AT THIS MOMENT, the plan is that we DO have skiing on Wednesday. We will leave Crescent Park at 8:30, so your child will be able to come to school as he or she normally does. We will return to CPS by 2:00 pm, so the children will all be able to go through the normal dismissal process. The ski school has offered to serve soup and a sandwich to the children for lunch on Wednesday. I don't know the flavor of soup or sandwich they intend to provide. If this lunch does not appeal to your child, then he or she should bring a lunch from home that day. I would suggest that regardless of whether they bring a lunch from mountain or eat what the mountain offers, that all of the children should probably bring water to drink and snacks to eat, as they will burn more calories by skiing than they would at school. Please remember that the remaining ski dates (2/9 and 2/16) have been cancelled. I will certainly let you know of any changes to our going to the mountain all day on Wednesday, if I hear of them.
We had our first of two NWEA tests on Friday. Thank you so much, Parents, for insuring that your child was at school by 7:45 last Friday morning. It gave us a chance to take attendance, figure out who was doing what for lunch, use the bathroom, gather some books to read after the test while we waited for everyone to finish, AND have the chance for a little "pep talk" before heading up to the test. The kids were calm and ready when we left the room, and didn't lose their composure when they had to wait while the "wrong" (2nd grade) test was removed from the computers and the right (primary) math test was installed. They waited patiently, and began their tests calmly. I have to say that I was VERY PLEASED with how hard most of the children worked while taking this test. Most children took their time, thought about each question, and worked at eliminating some impossible answers before choosing between the remaining ones. Many of them used paper available to draw out problems they were unsure about. Many of them took the majority of the hour available to go through the various test items. Two children did not finish during the time available, and so went back up for 15 minutes or so later Friday afternoon. I told the children that I was very proud of how hard they worked, and that I hope they are able to work just as hard (or, in a few cases) harder this coming Friday. Our second, and final, winter NWEA test is scheduled to take place first thing on Friday morning. Again, I would like to have the children at school by 7:45, so we can do attendance and lunch count, have time to go to the bathroom and gather books to read when they are done, and can approach this Reading test just as calmly as we did the Math test. There are still one or two kids who hurried through the Math test, so please remind your child to take his or her time on this Reading test, and to show what his or her "best effort" is. They have been learning various strategies all year to help them decode unfamiliar words, and they should employ these reading strategies on Friday. Once we return to the classroom, we will take a break and have snack and recess, and then I will give them this week's spelling, sight words, and fluency tests. When they are not testing with me, they will be working on Math or Reading apps on their iPads. Last week, this "testing" took the remainder of the morning, as well as a chunk of the afternoon, so we did not have time for "Share". I doubt that we will have time for "Share" this week, either.
We are currently scheduled to take our 2nd trimester writing prompt on Thursday afternoon of this coming week, so it is pretty important to have everyone here to participate. Getting the whole group to be at school at the same time has been a bit of a problem, as there has been quite a bit of sickness in our classroom. Actually, the sicknesses (digestive and sore throat/ coughing/fever have been running amuck throughout the school. It has been such a problem that our school nurse, Chris Cole, has asked all classroom teachers to include this message in our weekly newsletters:
Due to the recent illness in our school, please keep the following in mind.
Sick children belong at home. Do not send your child to school until they have
been fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medicine.
If your child has had a gastrointestinal virus do not send them to school until they
have been without vomiting or diarrhea for 24 hours, even if they appear fine.
Teach your child to wash their hands and to use and dispose of tissues correctly.
Teach your child to cough into their sleeve or a tissue.
If your child becomes sick at school please make sure we have your correct contact
information.
Most medications can be given at home. If it becomes necessary to send medication to
school, please contact our office or refer to our medication policy.
If you send in medicine for a sick child, I send this medicine on to the school nurse, since it is really she who administers it. I understand that it can be difficult to get time off of work to take care of a sick child, but if he or she comes to school that way, the whole room gets exposed, and the sicknesses in our room continue.
This will be another "short week" for us, with or without the snow storm, so your child will not get as much time at school to practice his or her sight words, fluency sentences, or spelling words. It would be helpful if he or she can practice this work just a little more at home this week. Thank you.
We will be making and decorating the containers for our valentines on Friday afternoon. Please do not send in any completed valentines until NEXT Monday. Thank you, and have a good week. I will be in touch again next weekend.
If you send in medicine for a sick child, I send this medicine on to the school nurse, since it is really she who administers it. I understand that it can be difficult to get time off of work to take care of a sick child, but if he or she comes to school that way, the whole room gets exposed, and the sicknesses in our room continue.
This will be another "short week" for us, with or without the snow storm, so your child will not get as much time at school to practice his or her sight words, fluency sentences, or spelling words. It would be helpful if he or she can practice this work just a little more at home this week. Thank you.
We will be making and decorating the containers for our valentines on Friday afternoon. Please do not send in any completed valentines until NEXT Monday. Thank you, and have a good week. I will be in touch again next weekend.
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