World History day is part of a three year cycled curriculum that is celebrated school wide.  This year, P1 is bringing the earliest invertebrates alive in our classroom.  

Most of the Earth was covered in water 5 billion years ago.  Do you know what was alive then?…jellyfish, sea stars and trilobites.

Early sponges were also making their debut.  The entire FMS campus participates in this annual event.  Each of the classrooms are converted to represent a particular period in time, starting with the invertebrates in P1 and ending with the Renaissance period in E6.

This event not only teaches the students relevant facts and features of those time periods, it gives the whole student body the chance to interact with each other.  Middle school students will spread among the four primary classes assisting where needed.

Next year we will do “International Children’s Day” followed by “Celebrate America Day” the year after.  Parents are welcomed to sign up to help out during the event on October 27th.

Students will be dismissed at 11:15am and we encourage parents to come a little early (10:45) to watch the whole school parade around the campus.  Thanks to all of our parent volunteers who are helping to make World History Day a big success.

Reading buddies is a wonderful opportunity for our class to interact with lower elementary students in E3 to read stories together.  On a weekly basis, half of our students visit E3 and half of E3 students visit P1.

Many of our students are reading or early readers, so they too share their reading skills with the older students paired with them.  Many of the first graders were students in our primary class last year, so our current students experience their friends and peers from a different point of view.  It also builds confidence in our primary students to visit E3 and to share some of their skills with their reading buddies.

Teaching a cultural lesson about continents and oceans.

Learning to identify emotions in Espanol.

Thanks to Dr. Rooman Ahad (Raania’s mom) for visiting our classroom with her doctor’s bag and teaching us about anatomy and the human brain.  It was really fun to use the stethoscope to hear our heart beats.

The delicious smell of cooking pumpkin bread filled our school kitchen as Karri (Gabrielle’s mom) and Celeste (Cora’s mom) helped the children make pumpkin bread.  Thanks very much for your time, for providing a great recipe, and giving our students a 5 senses experience!

REMINDERS

November 1st we will retake our classroom picture.

Completing Black Elk’s medicine wheel of peace.

The tree of peace, found at the intersection of the “black road of difficulties, or life lessons” and the “red road of peace.”

Kindergarten field trip to the fire station on Wednesday, 11/9 from 1:00pm-2:30pm.  Please have your child wear their bright green FMS t-shirt.

No School on Friday, 11/11 (Veteran’s Day) and on Monday, 11/14 (teacher in-service).

Taking care of our environment.

Individual picture retake day is Thursday, 11/17.

Kindergarten field trip to Red Rock Canyon on 11/18 from 9:30am-1:00pm.

Practicing grace and courtesy, by serving banana slices to friends.

We appreciate Jacob and Omer, and their families, for providing delicious snacks and beautiful flowers for our classroom.

At the beginning of every month, you can expect to see different cultural, art and science materials coming home.  The materials reflect the particular theme and subject matters found in our curriculum.  For instance, in our Science area we are introducing the concept of “vertebrates” and “invertebrates”  along with mammals.  Jobs on the shelves reflect these subject matters and any of the work that does come home is an extension of our monthly themes.

One of the areas that gets a big monthly update is called Practical Life. Currently, this area reflects fall colors and has jobs focused on fall activities such as tweezing plastic spiders out of their web.   

The Practical Life area offers students a chance to develop practical skills that help them do things in life like “slicing a banana and serving sections to a friend” along with plenty of other tweezing and pouring jobs designed to build the coordination and strength in the fingers to correctly grasp a pencil and learn to write comfortably.

Ever wonder what the themes are for the month?  We invite you to look carefully at the calendar your children bring home at the start of the new month.  A small art project (tied to the current theme) is made by the children and attached to the calendar.

You will notice on these calendars that we include monthly themes and also highlight important dates for you to be aware of. These themes may give you an opportunity to speak with your child about them, or enrich their new found knowledge with your experience.  

Exploring people of the Earth.

The year long curriculum can be found in the parent information packet we distributed earlier in September at parent orientation.

Doing colored bead addition.

The scholastic book fair was a big success and we appreciate the generosity of our families who donated books to our classroom.  

We also appreciate the time, effort and donations made to the PTO to create a wonderful Fall Festival.  It is the support and involvement of our FMS parents that makes a huge difference in the overall student experience at FMS.  We appreciate your involvement!

REMINDERS

Monday, October 10th – Rain Forest Assembly at 10:00 am

Grace and courtesy being practiced with the “banana cutting job.”

Tuesday, October 11th – Picture Day

Parent/Teacher conferences start next Thursday (10/13) in the afternoon.  Students are dismissed at 11:15 am.  NO SCHOOL on Friday (10/14) for students as we are conducting parent/teacher conferences all day.

World History day is coming to the FMS campus on Thursday (10/27).  This is a day where the whole campus is transformed into a hands on experience of walking through time; starting with the early invertebrate period and culminating in the Renaissance era.  More details about this event will be coming home.  Please note now that dismissal is at 11:15 am on 10/27, and there is NO SCHOOL on Friday (10/28) in honor of Nevada Day.

Working with the blue step board matching letters to the yellow strips.

THANKS

A great big thanks to Emmett and Carsyn (and their families) for providing savory and healthy snacks, and beautiful flowers for the classroom.