Recapping February 2023:
February 2023 was short, sweet, and filled with treats! This month we celebrated Valentine’s Day, traveled to China, Japan (with a presentation from Kanoa who actually went there!) and South Africa, studied invertebrates vs. vertebrates, practiced topic writing, learned about inferences and had a park play date! Here are the highlights – or you can DOWNLOAD + PRINT THE FULL VERSION HERE: [February 2023 Newsletter].
Monthly Highlights:
- WELCOME, TAITE! This month we added a new friend to our morning sessions! Taite is sweet, friendly, and a big lover of Pokemon & puppies! We’re excited to have her join our group!
- VALENTINE’S DAY: Our V-Day Party was a blast (even with the rain)! We made no-bake cookies, decorated boxes, exchanged cards, and learned about the history of St. Valentine!
- JAPAN: Ironically we studied Japan right after our friend, Kanoa, visited Japan (in real life!) with family! For our ‘fieldtrip,’ Kanoa shared a poster about his travels and we tried some kumquats and veggie sushi! Yum!
What We’re Up To In Language Arts:
- STRONG TOPIC WRITING: Our big focus in February was developing a strong topic – identifying what this means and looks like (in both writing & reading) and also improving writing with adjectives! To practice, we’ve been creating our own topics based on pictures or keywords, then adding detail to make our writing more interesting!
- CONTRACTIONS: We’ve also been working on contractions and recognizing their parts (Ex: “it” and “is” make up “it’s”) as well as learning how we can add them to our writing.
- POSSESSIVES: We’ve also been learning about possessives and possession (ownership) when it comes to writing. (Ex: “hers” and “theirs” as well as “Miss Marisa’s” with an apostrophe to show ownership). With this, we’ve been learning how an apostrophe works and what it represents.
What We’re Up To In Math:
- PLACE VALUE: We’re labeling numbers by their value (HTO – Hundreds, Tens, Ones) and creating pictures, coloring, and representing place value in multiple ways.
- BASE 10: We’re working with different manipulatives to recognize, count, and label numbers through the 900s!
- EXPANDED FORM: We’re continuing practice of recognizing numbers, their place value, and how they add up (Ex: 100 + 10 + 5 = 115).
- MONEY: Counting by 5s, 10s, and trying to create rote memory for quarters (25-50-75- 1 dollar!). We’re also adding and subtracting $ with realistic prices and budget problems!
What We’re Up To In Science:
February was focused on vertebrates vs. invertebrates – what that means, what animals these groups represent, how to identify the differences, and how to classify animals based on their similarities and differences!
- VERTEBRATES + INVERTEBRATES: We did a lot of activities to learn about animal spines (like creating spines from q-tips), doing a class ‘Scoot’ (outdoor movement-based station activity) and classifying through collages.
- INVENT-A-PET: After learning about different animal species and specific traits (and how they’re passed down through offspring), we created our own pets by crossing traits with a dice-rolling game!
What We’re Up To In Social Studies:
This month we finished our travels to China and went to TWO different places!
- JAPAN: Kanoa was able to share about his real-life travels with his family in a detailed poster! We also created bento boxes, tried using chopsticks for sushi, learned to count to three in Japanese, and even made our own Koinobori (鯉のぼり) flags.
- SOUTH AFRICA: Our next ‘trip’ was South Africa. We learned about animals, customs, basketry, famous places. . . and we tried two authentic foods, melktert & malva pudding!
Other February 2023 Updates:
Every month feels like it flies by, but February is actually short & sweet! Here are our “High, Low, Buffalo” moments — ‘High’ is a happy moment, ‘Low’ is a bad moment, and ‘Buffalo’ is a random moment — from February 2023:
- HIGH: V-Day Party! Although it rained, we had a blast decorating our boxes, exchanging gifts, and getting messy with the no-bake cookies! We also got to go to the park another day, too!
- LOW: Rain It’s been a rainy winter! The weather postponed our park day, but when we got to go, it was even better because we’d been waiting so long!
- BUFFALO: The Big Banana! Kensie had a GIANT banana in her snack one day! We had a good laugh about it being a “super” banana like Landon’s “super cheese” (video here).
Spotlight Students:
Each month we celebrate a student (or students) who are doing exceptional academic work and/or been outstanding in terms of behavior, attitude, or empathy towards others.
This month’s Spotlight Students are Sienna & Kingston! Sienna is always helping her classmates and teacher, and adding her perspective in class discussions. Kingston works hard, asks great questions and always makes sure people are included and listened to. Thank you both – you rock!
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You can also download the full February 2023 Newsletter [RIGHT HERE].
