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Take a look at these 100 year old students in Kindergarten...so cute!

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Sho loved having his dad in to read to the class!

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Picture Day is February 12.  Money is due BEFORE picture day!  You can send money in the envelope to me or pay online.

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Cyrus was excited to see his mom today!

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Today we had Alijah's mom join us!

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The kids we're thrilled to see Santa and open their gifts!

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Today's Mystery Reader was Ronan's mom, Mary!

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Today's Mystery Reader was Nella's dad, Raja!

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The calendar is coming home today.  Lots of dates to take note of in December!

12/5:  Toy Drive (student council collecting new toys and monetary donations for the less fortunate).

12/6-12/7:  Holiday Bazaar.  Gift range from $.50-$5.00.  Homemade/handmade gifts students can buy to give as a holiday gift to you!

12/7: Photos with Santa fundraiser!  Santa comes this day and students can take a picture with Santa for $5.  The pictures turn out really cute!

12/13:  Operation Santa.  A big day at school for the kids!  Santa comes to school and gives gifts of books to each and every student at the school.  It is such a wonderful day!

12/13:  This day is also pajama and stuffed animal day!

12/18:  Holiday assembly.  The K-1 assembly is from 8:15-9:30 am.  Students should dress up and wear holiday colors!

12/21:  Classroom celebrations and last day of school before winter break!

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Today we had Ms. Nicole and Ms. Ebony take time out of their normal jobs from Performics to help teach the kids about Needs and Wants.  They also tried to teach them about the value of a dollar...but that concept may take a little more time ;).

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Today's Mystery Reader was Yahir's Aunt Karen!

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Here is a list of our sight words for the month of November.  Remember to practice, practice, practice!

Nov. 5-9:  Play, you, have
Nov. 13-20:  With, are, go
Nov. 26-30: Was, said, here

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Conferences are November 14.  I have attached the schedule.  If you have any questions, please let me know!

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Please make sure to review the note about the upcoming cold weather that is being sent home to all students today.

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November 12: No school
November 13-16: Book Fair
November 14: Parent-teacher conferences
November 21-23: Thanksgiving break

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Pictures of our costumes and a video of our performance 😀.

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I wanted to let you all know that I found out this summer that my husband and I are expecting our first child!  I'm in my 19th week and my due date is March 24th.  Rest assured that we will find an amazing sub to cover my maternity leave in April, May, and June!

Thanks for your support,

Mrs. Selimos

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As a reminder!

Wednesday October 31st is Halloween and it is celebrated here at Goethe!  Kids are of course allowed to dress up.  There will be an all school Halloween parade around the playground at 8:15 am.  Parents are invited to watch.  Following that, there will be a Halloween performance from 8:30-9:30 am where each class in grades K-1-2 will perform a song (grades 3 and 4 performances will follow at 9:30 am).

Please note there is NO HALLOWEEN CANDY TO BE SHARED on this day.  Kids may bring in other non-food items to give away such as stickers, small toys, pencils, etc.  If you are planning to bring in more that one thing to give away, please makes sure they are placed in baggies so they are easily distributed!

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Just a reminder that we have snack time every day! Please send your child with a snack if they are a picky eater :).

Thanks to those parents who have donated snacks to the classroom.  Popcorn, Pirates Booty, pretzels, Goldfish, veggie chips, Cheez-Its, etc...the kids have all loved it!  I always gladly accept donations from parents of snacks to share with the class.

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Join us in celebrating Dia de Los Muertos!

Día de los Muertos, or “Day of the Dead,” is a holiday filled with wonderful and happy celebrations and traditions. In Mexico and all over the world, Día de los Muertos is both a time to remember those who have passed on and also a time to celebrate life.

On Día de los Muertos, family members spend the day remembering their loved ones. Some people tell funny stories, while others decorate alters with beautiful flowers, or with the favorite foods of their loved ones. There is music and dancing as well as candlelight vigils and parades honoring those that have passed on. On Día de los Muertos, relatives make altars  in honor of family and friends that have passed away and are decorated with their pictures, personal objects or mementos and candles.  Their favorite food and drinks are also placed on the altar, along with a trail of marigold flowers.

As our culminating project, I would like for students to collaborate in creating a classroom altar.  My goal is to create a space where students can bring in pictures, personal objects or mementos of their loved ones. This is optional, students do not have to partake in the activity. However, I do encourage teaching children of different holidays/traditions. Throughout the week, we will be doing different crafts during centers to add to our classroom alter.

In preparing for this, I kindly ask that students bring in pictures, personal objects or mementos of a loved one. I promise to make sure they are well taken care of. Please send all items in a bag with your child's name on it no later than Thursday November 1. If you would like to put a name on all mementos, that would also be great! Again, this is optional! All personal items will be sent home the following week.

Thank you for all of your support!

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Every Friday we get a new poem that we add to our poem books.  We underline our sight words and draw a picture next to it that has to do with what the poem is about.  These are kept in their reading bins so kids can practice reading them everyday.  These will go home at the end of the year!

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The kids reached 5 days of 10 minutes of focused independent reading.  They are super readers!  Today they got their "comfy" reading spots around the room.  Each day, a new person gets to do their reading in the tent.  The kids are pretty jazzed about that 😀.  Soon, they will get reading partners who read at their own level.  Congratulate your child on how hard they're working!

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Today we had Sho's mom, Junko.  She read us a book in English and then the Japanese version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  It was very cool!

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Olivia's mom came to read to us.  Thanks Silvia!

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We are ready to introduce the art center into our center rotations.  Every year the kids LOVE this center...it's a fan favorite :). In this center, kids get to sit down and have time to themselves to create whatever they want.  It is there time to be creative!  To help keep this center thriving throughout the year, I gladly accept donations.  THINK DOLLAR STORE or TARGET DOLLAR SECTION.  Here are some ideas of things to donate:

-Pompoms
-Stickers, stickers, stickers
-Themed paper
-Themed cut-outs
-Funky paper or cut-outs of any kind
-Paint pens
-Kwik Stix
-Glitter glue, glitter glue, and more glitter glue :)
-Colored pipe cleaners
-Googly eyes
-Anything else you think, "Hey, a five year old could independently make something cool out of this in 15-20 minutes!"

Your donations to this center mean the world to me and the kids!  Again, I take donations throughout the year for this.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

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Wednesday October 31st is Halloween and it is celebrated here at Goethe!  Kids are of course allowed to dress up.  There will be an all school Halloween parade around the playground at 8:15 am.  Parents are invited to watch.  Following that, there will be a Halloween performance from 8:30-9:30 am where each class in grades K-1-2 will perform a song (grades 3 and 4 performances will follow at 9:30 am).

Please note there is NO HALLOWEEN CANDY TO BE SHARED on this day.  Kids may bring in other non-food items to give away such as stickers, small toys, pencils, etc.  If you are planning to bring in more that one thing to give away, please makes sure they are placed in baggies so they are easily distributed!

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Please make sure you are practicing sight words at home!  Hang them up, find them in books together, play "memory" with them.  I can not stress enough how important it is to know these words!  Here is a picture of our words so far.  For more tips and tricks, see my post below from a couple weeks ago.  Thanks!

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At school kids have been getting familiar with their Raz-Kids account.  If you are able, I encourage you to explore this site at home with your child.

Visit:
https://www.kidsa-z.com/main/Login

Then:
-Type in my username:  jselimos0 (bonus points if you teach your child how to do   it!).

-They will find their name and go to "The Reading Room."

Finally:
Click on either "Leveled Books" or "Early Reading."  This will be most beneficial to the students.  They will know what level they should be reading right now.  There are other topics to click on, but I encourage you to click on these two first, and allow your child to use the other topics as rewards to explore after they have read for 10-15 minutes.

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know!

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We started writing workshop this week.  The first unit is "personal narrative." Students keep work in their writing folders.  Work is sent home periodically so you will not see it come home everyday. It's amazing to see the growth from the beginning to the end of the year!

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We had our first Mystery Reader today!  It was Tyler's mom, Demarrous!

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Last week we read "After the Fall" by Dan Stantan.  We had some discussion around why we think Humpty (an egg) broke so easily.

Today, we worked in groups to build structures that we thought would protect our eggs from breaking!  Kids used a variety of materials including marshmallows, sponges, cups, straws, cotton balls, etc.  The only thing I helped with was taping where they told me to!

We first let go of our structures, and all the eggs survived!  We then went from a higher location and dropped (3 out of 4 eggs survived the drop).  After that, we had to use more "force" and "motion" to get our eggs to break!

The kids had a blast and they did a great job thinking about what materials would protect their eggs the best.  This was a great intro activity to lead into our next science unit!

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Today we started reading in our bins.  This is something we will do everyday!  We begin by "reading the pictures" and over time, students will begin reading books at their levels where they can read the words.  We are building our reading muscles (stamina)!  Our goal is to get to 10 minutes a day off uninterrupted, focused reading for 3 days in a row.  Once that happens, students will get to choose comfy spots around the room to do their reading.  Soon, reading time will be 10-15 minutes of independent reading and then 10-15 minutes of partner reading.  We must build those reading muscles first before we can do that!

The kids did great for their first day!  They did 4 minutes of uninterrupted, focused time.  Doesn't sound like a lot, but I was happy and can't wait to see what they can do tomorrow!

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Our buddy classroom is Ms. Baker's 5th grade classroom.  On Friday, kids got paired up with their buddy for the year.  Julian and his buddy just happened to be wearing the same shirt...it was meant to be!

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Today's Mystery Reader was Penny's dad, Jason!

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We use a curriculum called Second Step.  Right now we are focusing on our listening skills, focusing attention, and using self-talk.  Our next lessons will be about being assertive.  Ask your kids about the listening rules (eyes watching, ears listning, body still, and voice quiet).  You could also ask them about their "attenti-scopes" and using self-talk to help them focus!  They also love Doggie and Snail...they help me teach the lessons ;).

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I've introduced out wheel of choice and we've been talking about how we can manage our emotions with ourselves and our friends.  It's an ongoing process all year!

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Last week we read "After the Fall" by Dan Stantan.  Today we discussed why Humpty Dumpty is so fragile.  We took a number of different items (sponges, cups, straws, marshmallows, cotton's balls, etc.) To build a structure to protect our eggs.  The kids worked in groups figuring out what would be work best and why.  They did it all on their own, I only helped tape where they told me to tape!

Everyone's eggs survived the first round.  Then, we stood on chairs to drop the eggs.  Three out of four survived.  Then we had to start adding more motion and force to actually break our eggs!

This was a great intro activity as over the next couple weeks we will be looking at force and motion in science.

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Sight words are words like come, does, or who that don't follow the rules of spelling.  These words must be memorized because decoding them is really difficult.

High-frequency words are also sight words and words that are most commonly found in the English written language.  Some fit standard phonetic patterns and some do not.

It is very important for our young readers to memorize these words as a whole, by sight, so they recognize them immediately.

For my purposes in class, I call all of these words "sight words." I introduce 2-4 new sight words a week.  I encourage you to make flashcards and hang them up on the refrigerator, your child's bedroom, etc. I have also attached a picture with some other ideas for learning and practicing these words.

The words I have introduced so far are:

The, see, I, me, and, my

The rest of the month is as follows:

Oct. 9-12: to, is, like

Oct. 15-19: go it, we

Oct. 22-26: in, at, go

Oct. 29-Nov. 2: Review of all words

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Hi Parents!  On this website I will post reminders, pictures, and things we are doing in the classroom.  I will do this a couple times a month.  Here are just a few things we've been working on in our classroom...

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Once or twice a day we find a way to center ourselves.  This consists of quieting our wiggling bodies and doing a guided stretch or meditation together. They last about 2 minutes each. A few days this year we've had time to do yoga together as a way to calm our bodies and minds.  Check out "Cosmic Kids Yoga" on YouTube for kid-friendly yoga stories.  Namaste!

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Today your students will bring home the order forms for their Square 1 Art projects.  You can purchase all sorts of things with your child's artwork on it.  Bonus:  Goethe receives 33% of the profits, helping us to buy our art supplies for the following year!  Below are FAQ's answered:

When are orders due?

All orders are due November 19!

Will purchases be here in time for the holidays?

Yes! All orders placed by the Nov 19th deadline will arrive at school and be distributed the last week before winter break.

How do my students order?

Students can order using the paper form on the back of their brochures. THEY CAN ALSO ORDER ONLINE. We recommend online orders!

Online orders can be made using the code on the student's brochure @ square1art.com/shop

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Please put on your calendar the Halloween Parade (the whole school parades around the playground in their costumes).

Also please note that following the parade, there will be a Halloween performance for K-1-2 from 8:30-9:30 am.  Each class will get up to sing a song in costume... it's adorable!

Also, there is NO SCHOOL this Monday (10/8/18).

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Have you seen these half sheets of paper coming home?!  Every day after recess we have quiet time.  It's a time for students to regroup from lunch and recess.  For about 10-15 minutes, children have the opportunity to relax by finding a spot to lay down or by coloring a picture.  The number one rule is voices quiet so we can all relax!