Welcome back and Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful winter break and warm holiday season to cap off 2011. I don’t know about you, but I love reflecting on the previous year and contemplating what the new year will bring. New goals, resolutions, and explorations are on the horizon. I missed the “Summer in December” while in Iowa and apparently we brought back the cold weather. As much as I loved down time and an endless supply of sugar, wine, and home cooking I am excited to head back to school!This week at TKG we will be learning about winter and shadows. We will do some experiments with water and ice. Flashlights, lanterns, and various items will be in the science area for students to explore. We will observe and collect data in our journals about our own shadows as well as shadows around us. We will write and tell stories. During math workshop we will put together our January calendar and count how many days we have been in school and add to our 100s chart. I am excited to see where we go on our winter shadow exploration! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wk4qG2mIg)
As it is a new year we will also discuss resolutions and goals and how they apply to our class as well as the world around us. One of my goals is  to model our class agreements and update you on new agreements via weekly email and parent folder.
TKG Agreements
·Checking In: We check in with each other, the teacher and volunteers, and the schedule. (very broad and applies to many of our daily activities)
·Disagreements are okay and we can use our words to express our opinion, but physical fighting or “battling” are
not safe and don’t feel good.
·Stay Together
·Walk inside and inside voices (safety as well as respecting our surroundings and other’s ears J)
·Respect everyone’s project or work
·Not judge, rank, or order each other’s projects or work
To help ease the transition back into school mode feel free to discuss some of these agreements with your child, but don’t overwhelm them all at once with “don’ts” and “can’t dos”. Focus on the positives and why each agreement works or feels good at school. And an extra special request; get back into your regular routine as soon as possible. I know it may be tough, but your child and I thank you for that refreshing Tuesday morning in Room 321 Blastoff. See you then!
Happy Learning,
Michelle Goldbach-Johnson
p.s. Check out our Flickr photostream here! |
