We are doing assessments, projects and things for Mother's Day. Please just focus on reading every night!

In preparation for Mother's Day, I would appreciate if you could email me at least one photo with your student and their mom. You can send your favorite or send a few photos even. I need this as a digital copy sent by email. If you could send the photo before Wednesday, that would be great! Please send it to mrs.benfer@gmail.com

Thanks!

Reminder

Next week is half days and the buses will leave at 11:30.

Also, Thursday is our Mother's Day celebration and Mother's are invited to attend!

Grade 1b News March 11-14

Reading: We practiced the "th" sound. Our new reading groups started this week and it is going very well. The books are a bit harder, but everyone is excelling and working really hard!

Writing: We spent a lot of time this week on our Small Moment stories. We learned how to write The Outside story, what happened, and The Inside story, our thoughts and feelings. We practiced writing sentences that started with things like, "I wished..."   "I remembered..."   "I thought..."   "I felt...."   "I wondered..."


Math: We learned about tally charts and bar graphs this week. We continued to practice the use of different vocabulary that comes with analyzing graphs. These skills are getting a bit easier for everyone.

Social Studies: We learned about our value of the month, Kindness. We talked about examples of kindness and what it looks like.

Science: We started our experiment on plants. We talked about how to set up an experiment to test what will happen to a plant if it doesn't have some of things it needs for survival. The students came up with the idea to put one plant outside in the sun and give it water, and one plant in the closet with no water. We started this on Monday. We made predictions about what we thought might happen to each plant. Then on Thursday we made observations of the two plants and drew them out. Here are a few student work samples. We are being great scientists!

Reading - Books

Last week, I reassessed each student for their reading level. Overall, our class has shown excellent progress!!! I am very proud of their hard work and you should be too. Be sure to tell your student how proud you are of them for working so hard to be a better reader!

Today, your student will be bringing home a new book from their new reading level. Since we are making large growths, the books might seem much more difficult from what you are used to seeing. Also, some of the books may be much longer as well. As a reminder, your student is only required to read 15-20 minutes each night, so if the book is taking much longer than that, your student doesn't need to finish it in one day. They can keep the book for two days to take their time in reading it.

Some strategies to help your student have success at their new level:
- If your child is struggling with a word, don't tell them the word. Encourage them to sound out and make the sounds of new words that they are unfamiliar with.Give them time to figure it out on their own.

- If they look up at you when they get stuck and sit and wait, tell them to try it on their own. Remind them that the word is on the page and not on your face :) I give them several minutes to figure out a word and only tell them what it is after they have made all of the sounds and made several attempts at figuring it out.

- Ask them questions as they read. Can you tell me what just happened? How do you think that makes the character feel? How would you feel? What would you have done? Having them answer questions along the way keeps them engaged and focused and thinking about the words instead of just saying the words.

-Break up big words into smaller words or parts. Like the word "watching", I would cover the "ing" part and ask them to say the first part of the word. After they can read "watch" then I uncover the "ing" and have them put the two parts together into one word. This strategy can be really helpful with bigger words.

-Remember to give your student positive encouragement. When they figure out a hard word, tell them great job for doing that on your own! This helps build their confidence as a reader and will help them grow as readers and develop a love of reading!

Thanks for working with me to see excellent progress in our students!!!
-Miss Miranda

Homework posted

The homework for this week is posted. For the math this week, you students will likely need a lot of help. The homework is on picture graphs. We learned about them last week, but it can be very challenging because of the vocabulary that is used. You will most likely need to read the questions to your students and help them understand what it is asking. In class we learn that fewer/fewest means less or least and when it asks "how many more" we learned to match up the two categories and see what is left. This should help you as you work with your student on these questions. Thank you for your help!

Grade 1b News March 3 - 7

Reading: In reading we learned about plural nouns and how to write them, including how to make man, woman and child plural. We also learned about the final clusters in a word. The ending sounds are much trickier for us, so we are still working on these. Today, we learned about three different parts of a story: character, setting, and plot. So, when you read with your student at home, maybe you can practice having them talk about the characters and identify the setting and tell the plot in order. We didn't have guided reading groups this week because Miss Miranda was reassessing our reading levels again. The class is reading so well!!!!

Writing: For our small moment stories, we learned about how to make sure we are writing about a story that happened to us, so we should be using I. We also learned to make sure that we put everything in order and tell about everything that happened. We practiced looking at our stories and seeing where we could add more details so that our readers can understand our story better.

Math: We finished up Chapter 12 and we moved into Chapter 8 and we are starting a new unit on Graphing. Next week we will chart Chapter 9 and learn more about graphs and how to read them and analyze them. We will also be practicing how to make graphs. Graphing can be really fun! But it is also quite challenging for our kids because of the vocabulary, so we are working hard to understand what different things mean, like fewest, and how many more.

Science: We started a new unit on plants. We learned about plant needs and the parts of a plant.

Social Studies: We started a new unit on Mapping. This week did a KWL, where we talked about what we already know and what we want to know about maps. We also looked at a map compared to a globe. We talked about land and water on the world and the different continents. In the coming weeks, we will start learning lots and lots about maps!

Trip to Ceramic Cafe

Here are the photos that I was able to take from our trip to the Ceramic Cafe. The kids had a lot of fun!

Grade 1b Awards

Here are the photos from the day that the students received their awards! 

They look so happy and proud, as they should be! 

World Math Day

Today is World Math Day. Remember if you want your student to compete, that you will need to have them log on at home tonight.


Also, the field trip forms and money are due tomorrow.

Grade 1b News Feb 17 - 28

Language Arts: We have spent a lot of time learning about the Magic E (silent e) sound and are learning a song about it. This sound is really important and should help a lot with their reading. We also learned S cluster sounds like sn, sk, sc, sp, sl, st.


Math: We worked on Counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. We learned how to count by tens if we start at a different number, like 7. We also learned how to use a hundreds chart and how to identify number patterns.

Science: In science we have spent a lot of time making Habitat Murals and we finally finished. We made these murals to demonstrate our understanding of what animals and plants live in each habitat. The murals look fabulous. I am very impressed with their hard work!

Social Studies: We finished up our Communities unit. We also learned about Respect and we have been practicing a lot about what being respectful means.

Art: We spent our art time working on our habitat murals. The murals helped us practice our drawing, cutting and gluing skills.

During this period of time, we also took our trip to the Ceramic Cafe and also received certificates for our achievements. I will make a separate post with pictures from those events.

Take a look at our habitat murals!

Forest Habitat

Ocean Habitat

Desert Habitat

Lots of Announcements

- I have changed the calendar on the right side of the blog to reflect the following special dates
         - March 6, World Math Day
         - No School on Sunday March 10
         - Field Trip on Thursday March 14
         - March 17 - 21, Half Days for students due to trimester exams, Buses leave at 11:30
         - March 21, Mother's Day
         - March 24 & 25, No School for Students
         - April 3, Report Cards go home
         - April 4 - Parent Meetings, No School for Students

- The Intent to Re-Enroll letters were due back at school today. If you did not send it already, please do so as soon as possible.

- It's that time of year again where the home/reading/homework files are starting to fall apart. If you notice that your students file is no falling apart, please try to purchase a new one. If you get a new one now, it should last until the end of the year.

- If you didn't send the signed progress report back, please do so immediately.


Thanks,
Miss Miranda

Hundreds Chart

Today your student will be bringing a Hundreds Chart home with them. They can use this at home to help them with tonight's homework. However, please send it back to school tomorrow so that we may use it in class as well.

Thank you!

Several Important Announcements!

• I am very sorry. I was out sick yesterday and I just remembered that I forgot to post the new homework for this week. I am very sorry for the mistake. The homework pages are listed now. Again, please remember to complete the assigned page on the assigned night and do not work ahead. We seem to be still having a problem with this because every day in our math lessons, students are telling me that they did the homework for this last night. If you work ahead, that means you are having your student complete work that they have not yet been taught in class. If you are having problems with their understanding, this is the reason. I am sorry to repeat myself about this again. Thank you for your cooperation. 
• I will try to get the newsletter for the last two weeks up tonight. I know we are behind and I have some photos to share about their work for the last few weeks.
• Please remember that you cannot send money to school with your student for lunch. They need to have coupons only. I have been making exceptions for the last few weeks but it needs to stop. If you send no water/food with your student and only money, they will not have food for the day. I am only allowed to accept coupons. 
• The sun is shining and the weather is getting warmer! As a result, your students are really thirsty. Please start sending more water with them again because they are running out early in the day. 
• Reminder: This Thursday is a half day. Students will go home at 12:00pm. 
• Please remember to check the blog and the channel book every day. I have noticed that when I am sending notes home, parents are not seeing them for several days. You must check it every day. Thank you.

WORLD MATH DAY

Also, our school is participating in World Math Day. This is a competition that your students can compete in. This is an activity that needs to be done at home so it is your choice to participate. World Math Day is on March 6. Your student can log on to the website on that day and compete with kids of their age from across the world. Your login information will be coming home today in the home file. I think they can log on early and practice. 

http://www.worldeducationgames.com/

Congratulations!

Today all of the students in our class received awards during morning lines for various achievements in class.

The awards are coming home today for you to see.

Congratulations to the students of Grade 1b! 

A few announcements

-Please send the signed progress reports back to school as soon as you can.

-This Thursday is our Field Trip to Ceramic Cafe. If you did not pay the fee for the trip, please remember to keep your student at home that day.

-February 28th is a half day for students.

Just a quick reminder.....

Field Trip money is due tomorrow!!!!

Notices/Field Trip

~~~On Thursday, students may come out of uniform for Valentine's Day. Please send them in red, white or pink. Otherwise, they must come in uniform. Thank you.

~~~We are having a field trip next Thursday to Il Pennelo Ceramic Cafe. This is a trip that students school-wide should be taking at some point. We will paint a ceramic tile there which will then be used to decorate the school gates. Please understand that the 80le price includes the ceramic piece, but the students will not be able to keep the piece as it will be used for the school. However, the ceramic piece that your student makes will be a part of the school forever.

The due date for sending in the fee and permission slip is this Thursday, Feb 14. If you would like your child to participate in this activity, please send the money in as soon as you can.


Thank you.

Grade 1b News - Feb 3-7 International Week

We had a very fun, exciting week learning about America.

Reading: For phonics, we learned about R cluster sounds and rhyming them. We continued to practice identifying nouns, verbs and adjectives.

Math: In math we learned greater than, less than and one more/one less. These are challenging concepts, but the students are working very hard.


Our afternoons were spent doing international week activities. Here are the things that we did to learn about America:
-Looked at America on the map and learned about what states are
-Learned that America is also called the United States of America and can be shortened to USA
-Listened to American songs, such as Proud to Be an American, My Country Tis of Thee, God Bless America, and the Star Spangled Banner
-Learned about the American Flag. How many stars? How many stripes? Why?
-Learned about the most popular names in America and chose new names for the week (the kids loved this!)
-Worked together as a class to create a large American flag painting
-Painted a mural as a class with different aspects of America that we learned about
-Read lots of books about American and did our own research
-Learned the Pledge of Allegiance

On Thursday, we got to travel to other "countries." We went to Spain, France, Tanzania and Italy. After our busy morning, we spent the afternoon eating American food and watching Magic School Bus, a very popular American TV show. I made fresh lemonade and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the students to try, very popular kids food in America.

Here are some pictures from Thursday. The GP School facebook page has lots of other photos of the day from all the classrooms.

Eyad, Zeina, and Hashim explaining the mural we made to another class

Class Photo in front of the American flag painting that we made

One more announcement....

We are learning the Pledge of Allegiance to present to the other classes tomorrow. If you could help your student practice it tonight, instead of the Math homework, I would really appreciate it!


The Pledge is the salute that Americans do to the flag every day.
These are the words:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.


Most of them remember quite a bit of it by now, but additional practice would be great!!!

Out of Uniform Tomorrow/International Activities

As a reminder, students can come out of uniform tomorrow if they are dressed for their country.

We need to dress in Red, White and Blue. The PE uniform pants are great for this because they are already blue and white and then you would just need to add a red shirt. However, that is just an idea.

If you do not send your student in Red, White, and Blue, then they must come in uniform.


Also, we will not be having a dish party. We already have a very busy morning "traveling" to other countries, and a birthday party in the afternoon. I will however be providing some small "American" snacks for the kids, myself.

Thanks for your cooperation. 

Important Announcement

Please do not complete tonight's Math homework page. I did not get to teach the lesson in class today due to International Week activities.


Also, as a general announcement, please make sure you DO NOT WORK AHEAD in the homework assignments. Do the assigned pages on the correct nights. I have them planned so that they complete the homework on the night that I do the lesson. If you have them work ahead, then they are completing work that they have not yet been taught. This creates misconceptions and mistakes in learning when you do this. The homework is intended to be review and additional practice on concepts that have already been taught in class. 

International Week

This week is International Week as I am sure the students have let you know.

Last week, I had all of the students look at a map of the world and choose a country they would like to learn about. We had a vote on the top two countries chose, and the winner was America.

 

So this week, each day, we will learn something new about America. The class has been so excited and enthusiastic about learning. Yesterday, we learned that it is actually called the United States of America and sometimes shortened for USA. We have also learned what the stars and stripes on the flag mean. Today, each kid got a "new" American name for the week. 

We will also do flag art and make a mural of American symbols, among a few other activities. 

On Thursday, your students can come out of uniform, but please send them in Red, White, and Blue for America.

Thanks!