Recapping March 2023: 🍀
We had so much going on this month! In March 2023, we took our fieldtrip to the Natural History Museum, made leprechaun traps, explored life cycles, “visited” Ireland, and made the best of our rainy days! Here are the highlights – or you can DOWNLOAD + PRINT THE FULL VERSION HERE: [March 2023 Newsletter].
Monthly Highlights:
- TRAPS & CRAFTS! A big highlight of this month was creating our own leprechaun traps and seeing if we could catch one of those crazy culprits! (We came close!)
- IRELAND: We tried some traditional, homemade Irish food this month – corned beef, potatoes, and soda bread scones (Thanks, Kristen, Kensie’s mom!)
- FIELDTRIP: Spirits were high when we went to the Natural History Museum and played at a new park afterwards! Fun & learning was had by all!
What We’re Up To In Language Arts:
- PRONOUNS: A big push this month is pronouns (substituting words for nouns ex: he, she, we, etc.) and recognizing not only what is a pronoun but how we can use them!
- CONTRACTIONS & POSSESSIVES: We’ve been continuing our learning about possessives (words that show ownership: his, hers, ours, Miss Marisa’s etc.) and transferring what we’ve studied about contractions to possessive words (ex: name + apostrophe + ‘s’).
- INFERENCES: We’re still working on inferences (this is an upper-level skill!) and how we can use our clues like detectives to determine what’s going on in our reading.
What We’re Up To In Math:
- PLACE VALUE PARTS: A big part of this month is taking “pieces” of Place Value problems and figuring out how they go together! (Ex: Student is given a number and have to figure out how many blocks they need of hundreds, tens, and ones OR students are given blocks and have to determine the number).
- PLACE VALUE ADDING: To take our understanding of Place Value a step further, we’ve been working on adding with Base 10 Blocks. This is challenging, and requires students to think about how we can make groups in order to “regroup” and add!
- MONEY: We’re working on adding coins together to figure out how much we have (and competing against each other to do this with speed in the afternoon session!)
- GRAPHING: We’ve also been working more on graphing, and for a fun St. Patrick’s activity, we did Lucky Charms graphing!
What We’re Up To In Science:
- ENGINEERING TRAPS: For March 2023 STEM, we focused on engineering our Leprechaun Traps! This requires pre-planning, hypothesizing about what will work or won’t work, designing, and then constructing! Plus, we also reflected on whether our designs were effective or not. (And in the afternoon we did step by step writing about our traps, too!)
- LIFE CYCLES: We explored life cycles this month, looking both at animals and plants at different stages!
What We’re Up To In Social Studies:
This month we went on a REAL fieldtrip to the Natural History Museum AND an in-school tasting fieldtrip to Ireland!
- IRELAND: We learned about the history of Ireland and the myths around leprechauns. We also talked about the country’s national symbol (the harp!) and flag. Thanks to Kensie’s mom, Kristen, we also got to taste some homemade Irish food, too!
- NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM: Our real-life fieldtrip was really exciting! Getting the chance to step outside of our routine and ‘home base’ was a lot of fun! We explored, talked about different parts of California, and made connections to what we’ve been learning in both Social Studies AND Science/STEM.
BIG thanks to our chaperones: Taryn, Catie, Kristen, and Tiffany, and driver Sean, for helping out!
Other March 2023 Updates:
March was a highly emotional month, filled with highs and some personal lows. Here are our “High, Low, Buffalo” moments — ‘High’ is a happy moment, ‘Low’ is a bad moment, and ‘Buffalo’ is a random moment — from March 2023:
- HIGH: Class Trip! This month we were able to have a REAL fieldtrip which was really exciting for the kids! Seeing the kids run around, absorb the pictures/descriptions, ask questions, and engage in a different environment was rewarding for all.
- LOW: Smokey’s Passing This month I lost one of my best (furry) friends. This was heartbreaking, but I am so thankful for everyone’s kindness, cards, gifts, and understanding in shifting our schedule. It means SO much to have such a supportive community around me/my family!
- BUFFALO: The Leprechaun! Although we didn’t catch our classroom trouble-maker, he did leave an impression on our table (one that I can’t get out haha). [See the recap video here!]
Spotlight Student:
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 Student is Kensington (Kensie)! Kensie has been working hard on being her best — both academically and socially! Her hard work in class and with her peers hasn’t gone unnoticed! Thank you for doing your best, Kensie, this month & always!
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You can also download the full March 2023 Newsletter [RIGHT HERE].
