Crew News December 8th, 2023

  Announcements 

Conferences: I had the pleasure of meeting with half of our crew families for conferences. My cheeks are still sore from smiling- so many celebrations from the first half of the year! I am SO proud of our learners. I look forward to the second half of conferences next week. See you then!

December 20th:

*9-9:30am Primary Winter Performance (Grades K-3)

*9:45-10:15am Intermdiate Winter Performance (Grades 4-6) for those of you with older siblings.

*10:15-11:15am Ms. Lauren's Winter Craft Party- Lindsey will be sending out information soon for items needed and volunteers. 

Families welcome! The performances are in the gym, and they will showcase the work that they have been doing with Ms. Liesl in music using percussion instruments. Please have your child wear school colors (blue/green) or dark colors on this day. 

Planning Ahead: We have a lot of fun activities planned the last week before Winter Break. If you are planning to be out of town, please let the front office and me know ahead of time, so that we can plan accordingly for the supplies needed for each day.

Save the Date: Ms. Lauren's Crew will be leading the all school meeting known as The Beat on January 31st from 9-9:25am in the gym. We will be presenting our learning about integrity and what it means to be CREW. You won't want to miss it!

(Repeated for Reference)

ACTION ITEM: Conference Questionaire: Before our conference, can you please fill out this short Google form? This helps me prepare for our time together.

First Semester Parent Teacher Conferences:
Here is a link to our First Semester Conference Sign Up, that will be taking place in December. It will be a 20 minute time slot, where I can share celebrations of learning for this first half of the year. Please bring your child to this conference. The conference will start with time for your child to pridefully share with you things in our room and examples of best work. Then we can meet to talk more specifically about growth and next steps. Wow- you are going to be amazed to see such tremendous growth!

Q&A
-I prefer not to have siblings in the room so that the focus can be on your child. However, if there are no other options, then I understand.
-If you EVER have a concern, please email me. We do not have to wait until conferences if there is something you would like to discuss. :)
-In addition to conferences, you will be getting a EPR (Electronic Progress Report) before Winter Break. This is the more formal way that teachers share out learning, but you will find our parent conferences to be where you get more specific, personalized information.
Looking forward to this time together!
~Ms. Lauren

Volunteers Opportunities

-Volunteer Training: Virtual Module

-Classroom Volunteers: sign up (now updated)

-Rug Washing Volunteers: sign-up here.

-Letter formation sign up. 

Calendar

December 13th & 14th: First Semester Conference Sign Up

December 15: Community Reading 8:30-9am

December 20th: 

*Primary Winter Performance 9-9:30am

*Winter Craft Party- More information coming soon.

December 22nd: No School; Teacher Work Day

December 23rd-Jan 7th: Winter Break

Crew Highlights: 

On Monday, we had Ms. Jackie come as a guest speaker about prairie dogs.

She is a Natural Resources Specialist for Douglas County. 

She was amazed at how much our crew already knew!

Be sure to ask your child some new interesting facts that we learned.

The highlight was acting out a day in the life of a prairie dog.

Here they are hiding in their burrows.

Peeking above the mounds to see if there were any predators.

"Sounding the alarm" to let other prairie dogs know there was danger and then a jump-yip to say the "coast is clear!"

Thank you Ms. Jackie!

Prairie dogs bark.

Prairie dogs eat together.

We reviewed what we have learned about CREW.

In art, students are working on a project that will serve as our final product for this expedition. More details to come.

*Ask your child what it means to be Crew. When do you feel like Crew?

Then to wrap up this part of our study about prairie dogs, we created a Venn Diagram to compare the similiarities and differences of our class and prairie dogs. Most importantly, we learned that both work together as crew!

Next week, we will learn about another group that works as crew. Stay tuned!

Ms. Trena came by to introduce a special visitor:

Sparkles the Elf will be visiting crews 

who show the crew value of perseverance.

Ms. Summer's D5/6 Crew helped our crew put stickie notes flags on the work they want to share at conferences.

4th grade buddies were excited to share some of the writing they have been working on. Also it was our Crew's turn to write in our Buddy Journals. It was some of their best writing yet!

At conferences, some families were asking for ideas to support learning at home. Today in take home folders, you will find a copy of our sight words that can be cut out as flash cards. These can be used to help create automaticity. Keep it fun and light! You could practice writing the words in shaving foam, rice, or make it a fun scavenger hunt where they read the word when they find it. 

Also, I resent home the zoophonics letter chart. This can be used to help with practicing the name of the letter, the sound it makes, and an animal that matches the sound. Here is a link to the zoophonics script that gives the name of the animals and describes the motion.

Happy Birthday Sophia!

Hooray for December!

Wishing everyone a joyful weekend,

~Ms. Lauren