Mrs. V's Blog |
Mrs. V's Blog |
This week in TA we began talking about social skills, what they are, how they are used in school and life, and why the are important. Here's the scenario we started our discussion with: You walk into a room with about 40 people in it, all talking in pairs or small groups, what do you do? The students' answers were such a wide range, it was so fun to see just how different we all are. They ranged from "I'd walk right back out of that room," to "I'd probably just find a person and start talking to them." We talked about how we have to honor those differences and remember that all of us have different skills to bring to the table. We also spent the week playing a game called Shrinking World. It required social skills, teamwork, and communication and cooperation. Ask your student about this game, it was tough and we still have to try it again. There are pictures below. We ended out week with Fun Friday. Mrs. Allen's TA joined us and we played board games for our TA time. It was fun to play with another TA. We had all sorts of games, including Life, Uno, Cup Stacking, Sorry, Battleship and many more! Pictures are below. In other news- please remember to bring your student with you to conferences next week. These conferences will be led by them! They have lots to show you.
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Student Led conferences are coming! Conferences will be held Thursday, October 4th. There are additional days that I have times available. Attached is a link to the sign up sheet for conferences. Please place your name and your child's name on your preferred time slot.
While I acknowledge that many of our students spend time in multiple households, I ask that each student have only one conference. Conferences are a great time for students to reflect on their experiences and set goals that are meaningful, relevant and can be supported by all of the adults that make up their team. It is difficult for students to replicate this experience multiple times and still allow for the feedback and authenticity of the process If these times don't work for you, please let me know ASAP via email. Hello TA parents and families.
About every other week I send out a blog post specific to our TA (and different from our 6th grade site). This is just a way for me to stay connected to parents of my specific TA kids and to let you know the ins and outs of our classroom. The past two weeks have been quite busy. We have been working on learning our routines and getting to know each other. Each day in TA we start with CPR, the Circle of Power and Respect, also known as morning meeting. We greet each member of our class, share something, talk about daily news and play some sort of game or activity. It's been really fun getting to know all of your kiddos and I can't wait to learn more. We all have such diverse interests, hobbies, families, etc, and it's pretty cool learning those things about each other. This group is really transitioning well into our routines. The mornings are almost seamless, unpacking and getting into our circle. We are being kind to one another and learning to listen to each other during our morning time. The kids have also been quite flexible with schedule changes due to assemblies and other things. A couple of nuts and bolts type things- Remember that I am the primary contact for your child. If there is a note for transportation, question about happenings in school, etc, you can email and call me at any time. If you have specific questions about content (math, ELA, science, global studies), please be sure to contact the teacher of the class you have questions about. Also, if you haven't checked out Mrs. Kingzett's or my Instagram class pages, check them out. They are both linked on the 6th grade site, and mine is linked to the right of this post. It's a good way to peek into our classrooms during the week. Lastly, I've told students this already, but our classroom is typically cold (all year!). Please be sure students have layers in our room to prepare for the cold! Below are our only two whole group photos, that actually aren't whole group. Some how some kids got cut out of the pic, so we need to retake it, but we have NOT had everyone here since last week! Already colds and sickness have started. An updated picture will soon be taken when all of us are back together! Have a great night! Where has this year gone? I feel like I was just writing to all of you in August, welcoming you all to my classroom. It's hard to believe these kiddos are now going to be heading into 7th grade! It has been a great year full of silliness, fun, and of course learning. Each year I like to reach out to all of you to say thank you. Thank you for sending me the best kids each day, thank you for supporting their learning, and thank you for supporting all of the things we do in our classroom. I could count on all of you to help out every single time we needed it. It's a great feeling as a teacher, knowing I have a wonderful support system for my classroom and my students. All of you are what makes my job so fun and enjoyable. Your wonderful children make coming to work each day exciting. Another tradition in my classroom is creating a class music video with the students and also creating a class slideshow for the students. Below are links to both. The video is something we threw together yesterday, we were being silly and having a bunch of fun doing it. Also linked below is a slideshow I've created to remember all of the fun things we did this year. It's quite long, but it's a lot of fun to look back on the year and reflect on all of the things we accomplished. It starts at the beginning of the year and has photos/videos all the way up to this week. Please set aside some time to watch this with your kiddo. Lastly, linked below is the lip-sync video, because of course we can't forget our epic second place performance. Thank you for sending me wonderful children, and thanks for being such wonderful supporters of our classroom. You guys are awesome. I hope you all have a wonderful summer. Hello TA Parents!
Next Friday is Neon Day. We met today as a TA and discussed how we could make this the most fun possible. Our TA came up with the idea to make "Neon Jerseys." The idea is to get a cheap cotton neon colored shirt that we can color on with fabric markers. These shirts will have a V on the front representing our TA, and names/numbers on the back. I will provide fabric markers, but I'm looking for parents to send their students in with neon shirts. No student HAS to participate, but we are hoping most choose to. Cohen also came up with the great idea that we should wear neon glow bracelets, necklaces, glasses, that are often found at the dollar store. Parents- I need help- If anyone is willing to donate tshirts for students who cannot get one, or glow necklaces, that would be a HUGE help. We need many necklaces/bracelets and a few extra shirts for kiddos who can't afford to bring them in. If you could email me this weekend about what you could send in, that would be amazing! I would need supplies by Tuesday/Wednesday, so we can decorate shirts and have them done before Friday. The kids are super pumped about this! Thanks for your help. This week we had the pleasure of taking part of 5 student-led morning meetings. Each day a person or pair of people, planned and led our morning meeting! Morning meeting or the Circle of Power and Respect (CPR), has four elements. A message on the board, greeting, some sort of share and an activity. Last week, Xavier's well throughout and silly morning meeting was kind of cut off because of Walk to School Day. We did dance to Summertime, and conga lined down the hallway though. I look forward to when he gets a whole morning meeting again! Cam & Cam led Monday's meeting. We talked about our least favorite sport to watch and play, and we played a game of Mum Ball. On Tuesday Chris and Lance had us speaking Japanese, talking about foreign food, and playing a game of 'Chase the Caboose.' On Wednesday, Cohen led us in his low key and quiet morning meeting, that ended in silent a game of "Deer Hunter." Cierra led us on Thursday with a funny animal noise greeting and another game of "Deer Hunter." Finally, Kiara and Grace started our day off with a 'cow-milking' greeting that was quiet silly. We shared about our favorite Netflix movie or series, and we played a fun game of 7-Up! Hey TA Parents! This is a super short post, but I wanted to take a minute to explain just how proud of our group I am. They were phenomenal this week! Not only did the work hard on SBAC, but they persevered and cooperated through very difficult team-building activity. The best part, even though other TAs found success quicker than our TA, we ignored it, pulled it together, and continued to push through our frustration and struggle. They communicated, listened, and worked together to find success after three days of this tough challenge. It was amazing to watch, and I am so proud! Please share these sentiments with your children. Hello Parents! For fear of putting TOO much on the blog, and giving ourselves away, I'm going to ask that you chat with your kiddos about some of the fun things we are sneakily scheming up here in our TA! If they don't know what you're talking about... a few hints to help them remember include: flamingos, marshmallows, furniture problems... I know this post is quite a mystery, but you'll understand why when you chat with your student! It's a secret... so SHHHHHH! This week our TA focus has been all about "Taking A Stand." We've been chatting about how we as individuals can make our school better, safer, and happier. We have talked about being more kind and more inclusive. Students began Wednesday with a goal to do something nice for someone that was not in their friend group. While it started off kind of silly, students then committed to the idea and came up with some great things. We had everything from compliments, to holding doors, to asking others to play at recess, and sitting with different people at lunch. I'm hoping to see this trend continue naturally, as we practice and discuss these things more. Students were asked to go out of their way again today, to do something nice for another student. They will be asked to do the same tomorrow! Please feel free to encourage these acts of kindness and inclusion at home too! Reminders-
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