Weekly Theme Update-
Last week everyone turned in their favorite family recipe. It was great that we will all get to share our family recipes and the memories around them. This week will be our final week for the family unit and in celebration, everyone needs to bring in their favorite family food (ideally the same as last week's recipe). I have many families signed up, but if I haven't heard from you by the end of Monday, I will be making some phone calls to get you signed up!
This week we will be working on our final drafts of our Family Trees. The kids did a great job on their rough drafts of their family trees the week before last. Now we just need to put them on a poster and make them beautiful. One of the nice touches one of the kids did in class is to actually draw a tree in the back ground and put the family tree outline over the top of it. It was really a nice touch. Students need to only do their immediate family up to grand parents and Aunts and Uncles. They can go as far as they want of course, but as long as it is not over whelming : ) Family Tree Final Draft Posters are due Friday!
Last week we had a lot of fun looking up our ancestrial countries to find an interesting fact about the country and look up it's flag for our Family Shields. They came out really nice! I am holding them for the bulletin board to be viewed at conferences : )
Up and Coming-firemen visit/fire safety month, conferences-ref team lead notes
Conference Time!
Wow, can you believe it, but conferences are here already. This week in your weekly folders you will see a form to fill out with your top three times to meet with us. Remember that we make this time to meet with you and want to see you at this time to touch base with you about your child this year. This is also a time to ask those clarifying questions with all your child's teachers at one time that have been itching at the back of your mind. If you choose to take vacation at this time, we are not obligated to reschedule a conference with you. Please also remember that we are setting conference times based upon your top three choices, making sure that you meet with all of your child's teachers, for 120 students and even try to have all sibling conferences around the same time. It does not always have an ideal outcome for you, but do know with all these variables, we do try our best! We look forward to seeing you all next week!
Gala News-
Well it is that time of year we can go out for a night out with out the kids and help support the school in our annual Stargate Gala Fundraiser. This year Mrs. Robinson will be our classroom mom to organize our classroom basket. I have attached her letter to you on the bottom of my home page. If you get this via email, it should be (if it worked : ) attached to this email. I am looking forward to seeing you all at the Gala!
Chick-Fil-A Spirit Night!
Need a break from cooking one night this week? Want to help support Stargate and eat a great meal? Come join us this Thursday night (October 4th) at the Chick-Fil-A on 120th by the Super Target in Thornton. It's great fun for all. See you there!
Book Drive
One of our Brownie troops is running a book drive called 'Spreat the Word' to help those who are less fortunate to give the gift of books. Please take this time to clean out those book shelves and send in what every you can by the end of the week!
We Love Our Volunteers -
This year I am so blessed to have so many parents wanting to help out this year. Sadly there is only so much work to be done. I am in the process of making a 'Volunteer Station' in my room that you can just go to when you come into my room so as to help have the least amount of impact on the classroom. I really need to be able to concentrate on my teaching, keeping the peace and the flow going. Please, when you come into my room, make yourself at home and poke around till you find what you are looking for. I will always have a running 'to do' list as well as a list of things that always need a little TLC. I have attached the section about volunteering in the classroom from the Community Handbook as a reference. I am VERY thankful for you all coming to help out so that I can focus on creative and fun lessons to help enrich your childs education!
Fun Friday-
This Friday, October 5th is our first Fun Friday. Fun Friday is a chance for students to pick a free time activity of their choice or an additional time, if they need it, to finish any unfinished work. Every week your child has the chance to earn 8 stars (on full weeks). They get a star for every day they get a green or purple card (not a yellow, red or blue) and a star for remembering to turn in their work in weekly (on time) for their literacy, math and homeroom teacher (total of three stars for weekly work completion, including homework). We will have Fun Friday about every six weeks. This round they need to have 24 stars to go to Fun Friday. Total possible stars for this six weeks is 29, meaning they can only miss 5 stars. I have included in this week's Weekly Folder a Star Report on how they are doing as of last Friday. Please email me if you have any questions.
Scholastic Book Orders Due
Don't forget that Scholastic Orders are due tomorrow, October 2nd.
Website Tip of the Week
Curious how your child did last week in turning in their work? Now you can check how they are doing as often or as little as you want on Power School. In this week's Weekly Folder you will have log in information for your student. To get their, just click on the link at the bottom of my home web page (http://stargate-co.powerschool.com/public) and log in starting this week. Remember that this is all new for all of us and that there might be some kinks in the sytem (being human or software : ) This is another great communication tool that we can use to help make sure things are being turned in, if we are forgetting to put our names on things or if we need to redo something. Remember also there is about a week turnover of when an assignment is turned in until it is graded and posted. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!