Our January Winter Wonderland

 We are back into the full swing of things in Room 232.  The children are doing a lot of work.  One thing that we are all working on is preparing for International Night (February 29,2024).  We are researching and leaning all about the Dominican Republic.  We have 5 groups working on various topics and projects.  It is great to watch them collaborate and decide on what needs to get done.

They are creating slides, cook books, posters and some are going to be working on a diorama for their group.  We will work on travel brochures and creating a door to welcome everyone to the Dominican Republic.

Wonders:

We continue to work in our Reading Writing Companion book to read stories, learn our vocabulary for our Anchor Text and summarize, discuss point of view, and work on realistic fiction for this particular unit.  We start off by going over our essential question and try to answer it as we complete our stories. 

The children work collaboratively at times, while independantly at other times.  It is wonderful to hear all the discussion and accountable talk as I walk around and check in on what they are doing.  Miss Holly and Mrs. Sanchez are a great asset to the room as they also work with small groups.  It is a team effort on everyone's part.  

On Friday we were able to attend the spelling bee for the 4th grade competitors.  I could feel and see the excitement in everyone's eyes.  The buzz was heard in the classroom before heading down to the cafetaria.  They all did a fantastic job.  Representing Stephen Olney School is a student in Ms. Silviera's class with Parker coming in as the runner up.

New Year:

This week during morning meetings  we have been discussing making new goals for the New Year.  Many came up with some fantastic ones for what they want to accomplish in school.  We wrote about our Winter break, chose one word for the year and filled out little posters for 2024.  

We continue to receive post cards from various states and the children enjoy reading them and listening to what other states are either famous for or what they state is like.

I have been falling behind with posting our Students of the Week and so here are the latest ones: Congratulations to all of them.  They also move on to becoming the VIP of the following week.

Health Update:

Many of you know that my mom broke her hip days before Christmas.  Needless to say,  our family did not get to celebrate together as she was in the hospital for 10 days and now is in rehab getting physical and occupational therapy.  She is doing nicely and progressing along.  With that being said, she has her follow up appointment to see her orthopedic doctor.  We are crossing our fingers and toes, that he will release her from the nursing facility that she is at and send her home soon.  Thank you all for your concerns and checking up on her.  It means a lot and I appreciate all the emails I have received in the past few weeks.  

Have a fantastic week ahead.  Lots of things are happening at SOS so make sure you check out the newsletters that Mr. Pacitto sends out and check the SOS class dojo.