Dec. 4th- Dec. 8th:
Memory:
Advent Parts


Spelling:

Lesson 14

Grammar:

Irregular past tense verbs

Reading:

Protagonist & Antagonist (cont.)

Writing:
Geologist news report (three types of rocks)

Math: Test on Friday

Science/Social Studies: Natural Resources

Geologists

Rocks and Minerals

Important Information /Reminders:

Our class is adopting Rylee, and 8 year old, for Christmas. We got her name from Friends of Kids With Cancer. She lost her sister recently to cancer. She wears size 9 clothes and size 3 in shoes. Her favorite color is pink. Her bedroom has a Paris theme. She loves angels and dragonflies. 

Gifts should be wrapped and labeled. You can drop them off at our class until 12/16. Please let me know if you have any questions and thank you for your kindness, gifts, and prayers.

December is a busy month packed with special student-led Advent services every Wednesday, and with that comes many days of practice. Our class schedule will change and things will need to be moved around in order to fit practice times into our day. December is all about being flexible and if you ever have any questions please email me anytime. 

Our Advent service is the last Wednesday before Christmas break (12/20/17). We will have a performance for the student body during a special 10:00 a.m. chapel service and we will have another performance at 7:00 p.m. Please let me know as soon as possible if you know your child will not be able to make it that day. I have assigned speaking parts, but I can rearrange things if you know your child can't make it.

Reflecting on our week: 

This week Mrs. Tomlinson and I started working with the class on a new intensive feeling focused curriculum. We have been working on this plan for the past couple of months. We tie a children's book to our weekly focus. This week we talked about feeling happy. Identifying how we show we are happy, what things make us happy, and how we can tell if others are happy. We are using clips from the movie, Inside Out to help students relate. We will focus on each main type of feeling and try to rate them as little, medium, and big reasons for these feelings, as well as rate our responses to these feelings. Our goal is that children will recognize that all of these feelings are normal and were given to us by God for a reason, however, with that comes responsibility and understanding of how to control those feelings and how to support one another when working through emotions. 
For example, we discussed hugging. Through discussion, children further understood that while some of us love to be touched and receive hugs, others do not and it makes them feel uncomfortable. We held a brainstorming session to talk about why everyone is not exactly the same and how we can read social cues to help us read peoples feelings before they even say anything. 

 These are a few of the student drawn covers on the feeling student workbooks. I am amazed at the artistic ability of this class! All of these were created by following directions from the awesome website called Art for Kids Hub. An artist walks viewers through step by step directions in drawing. I use this site a lot because it helps students develop an eye for spacing and teaches them how to go about starting to draw. This site scaffolds drawing skills and they learn concepts that will transfer once step-by-step directions are not available.