Lion Dance

Meriwether Lewis Elementary School Classroom Notes 503 916 6360 - http://lewiselementary.org/notes News From Kindergarten – Miss Cindy We will be celebrating Chinese New Year this week with a lot of different activities within the Literacy, Science, Math, Art and Social Studies kindergarten curriculums. On Monday, the children saw a Chinese Lion Dance in the afternoon and learned about the history and Traditions of Chinese New Year. Writing chinese numbers, creating New Year banners, using chopsticks, eating chinese sesame candy, creating masks and making tangram pictures are other activities students continue to work on. In writing, the words GO, LOOK and FOR were put on the high frequency word rings to use in daily writing. The non-fiction book, Seeds, is the literary focus this week. There is no school this Friday, since it is a Teacher Professional Development Day. News from Kindergarten - Teacher Dana  We have been having a lot of fun this week learning about Chinese New Year this week. We learned that cleaning your house, wearing new clothes and getting hair cuts brings good luck in the new year. Today we made lucky Dragons, saw a Lion Dance, and read lots of stories about the lunar new year. It was a fun day!   Norah is for the most part teaching solo now. I am in and out all day long checking on things, doing assessments, working with kids individually and doing small group instruction. It is going very well.   Valentines day is coming up. We will exchange valentines on the 13th. I will send home a class list next week with first names. We will make bags on the day and have a friendship party at the end of the day and exchange the cards. I try to keep the sweets to a minimum so I would like to just have the party be an exchange. On that day we are also going to have a field trip to The Children’s Museum. We will return in time to exchange Valentines.     Thank you for sending in your items to put in our  mosaic mirror. We will be assembling it next Friday, so if you haven’t yet send in your item please do so. We are also asking each family for a 2.00 contribution to cover the cost of the materials. Please send that in an envelope marked with your child’s name. News from Kindergarten - Miss Sarah Gung Hey Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year! We have been learning a lot about this important Asian holiday and even got to see an incredible assembly featuring an amazing dragon and performance on Monday. We also learned about what we can do to Reuse! Reduce! and Recycle! and hopefully lesson our carbon footprint. A big thank you to Carolyn Sweet, Oona Baker, and Mark and Rebecca Perin for organizing our classroom art project for the auction! They are planning an incredible piece, which is sure to make a lasting treasure for some lucky bidder. We are asking each family to donate 3.00 to make this project happen. Please drop it off with me, or send in your child’s folder. Thanks! Speaking of the auction, I hope that you all will plan to attend. It is a great evening and lots of fun. Tickets are on sale in the office and will only be $20.00 for another week. I will be auctioning off some fun activities and woule love to see you there! Thank you for all your support. We are very lucky to now have 2 volunteers every day, but Tuesday, during our worktime centers. If any of you might be available for an hour, it makes a big difference in the level of work that is completed and allows me to meet with every child to focus on their reading skills. Sign-up is outside the door. Classroom Notes from First Grade - Mrs. Pechette Next Tuesday, February 3rd, our class will be having an Author’s Party.   This will be a celebration to share their successfully published winter, friendship books.  Please join us in the classroom at 2:15 for author readings and light refreshments.  As we move into February we’ll continue to learn about our new president and presidential history.  Many of the children are eager to read and learn about President Obama.  Look in the hallway for the ideas that have been generated from the inaugural week. Classroom Notes from First Grade - Mrs. Logue On Monday we learned more about Asian Lunar New year and were honored to see a traditional Lion Dance Performance to usher in the New Year of the Ox. This week we will be learning about this big celebration which takes place in many Asian communities through books and poems, samples of traditional celebratory foods and by creating crafts that reflect the significance of this time of year for so many around the world and in our school as well! In literacy studies; I will also be introducing compound words and new little books to reading groups as well as new math work while refreshing the students understanding of numbers 1-100, counting by 10s and 5s, number games and problem solving. We will also be checking in on our quickly growing bulbs that we planted several weeks ago. The students are measuring and sketching the buds and finding all sorts of flora and fauna in the compost that Ms. Julia our Outdoor Center Mentor had us plan our bulbs in! Fun for all, especially with our new hand held micro scopes! Keep up the great work with the take home books. It makes all the difference! [email protected] Classroom Notes from Second Grade - Ms. Leake Gung Hay Fat Choy!! (Happy New Year) This is the last of our Celebrations of Light. This week we looked at the symbols for this lunar Festival. We learned about the traditions that happen during the 15 days

January 28, 2009

of celebration. We read folk tales and informational stories about the Chinese culture. We enjoyed the Lion Dance performed by Lara and Wally’s Kung Fu Club. Back in the classroom, we made dragons and light up the night sky with our glittery fireworks. In Writing, we began our focus on ‘All Abouts’. We brainstormed a list of things we knew at least five facts about. In the coming lessons, we will learn how to make and label diagrams, write headings for our topic of interest, and put together a table of contents to organize our ideas. During independent writing times, we continue to write letters to friends and family and share our stories in the format of the personal narratives. Next week we return to our Weather unit when we learn about the Water Cycle and talk about different kinds of precipitation. Don’t forget to turn in your wind journals and wind chimes. Classroom Notes from Second Grade = Ms. Swan Ask your child about the incredible Lion Dance we saw today at an assembly in honor of Chinese New Year! Congratulations to our students who also performed in a piece: Aiden, Ashton, Elizabeth, Gabe and Niki. Another assembly brought home the important message of Reduce~Reuse~Recycle! Our class had many ideas of how we can all do our part. Because of their excellent assembly behavior, each student earned a certificate to be placed in the container for our Friday drawings. They each showed that they could behave responsibly, respectfully and safely during the assemblies. Huge thank you’s to the families of Aiden, Ashton, Gabe and Kellsy for each gifting us with a new book from the Book Fair that will be a sure-fire hit with our class! That is so very kind and generous of you. Tuesday marks our first day of Drama class with Ms. Tori. We have a Tuesday/Thursday group and a Wednesday/Friday group. Each session lasts an hour. At the end of their work, the class will put on a Reader’s Theatre for an audience. The scheduled date is February 26th. Portland Public Schools just delivered new handwriting materials. This last week, we have been working in the D’Nealian method, so that we have uniformity across the grades. For a capital “A,” you may hear your child saying, “Top start, slant left, same start, slant right, middle cross.” So far, this method has really improved handwriting on the worksheets. Now, we just need to have a strong carry over to our regular written work. =-)

Chinese New Year Celebration... Classroom Notes from Ms. Ross Third Grade - Room 17 Congratulations to Ms. Tori Padelford and the third grade classes! The teachers and parents really enjoyed the Reader’s Theater performance. It was wonderful to see and hear the students rise to the occasion. The Scott Foresman Reading Assessments are completed, and Mrs. Jamesbarry, reading support teacher, and I are evaluating the results. The data is being used to refocus literacy instruction. Later in February the students will take the first of the Oregon State reading and math assessments. The students have the opportunity to retake the state tests three times if needed. In math, the students are now working on activities to help them understand probability. While we use language such as chance or likely, probability is the mathematical area of statistics which is based clearly on predictable numbers and outcomes. Most of the students will be finished with their character analysis papers this week. Parents can help students become better writers by encouraging neat handwriting, proper spelling, and correct punctuation. We were sad to say good-bye to Joseph Campbell. We wished him the best of luck with his next class, and we thanked him for all of his hard work and support with our third grade class. NEWS FROM MS. DAVIS’ AND MS. V’S CLASS, RM 16 Gung Hay Fat Choy! We started the week off by celebrating the Chinese New Year with a spectacular Lion Dance done by the Kung Fu Academy. The Lion Dance is a 2000 year-old tradition that is most often preformed during the Chinese Lunar New Year. The children that participate in Kung Fu Club did a short on stage performance of some Kung Fu moves at the end of the Lion Dance. I always enjoying having an opportunity to see

Meriwether Lewis Elementary School Classroom Notes 503 916 6360 - http://lewiselementary.org/notes what students do in their after school clubs. On Tuesday, our class did a magnificent job of performing their Readers’ Theatre plays both for the school and the parents. I was so proud to see each child read his/her lines smoothly and with expression. Since drama has come to a close we’ll be settling back into our regular afternoon schedule. This will help us complete our character analysis writing pieces and begin a science investigation on plants. On Wednesday, our class began working on our Lewis Auction project. Thanks to all the parents that have put in time to make the project come to fruition. NEWS FROM MRS. BENNETT’S ROOM Monday we started our week with two very interesting assemblies. The first was presented by Metro and was a performance by Sky Orbison, visiting us from the 23rd century. He instructed students in ways to better reduce, reuse, and recycle so that our earth will remain lovely even into the 23rd century. (His experience hasn’t been so good, but we can clean it up now!) The second assembly was a beautiful celebration of the Chinese New Year. Our guests (Lara and Wally Jones, Anna Williams, and Red Martinsen) presented the Lion Dance for us, and afterwards they, and many Lewis students, demonstrated their Kung Fu skills. It was a terrific performance! In math this week the students are getting a perspective of large numbers by building a chart from one to ten thousand. As we collectively write out the numbers, students are becoming more aware of patterns in our number system and how that can benefit them when doing calculations. Each student has also made a 1000 book and has practiced doing addition and subtraction using it. As we finish the unit this week, students have again had experiences with place value and are developing a better understanding of it. NEWS FROM MR. POST’S CLASSROOM Last week we continued our Fairy Tale unit with a few more classics and a focus on more versions of The Three Little Pigs including a slide show version of the flannel board and paper dolls we have been using. We have also drawn the characters on thumbs and houses on palms to practice doing puppet shows The repetition will help prepare the students to perform a puppet show with finger puppets that we will make this week. We also read a few versions of The Little Red Hen and on Monday we made bread in a bread maker. In the garden, we helped Julia move some dirt to where the new greenhouse will be built. On Friday we had one of our students-vs.-teachers hockey matches in the gym. This week we are doing some new body-movement activities that were demonstrated to us by our Physical Therapist. Three of our students are performing in this week’s Reader’s Theater with the third grade classes. They are doing a great job and we are proud of their hard work. NEWS FROM MRS. KEEFER This week we are working on an assortment of things. We are presenting our homework projects, finishing up our writing assignments, finishing up a math unit, taking a final test, and having an auction. We may even clean a few desks!!! We also started a new art project, monochromatic collages. Camp is coming…..it is creeping up on us! Keep selling candy and smencils to earn your way to camp. The SEE’S CANDY PRESALE IS DUE THURSDAY!!! NO LATE ORDERS. We have to put in our order in order to get it back on time. Camp Bank Days are Wednesdays. There is no school on Friday, January 30th. Keep working on www.raz-kids.com (Login: dkeefer) Top 3 RAZ-KIDS Kids= Sage-11,500 stars, Melissa-8,160 stars, Aidan-6,390 stars NEWS FROM 5TH GRADE – MRS. GOULD - MS. BREEN Hello again! On Monday, we joined the rest of the school for two great assemblies. The first one was about how to reduce, reuse, and recycle more effectively. The second assembly was The Lion Dance to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The students had a lot of fun and were very respectful during both performances, they were great role models for the other classes! For the auction we will be decorating a lovely Hope Chest and will be working on it for the next couple of weeks. We are finishing up our classroom unit on Variables this week. Reading, Math and Science will all be due on Monday, February 2nd as we do not have school on Friday, January 30th. Thank you again for your support. NEWS FROM 5TH GRADE – MS. JEN Kung Hsi Fah Tsai! Happy New Year! We are finishing our unit on asian culture this week. The students have had fun writing and counting numbers to 100 in Chinese as well as learning other characters. We have read some asian folk tales and compared them with the folk tales that are more familiar. We ate with chopsticks this week, and we will end our unit with learning about the abacus. Don’t forget the deadline on Sees Candies money and order on Thursday. Next Monday, the final copy of the explorer report is due. Information on this project can now be found on my webpage link off the Lewis Student Page as well as http://sylviajen.posterous.com thanks.

January 28, 2009

ESL/LITERACYSUPPORT/TAG - LESLIE LAURETTI TAG/SPELLDOWN Does your child love spelling? Do you think he or she would like to be in the annual district spelling bee, Spelldown? Lewis can send two students from each grade, 3-5. The competition will take place on April 23rd. The deadline to register is April 9th. The top three students from each grade level will go on to county competition. If your child would like to register, please let me know. If we have more than two interested students per grade, we will have our own Spelldown at Lewis. Please put a note in my box or email me at [email protected]. LEARNING CENTER NEWS FROM MR. MANGER The District has posted some important information for 5th graders transitioning to 6th grade next year.  This is an especially challenging time for our students who will be attending a new school.  Also, keep in mind that students with learning disabilities or other learning needs will need extra support during this huge transition.  ”New routines, schoolwork and teachers, along with physical, emotional and mental changes, can overwhelm students. You can help by: • Setting ground rules for your student, including when to get up, be ready for school and do homework. • Helping your child get organized. Middle school usually means more homework and after-school activities. • Attending an open house at Sellwood Middle School, or perhaps somewhere else. • Staying involved by attending events and volunteering in the school. (Portland Public Schools)” Staying involved is perhaps the most crucial method to helping your child succeed in school.  More information to follow next week. CHESS CLUB NEWS FROM MR. MANGER A quick note to review the recent changes for Chess Club: The Beginner group meets on Tuesday mornings (8-8:40am) only.   The Intermediate group meets on Thursday mornings (8-8:40am) only. The Advanced group meets on Tuesday and Friday afternoons (3-4pm)   until 2/6, then will continue on Friday afternoons only. You should have received a letter that states which group your child is in.  If not, then please don’t hesitate to ask me for another copy. PE NEWS FROM MR. WOODS This week all K-2 classes will participate in parachute games and activities on Monday. Wednesday our focus will be on fitness activities. Grades 3-5 will play several aerobic games on Monday. Tuesday will be all about fitness activities. Please be sure your child is wearing the proper shoes in PE class. There seems to be a growing number of students showing up for class in crocs, sandles,etc. They frequently find it difficult to participate at full speed when they’re slipping and sliding across the gym floor. MUSIC AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS FROM MR. JAMESBARRY I just got back from the 3rd grade play and I first want to congratulate them on their wonderful performance. All your hard work really payed off tonight. Things have been a little topsy-turvey around the music room this past week. I caught the stomach flue and was out of commission Thursday through Monday. I know this causes turmoil for after school classes. Sometimes my substitute is willing to stay late for these classes, but many times they are not. I will always try to get information to the main office and post notice by my door. We also try to post any changes to the schedule at the Lewis website. This Wednesday I will be out of the building for a district meeting which lasts until 4 PM. This means there is no 4th grade Violin class this Wednesday 1/28. I anticipate next week will be a good, healthy and full week!

Drama Performance...