Recapping February 2023:
February 2023 was short, sweet, and filled with treats! This month we celebrated Valentineโs 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 โ 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! Weโre excited to have her join our group!
- VALENTINEโS 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 โfieldtrip,โ Kanoa shared a poster about his travels and we tried some kumquats and veggie sushi! Yum!
What Weโre Up To In Language Arts:
- STRONG TOPIC WRITING: Our big focus in February was developing a strong topic โ identifying what this means and looks like (in both writing & reading) and also improving writing with adjectives! To practice, weโve been creating our own topics based on pictures or keywords, then adding detail to make our writing more interesting!
- CONTRACTIONS: Weโve also been working on contractions and recognizing their parts (Ex: โitโ and โisโ make up โitโsโ) as well as learning how we can add them to our writing.
- POSSESSIVES: Weโve also been learning about possessives and possession (ownership) when it comes to writing. (Ex: โhersโ and โtheirsโ as well as โMiss Marisaโsโ with an apostrophe to show ownership). With this, weโve been learning how an apostrophe works and what it represents.
What Weโre Up To In Math:
- PLACE VALUE: Weโre labeling numbers by their value (HTO โ Hundreds, Tens, Ones) and creating pictures, coloring, and representing place value in multiple ways.
- BASE 10: Weโre working with different manipulatives to recognize, count, and label numbers through the 900s!
- EXPANDED FORM: Weโre 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!). Weโre also adding and subtracting $ with realistic prices and budget problems!
What Weโre Up To In Science:
February was focused on vertebrates vs. invertebrates โ 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 โScootโ (outdoor movement-based station activity) and classifying through collages.
- INVENT-A-PET: After learning about different animal species and specific traits (and how theyโre passed down through offspring), we created our own pets by crossing traits with a dice-rolling game!
What Weโre 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 (้ฏใฎใผใ) flags.
- SOUTH AFRICA: Our next โtripโ 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 โHigh, Low, Buffaloโ moments โ โHighโ is a happy moment, โLowโ is a bad moment, and โBuffaloโ is a random moment โ 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 Itโs been a rainy winter! The weather postponed our park day, but when we got to go, it was even better because weโd 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 โsuperโ banana like Landonโs โsuper cheeseโ (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 monthโs 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 โ you rock!
Want to check out more of our updates?
Bookmark our Microschool Page, connect with our Parent Page, and subscribe to our newsletter (below!).
You can also download the full February 2023 Newsletter [RIGHT HERE].
