Green Cluster 22-23

While we have a moment with you...

We have had the most incredible year with your children and we know they will be successful wherever they land next year. None of this is possible without the support of the families that donate their time and energy to the classroom. A special thank you to our parent liaisons Caitlin Dubois and Billie Ortiz for supporting us during the year and to Jessica Johannsen for coordinating birthday celebrations with the families. The year is so much richer for the children, and for us, because you are a part of it. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Make reading a regular practice and find math in everything that you do. We hope you continue to make new memories with your families this summer.

With Love, Ms. Christine and Ms. Julienne

Week of 6/5/23

Hello Green Cluster Families,

Here’s what’s happening this week! Read thoroughly. We don’t want you to miss all the excitement during the last week of school! This will be the last newsletter of the year.

Monday

Regular school day

Tuesday

FULL day, dismissal at 2:40pm

Wednesday

Regular schedule

1:00pm - 2:30pm - June/ July Birthday Celebration and then the end of the year CARNIVAL. Thank you to the room parents Caitlin and Billie for helping us coordinate it and to all of the families that are pitching in. As the kids would say, it’s going to be “THE BEST DAY EVER!” We love that we hear that so many times during the year. It warms our hearts to know that we can fill the children with many of these kinds of memories during the year.

Thursday

Safari Park field trip - please be sure to have the children at school at 7:30am. We will be returning somewhere between 8:00-9:00pm. We (or Billie or Caitlin) will be in contact with all of you when we leave the park and communicate the estimated time of arrival. The children have to ride the bus with the class and leave the park on the bus with the class. It is a school sponsored event and it is our responsibility to ensure that the children arrive to the park safely and return safely back to school where they started the day. Please do not ask if your child can ride home with you or anyone else. The LAUSD Cultural Passport Program is slated to continue through the next school year and we would love to stay in the good graces of Ms. Cass and the district so the children can continue to have all of these wonderful experiences next year. We appreciate your partnership in adhering to these guidelines.

We will be talking with the children in the days leading up to the field trip about how the bus ride is about as long as a movie and how the day will be long and it’s ok to say you need a break if you are feeling tired. We encourage you to also have this conversation at home. We would like to ask you to have your child bring in a stuffy or a blanket to bring on the bus to provide a little extra comfort for them. We will leave it on the bus while we are in the park. You can bring them in as early as Monday (if they can be without it) and we’ll start to pack them in their green drawstring bags.

We will send a separate field trip checklist in an email.

Friday

Minimum Day - Dismissal at 12:50pm - Last Day of School

Pajama Day for the Greenies!

Beginning at 9:00am, the children will be audience members to a live Music Center Diavolo Performance at school.

We’ll finish the day with art or a movie.

____________________________________________________________________________

For one of our final writing assignments, we asked the Greenies to write down some advice for the Greenies next year. Here’s what some of them had to say:

Be nice to people.
Be careful with the doors.
Stay positive
Be kind and helpful.
I got inspired and I think you will too.
Be kind to your friends.
Shopping Day is the best in the world.
I love math packets.
Have fun with the bubbles.
Be nice, have fun and it’s ok to make mistakes.
Don’t be scared.
I like to play with my friends.
Be quiet on the rug.
Be brave.
Don’t hurt others.
Have fun with the toys.
I like to play.
Don’t be worried because the grown-ups are here to help you.
I like the field trips.
Be happy because Green Cluster is fun.
Be happy because you will be treated good.

We are so proud of them!

Hello Green Cluster Families,

We were bummed that the field trip for the Botanical Gardens was canceled but, as we say in Green Cluster, “No Biggy.” We took inspiration from the Washed Ashore Exhibit at the South Coast Botanical Gardens, where artists believed that “beautiful things can come from trashy pasts.” We spent all morning as community leaders combing the grounds of Open School and picked up trash. We took our collection and picked out pieces for our trash quilt and some of the students found inspiration and created their own piece of art. See the Gallery for some of their creations and the quilt. With the help of Katy and PR Roberts we spontaneously decided on a bubble and popsicle party to close the day. It was so much fun!

The other upside is that Ms. Cass worked it out with the South Coast Botanical Gardens to have the vouchers we would've used for the field trip, to be passed along to your child to come visit the garden in your own time. We will send them home when we receive them.

The fun does not end there this week. We have our annual Shopping Day event on Thursday 5/25. The last two weeks the Greenies have been busy identifying the coins and its value and have been practicing the exchange of goods for money. Have your child sing the below to the Twinkle Twinkle tune.

Penny, Penny easily spent

Copper Brown and worth 1 cent

Nickel, Nickel thick and fat

You’re worth 5 cents I know that

Dime, Dime little and thin

I know in cents you’re worth 10

Quarter, Quarter Big and Bold

You’re worth 25 cents I am told

Shopping Day is a culminating activity that integrates many of the concepts we’ve learned in math this year, such as counting, adding, subtracting, and identifying coins. The classroom is converted into a shopping mall with various realia that children can actually purchase to take home. The children also work together to come up with the store names and help decorate the signs for each store. We will be giving them the money to use to shop for that day. Please don’t send in any money. If you have a reusable shopping bag or extras please bring them in for shopping day.

Samantha

We would like to introduce to you Samantha who is the new classroom aide for Green Cluster. She will be with us 3 days a week. She’s jumped right in and has provided so much love and support to the children already.

Important Dates:

5/25 - Shopping Day
5/29 - No school: Memorial Day
6/2 - Jogathon
6/7 - June and July Summer Birthday Celebration/ End of Year Carnival Party
6/8 - San Diego Wild Animal Park Field Trip - details pending
6/9 - Last day of school - Minimum Day

Scholastic:

With Scholastic, you can order books for your child! Please look at the Scholastic’s tab for more information.

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Week of 5/8/23

Hello Green Cluster Families,

A couple of things to check off our list and we need your help:

The green drawstring backpacks will need to be returned and ready for the next field trip on 5/22. I know a lot of them got strawberry juices and dirt on them. If you don’t mind giving them a wash before returning them to school we would appreciate it.
If you haven’t turned in your field trip slip for the Botanical Gardens field trip, please do so soon. They were copied on yellow paper.

Shopping Day is coming up on 5/25! This is our culminating event where all of Green Cluster turns into a mall and the children apply the skills they’ve learned in addition, subtraction and money identification and value. We will send more information as we get closer to the date. It looks like there are 3 spots left. If you are interested click here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E4DAAAB2DA2FF2-shopping3

Important Dates:

5/22 - Field Trip to South Coast Botanical Gardens
5/25 - Shopping Day
5/29 - No school: Memorial Day
6/7 - June and July Summer Birthday Celebration/ End of Year Carnival Party
6/8 - San Diego Wild Animal Park Field Trip - details pending
6/9 - Last day of school - Minimum Day

Here are what the children learned on their field trip to Underwood Family Farms:

I learned that strawberries have seeds on the outside. - Kevin

I learned that strawberries are red, pink, and green. – Hunter

I learned the red strawberries are better. - Mabel

I learned about the animals. - Lana

I learned that cherries have hard seeds. - Savannah

I learned that rats can chew through concrete. - Ace

I learned the purple strawberries are too ripe. - Soen

The red ones are the best ones. - Elliot

I learned “do not feed a duck.” - Yehoon

Picking strawberries is fun. - Neel

I learned the hard way about stepping in mud (speech bubble "You gotta be kidding me!"). - Ryder

I saw a horse and picked strawberries. - Josh

I learned that you get the seeds from the vegetable. - Zuri

I learned that rats can go on light stuff. - Wyatt

I learned about the donkey. It can do tricks. - Ian

I learned that strawberries have seeds. - Dominic

I learned how to plant strawberries. - Aubrie

I learned that you get the seed from the vegetable. - Anaya

I learned about a pig! - Sarah

I learned of all the bananas. - Jai

So I learned that rats can race and run! - Juliana

I learned that plants need air, water, and sun. - Emma

I learned that rats can chew concrete (speech bubble "yummy!"). - Oscar

I learned that the goat can jump up to get the food. - Maya

I learned that the pink strawberries are bad and the white and the green. -Hayden

I went and picked strawberries and learned that you can not pick the white, pink and green. - Cece

I learned that leaves can breathe. - Talia

I learned that plants breathe in carbon dioxide. - Naima

I learned the mice can dig through concrete. - Ari

I learned that don’t pick the green or pink or gray strawberries. - Emi

I learned that pigs can spin and sit and rats can race. - Riley

I learned that plants can breathe air. - Lydia

I learned that if you put your shoes in mud the shoes will stick. - Jack M.

I learned that if you put your shoes in the mud, then you put your shoes in the dirt and rub your shoes in the dirt they will get clean. - Alaina

I learned how to pick strawberries. I twist the strawberries and pulled the strawberries. - Margot

I learned mud is hard to pick strawberries in. - Bastien

I learned that goats can see me to the other eye. - Windsor

I learned that some chickens have funny hair. - Kayla

I learned some birds fly and some birds don’t - Christopher

I learned that a bus can have a bathroom. - Paisli

I learned how to pick strawberries. - Jack G.

I learned that rat’s tails help them balance. - Rafael

I learned that strawberries have seeds outside. - Chidozie

I learned that strawberries are redder the better. - Kaleb

I learned that you can’t eat the green strawberries. - Jett

I learned that broccoli is a flower. - Eleanor

I learned that strawberries are white. - Charlie

Scholastic:

With Scholastic, you can order books for your child! Please look at the Scholastic’s tab for more information.

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Week of 4/17/23

Hello Green Cluster Families,

If our math is correct, we have 36 days of school left! In those 36 days, it is going to be ACTION PACKED!

To start, we will be having our Open House on April 27th from 4:30-6:00pm. The Greenies have been working hard in music class to sing you a special song. They have also been busy learning hip hop choreography, with the Artist Collective, to put on a dance performance for you. We’ll wrap up the evening with a visit to Green Cluster so your child can show you all of the things they have been learning about! It’ll be a very special evening. Music and dance will start promptly at the designated times as the other clusters will also be performing a song and dance in the same evening.

Open House Itinerary for Green Cluster:

4:20pm - Bring children adjacent to the cafeteria to line up for the music performance (the children will know where they line up for Music class)

4:30pm - Music performance hosted by Mr. Cline the music teacher

4:40pm - Hip Hop Dance performance hosted by Artist Collective

5:00 - 6:00pm - Classroom visit (classroom will be closed between 4:30 - 5:00pm during the Green Cluster performances)

In addition to the excitement of Open House, LAUSD has launched a Cultural Arts Passport Program that exposes children to a whole host of experiences in arts, history, outdoor education and so much more. We are hoping to maximize the rest of this school year, by filling up our passports, with a few field trips. The two that have been confirmed are for the Underwood Family Farms field trip on May 1st, and the second one for the South Coast Botanical Gardens on May 22nd. For the Underwood Family Farms field trip, the return time to Open School will be about 4:15-4:30pm. School bus friends will have to be picked up from Open School. STAR friends can join STAR once they return. One snack will be provided and lunch will come from home. We would suggest a second additional snack for the late afternoon for the little ones. The entire school will be going on this field trip! We sent home the field trip slips for the Underwood Family Farms last week. If you did not receive one, please let us know asap. We will send the field trip slips for the South Coast Botanical Gardens soon. We may have two other potential field trips in the works and we also have our annual Shopping Day experience.

Shopping Day is our culminating event where all of Green Cluster turns into a mall and the children shop til’ they drop! They apply skills they’ve learned in addition, subtraction and money identification and value. We will send more information as we get closer to the date.

All that to say, we will be needing a lot of help for the month of May and June. We will reach out to the LAUSD approved volunteers if they would like to be a part of any of the excitement events coming up. We look forward to it. We will send the chaperone sign-up for Underwood Farms and the South Coast Botanical Gardens in an email.

Important Dates:

4/24 - No School: Armenian Genocide
4/27 - Open House
5/1 - Field Trip to Underwood Farms
5/22 - Field Trip to South Coast Botanical Gardens
5/25 - Shopping Day
5/29 - No school: Memorial Day

What we have been doing in class:

Language Arts

We are working on the sight words: I, the, to, a, is, my, me, go, like, on, in, so, we, it, and, up, at, see, he, do, you, an, can, no, went, are, this, look, for, am, come, get, got, had, was, play. We are building their spelling skills through songs. Ask them to sing you a few.

The children did some writing upon returning from Spring Break about what they did. We are seeing so much growth and development in using sounds and sight words that they know to build sentences, using finger spaces consistently, and adding punctuation marks at the end of each sentence.

Children are continuing to practice reading CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words and applying what they know to read with more fluency.

In continuing with learning about the story elements, some of the students are creating shadow puppet shows. They are digging into building characters and parts of the setting as well as how light and shadows work. In this process, they’re also learning how to work with each other in a small space, while considering the placement of each item to cast a clear shadow for the audience to see.

Math

We are learning a new pattern during our calendar time. The pattern set for April is tulip, tulip, sun, whale, bus, bus or AABCDD. Also during our morning calendar time we’ve been singing the days of the week forwards and backwards, and we’ve been trying out math strategies to figure out how many more days of school we have left.

We’ve been doing some fun estimation games in class. The class is shown an image of a jar with objects of the same kind inside. The children initially estimate how much might be in the jar, and then they work with a partner using a hundreds chart and a dry erase marker to make moves based on several deductive clues. When the final number is revealed, the Greenies celebrate with everything they have. It is so much fun!

Science

In science, students have been creating models of butterflies and plants and labeling the parts of each. Ask your child what part of the butterfly is used to drink. It’s called the proboscis. Maybe they will even demonstrate how it works.
We have a few Painted Lady eggs that came from our last group of butterflies. We hope that the children will be able to watch them hatch and thrive over the next few weeks.
The Nasturtium plants that the children planted are doing well. In the process of transferring them from the small cups to the larger planters, the children were able to see how the roots were growing under the soil, and to learn about the care of plants.
We also planted Pinto beans and watched them grow in a ziplock bag. We learned about the different parts of a plant and recorded the plant cycle in our journals.

Scholastic:

With Scholastic, you can order books for your child! Please look at the Scholastic’s tab for more information.

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Week of 3/6/23

Hello Green Cluster Families,

Thank you to all of the families who participated In Open School’s Culture Week! We visited many different places. During the week, Aubrie and her mom Amber taught us about Mardi Gras. They talked about what happens, what we might see during Mardi Gras and the significance of the celebration. Hayden took us to Texas where his mom is from and led us in a song, “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” Alaina brought in a menorah and shared the significance of it to her and her family during Hanukkah. Neel shared he and his family’s love of blues and jazz music by sharing what he knows about the artist Freddie King. Charles brought in a British soldier ornament and talked about the significance of it to his family and Christmas time. In addition, we had our Open Culture day where families came in and shared part of their culture. :

Soen’s mom Anne taught the children some French and how to draw the Eiffel Tower.
Jett’s mom Jessica took the children to Mexico and made maracas two different ways.
Zuri’s mom and grandma taught the children a popular African American dance called The Wobble.
Rafael’s mom Doreen with support from Aubrie’s mom Amber and Ian’s mom Brettany helped bring in a vision of the Persian New Year. The children made paper hyacinths.
Anaya’s mom and dad, Kavitha and Sunil, taught the children Indian Bhangra dancing.
Alaina’s mom brought it all home with an activity of the culture of Los Angeles. The children painted surfboards and the Los Angeles skyline.

After the rotations the children had a magnificent feast donated by many of the families. Thank you! It was heartwarming to see everyone share and gather as a community over food. We ended the day with a mini Mardi Gras parade with Aubrie’s mom, Amber and Ace’s mom, April, with the help of Aubrie and Juliana passing out goodies from the top of the play structure! It’s because of this amazing group of families that’s made Open Culture Day a success so we take this time to tell you how grateful we are for your support.

Scholastic:

With Scholastic, you can order books for your child! Please look at the Scholastic’s tab for more information.

Important Dates:

3/23-3/24 - Minimum day/ Spring Conferences
3/31 - No School Cesar Chavez Day
4/1-4/7 - Spring break

What we have been doing in class:

Language Arts

We are working on the sight words: I, the, to, a, is, my, me, go, like, on, in, so, we, it, and, up, at, see, he, do, you, an, can, no, went, are, this, look, for, am, come, get. We are building their spelling skills through songs, and some of us are writing sentences with as many as 10 sight words in one sentence!

We have started our new unit in Writer’s workshop. We are working on our “How to Books.” We explored all the different things we are experts in. We’ve learned that some of us are experts at taking care of our pets and baking a cake! Each of us chose one thing and had to figure out what tools we needed to do it. After, we started writing the steps of our books using the words: first, then, after, finally. We are continuing to work on our “How to Books” and we are so excited to share them!

We are learning about story elements. As we read books, we are exploring who are the characters, where the setting takes place, and what are the sequence of events in the story. When you’re reading a book at home, ask your child about the story elements of that book!

Math

We are learning a new pattern during our Calendar time. The pattern for March is rainbow, kite, kite, clover, clover, umbrella or ABBCCD.

We have learned about how we break apart numbers to make a whole number. We’ve explored what two number friends make the numbers 5 and 10. We’ve also learned that knowing these help us solve math equations. With this knowledge, we wrote several math equations that equal ten and used construction paper squares to represent the equation to make a mosaic art piece. We also created rings of ten that show how to make tens.

Science

In science we began our life cycle studies by distinguishing between living and nonliving things. The children explored the outdoors to look for things that were living and nonliving and charted their findings on a t-chart.

We are in the process of learning about the Painted Lady Butterfly life cycle. We are doing what scientists do and journaling each step of the life cycle. So far we have recorded the egg and caterpillar stages. We’ve brought in live caterpillars and are anxiously waiting for them to turn into chrysalis. Once they’ve turned into chrysalis we will be tracking how many days it will take before they emerge from their chrysalis and become butterflies!
We have started learning about the plant life cycle. We watched a time lapsed video on a sunflower growing. We acted as flowers in the life cycle starting as a seed blossoming into a flower. We are going to start planting flowers and examining their life cycle!

We’ve updated the photo gallery, check it out!

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Week of 1/23/23

Hello Green Cluster Families,

Happy Solar and Lunar New Year! We would like to take this time to also thank you for the wonderful gifts we received for the holidays. We loved all of the creative, delicious, and generous gifts!

We are looking forward to seeing more of you this new year with some of the upcoming events and volunteering opportunities!

Looking ahead:

We have added new slots for the Mystery Reader on Fridays. Below is the sign up genius. If you have already signed up for a slot on Wednesdays, please allow for other families to have an opportunity to sign up for the Friday slots.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E4DAAAB2DA2FF2-mystery3

We are calling on volunteers to join us again on Tuesdays and Thursdays with some regularity. When we have special events we will be sending a separate sign up for those. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0945aaa628a7f94-green#/
Speaking of special events:
- Theeeeee anticipated annual Open School Readathon will be kicking off on January 24th. Stay tuned for more information!

February 6th: We here in Green Cluster love to celebrate being in school for 100 days! We would like to have rotations and parent volunteers for this one. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0e4daaab2da2ff2-100th1#/

February 14th: Valentine’s Day this year is on a Tuesday. For those of you who would like to participate in sending treats for their child to pass out to other children on this day and/ or help with passing out the treats out we’d appreciate it.

March 2nd: Open Cultural Week. More details to come. We are hoping for lots of volunteers for this one!

When spring begins we’d like to do some planting. So keep that in mind for anyone who might want to take the lead on it.

All of these activities that require volunteers to be on campus have to be processed through LAUSD. If you are not already cleared to be a volunteer, and would like to participate in some of these activities, please get a head start. If you have questions about how to process please contact Matt Wall in the main office (310) 568-0735.

Scholastic:

With Scholastic, you can order books for your child! Please look at the Scholastic’s tab for more information.

Important Dates:

1/24 - Readathon kick off
2/2 - Minimum day
2/6 - 100th day of school
3/2 - Culture day

What we have been doing in class:

Language Arts

We are learning how to read CVC words. We are segmenting individual sounds in the word and blending them to figure out what the word is. It has been helping us become great readers!
In addition to the digraphs ‘sh’ and ‘ch,’ we’ve added the ‘th’ (one that makes your lips tickle like in the, and the other feels like you’re almost whistling as in the word thumb) and the ‘wh’ sounds as well.
We are working on the sight words: I, the, to, a, is, my, me, go, like, on, in, so, we, it, and, up, at, see, he, do. We are building their spelling skills through songs, and some of us are writing sentences with as many as 10 sight words in one sentence!
We have integrated independent reading time during their language arts time. The children select books and read independently and quietly for 10 minutes and then read to a partner for an additional ten minutes. The goal is to increase the independent reading stamina as we move forward. The children seem to be relishing this time to be still with a book in their hands.

Math

We are learning a new pattern during our Calendar time. The pattern for January is mitten, mitten, snowflake, star, star or AABCC.
At the start of the year we began working on solving word problems. They are beginning to access various tools to solve the word problems. We are using our fingers, drawing pictures, and writing a number sentence to help us solve the problems.
We introduced math packets. The children are already working independently on them. The children will begin with number awareness, counting, ordinal numbers and simple addition. As the packets progress, the math concepts and problems continue to become more complex. They will work individually on these packets during their free time for the rest of the year. Whenever they finish a math packet, we send it home and then they receive the next level packet. The children are very enthusiastic about doing math. Every Friday, we will announce and cheer on our friends who have completed their Math packet.

Social Studies

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr., we read “A Picture Book of Martin Luther King Jr.” by David A. Adler. The children asked insightful questions about who he was and why we honor him. We then used what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for and discussed various scenarios and decided whether it was fair or unfair. The children used their mini fair/ unfair pickets to display their thinking. Some examples of fair scenarios were “People with less fancy houses still deserve police protection,” and “A boy and girl get paid the same amount for mowing the same lawn.” Some unfair examples included, “People with blue eyes get to make more money,” and “Older children get to pick the best seats on the bus.” A lot of thoughtful conversations came out of the activity. We will continue the discussion in smaller groups with the goal of resolution and action in mind for these unfair scenarios.
As the Lunar New Year approaches, we read about “The Great Race” by Dawn Casey. The Jade Emperor had a great race to determine the names of each year. Ask your child who won the race! We also read another book called “Chinese New Year Wishes” by Jillian Lin. We learned that there was a dragon named Nian that would eat the village’s food so the people made lanterns to scare off the dragon. Then, we created our own lanterns that were for the year of the rabbit.

Tech

If you are having trouble with your child’s iPad at home, please shoot us an email. Some of them may need to reset again so please let us know.

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Week of 12/12/22

Hello Green Cluster Families,

We have an exciting final school week for the year of 2022. This Wednesday 12/14, the children will be performing for the winter concert. They will have three performances throughout the day. They can dress however they would like. If they are wearing dressy shoes or clothes you may want to pack extra comfy clothes and shoes they can change into.

On Thursday, 12/15, we will be having some winter fun rotations during the first two blocks. Thank you to the families who will be joining us for that. We are really looking forward to it! The same afternoon, we will be celebrating the December birthday kiddos!

On Friday, we will have our regular fun Friday schedule, AND the children can come in their pajamas and bring their favorite stuffy (we cannot guarantee a clean return = ), so be selective). Please have your child wear close toed shoes, no slippers.

This will be our last newsletter until 2023 so we’ll take this time to say, enjoy the winter break. We hope you have a wonderful time with family and friends.

Important Dates:

12/14 - Winter Concert (all day)
12/15 - Winter fun rotations and December birthday celebration
12/16 - Pajama Day
12/19 - 1/6 Winter Break

Scholastic:

With Scholastic, you can order books for your child! Please look at the Scholastic’s tab for more information.

What we have been doing in class:

Language Arts

We finished learning all of our letters and sounds. We are going to begin to use what he learned about letters and sounds and start reading more books.
Some of us have visited the sounds ‘sh’ and ‘ch.’ We talked about how each letter by themselves makes one sound and when they get “married” they make a totally new sound!
We are working on the sight words: I, the, to, a, is, my, me, go, like, on, in, so, we, it, and, up. We are building their spelling skills through songs, and some of us are writing sentences with as many as 7 sight words in one sentence!
We have introduced Reader’s Workshop. We learned about how to take care of and handle our books. We went on a sight word hunt and searched for sight words in our books.

Math

We are learning a new pattern during our Calendar time. The pattern for December is present, mitten, tree or ABC.
We continue to count collections. With our partners, we have a collection bag to count and we represent our thinking by drawing pictures on how many objects we counted. We’ve organized our drawing by fives, tens, and ones.
Since we had lots of pumpkin seeds from our pumpkin exploration, we used the seeds to create our own pumpkin seed rulers! Using our non-standard measurement tool, we learned how to measure lines on paper, and each of the supplies in their supply box using our new pumpkin seed rulers.

Tech

The children are getting acquainted with their iPads and have quickly picked up on how to use their QR codes to get onto Schoology. We have been accessing the apps ST Math and Lexia Core 5. Some of our friends have also accessed Learning A-Z to read and listen to books.

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Week of 10/31/22

Hello Green Cluster Families,

We’ve added a Gallery tab on our Google Sites. Please do not share photos of the other children, with those outside of the Green Cluster Family, without their family's permission. Thank you.

Pumpkin Exploration:

Thank you to everyone who brought in pumpkins! We have already started some fun pumpkin activities. Thank you to Katy, Gaga, and Jeremy for volunteering to jump into the pumpkin excavation. We had so much fun!

Halloween:

Costumes are not allowed at school BUT costumes can be worn at the Fall Family Festival!

Fall Conferences:

Fall Conferences will be on Monday, November 14 to Friday, November 18. Conferences will be in-person but you also have the option to have it through Zoom. When you sign up for your conferences, please put in the comments if you will be meeting “in-person” or “virtual.”

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E4DAAAB2DA2FF2-2022

For our new families, your child is an integral part of the conferences. If they are on campus (during the school day or at STAR), we will have runners bring them to Green Cluster. For those that are zooming from home, please be sure that your child is with you during these conferences. Please make every effort to be on time.

Scholastic:

With Scholastic, you can order books for your child! Please look at the Scholastic’s tab for more information.

Important Dates:

10/29 - Fall Family Festival
11/4 - Scholastic Orders due
11/11 - No School (Veteran’s Day)
11/14 - 11/18 - Fall Conference week
11/16 - 11/18 - Minimum Day - dismissal at 1:00PM
11/21-11/25 - Thanksgiving Break

What we have been doing in class:

Language Arts

We are working on the letters Bb, Aa, Mm, Tt, Pp, Dd, Ff, Ss, Hh, Ll, Nn, Cc, Ee, Oo, and Rr. The children are practicing letter formation. They are also working on the letter sounds and sorting them to the correct letter.
In some of the guided reading groups, children are completing follow up or comprehension questions for books they read. We use language such as, “using your book as a resource,” and it’s a wonderful opportunity to talk about what they remember, as well as, more technical things like spacing between words and practicing correct letter formation.
We have started our Writer’s Workshop! After going on the Zoo field trip, we wrote and drew a story about our trip to the zoo. We learned how to stay organized, and tell a story across our five fingers. Afterwards, we talked about our own stories using our five fingers and drew pictures about it. We are learning how to revise our work and as beginning writers it includes going back to our original work and adding details to our drawings. We LOVE sharing and hearing different stories with one another!

Math

We are learning a new pattern during our Calendar time. This October’s pattern is pumpkin, bat, bat or ABB. We’ve also been highlighting counting bundles of tens and loose ones building on the concept place value.
We’ve carried over the idea of using details in math nurturing the mathematical practice of explaining your thinking. Children give verbal directions to either Robot Christine or Robot Julienne to correctly place the dot in a ten frame. They’re learning words like “left, “right,” “above,” and “below.” They are having so much fun with this!
We’ve been learning to sort and graph various things, such as apples, leaves, and animals. We use the word “organize” for the children to learn how to sort and classify objects to then be able to graph and look at the data. Which one had the most? Which one had the least?
We are becoming experts at counting different kinds of collections. We’ve been comparing groups of objects and numbers. We are comparing whether these groups of objections/numbers are greater than, less than, or equal to other groups of items/numbers.

Science

We began our apple unit by reading a story about a child who went to look for a house with no doors, no windows and a star inside. The children predicted what might be inside of an apple and then we opened one up and got to see what was really inside.

We had an apple exploration! We examined several apples: Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Gala, Honey Crisp, and Fuji. We used our five senses to examine the apples. The children noticed how sweet some of the apples smelled and that there are different colors of apples! After examining them, we taste tested the apples and the children wrote down which one was their favorite apple. We must say, it took the children several morsels of apples to come to a decision. We graphed them onto a chart and found out that most of the children liked Honey Crisp the best!
We started our pumpkin exploration by learning about different parts of the pumpkin. Afterwards, we made predictions for which pumpkins had the most and least amount of seeds. The children’s predictions were based on the indicators we read in the book, “How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin,” by Margaret McNamara. The darker pumpkins with more ribs (or lines) apparently had more seeds in them. We opened up the pumpkins this past Thursday. We are drying them over the weekend and we’re going to start counting them next week to see which pumpkin has the most and least amount of seeds!

Arts and Crafts

We found inspiration in the artist Yayoi Kusama’s obsession with DOTS! We read the book “Yayoi Kusama Covered Everything in Dots and Wasn't Sorry,” by Fausto Gilberti. We talked briefly about how Ms. Kusama’s brain didn’t work like everyone else and she found comfort in drawing lots of dots! She especially loved drawing dots on pumpkins! We drew pumpkins and dots with black oil pastel and gently painted over them with watercolors. They came out great!

Tech

Thanks to Katy, Juliana, and our Green Cluster team, the children have had a chance to access Schoology and at least one app (ST Math). We will continue to practice navigating the apps with them and they should be going home to those who opted in soon. The iPads should stay in their backpacks daily to be used at home and at school, and fully charged.

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Week of 10/10/22

Dear Green Custer Families,

We have an exciting week and month coming up. On Wednesday, October 7th, Green Cluster will be going on their first field trip to the Los Angeles Zoo!

Here’s what you need to know to have your child ready for a very anticipated day.

Please be sure that we have a signed permission slip for your child before we leave.

Every child will need to bring lunch from home. No cafeteria will be provided.
We will provide a snack. It will likely be popcorn/Pirate’s Booty, cereal bar, and juice, or water. If these items are not what your child will want to eat, please pack something separately for your child, clearly labeled with their names on it.
Have your child wear their Green Cluster t-shirt or a green shirt on field trip day.
Parents are welcome to meet us at the zoo, but we ask that the students stay with their appointed chaperone.

Next week, we will also be doing an apple taste test and the children will carefully decide which one apple tastes the best. We will then graph the results of which apple Green Cluster thinks is the most delicious. There will be lots of counting and labeling of their favorite apple. We will share the results with you next time!

For the week of pumpkin exploration:

We will need some pumpkins (around 12) to begin a unit on pumpkin seed counting and estimation. We will also be looking at the structure and density of the pumpkins! We would like pumpkins of varying sizes and shapes (ie: tall, round, squatty, elongated, symmetrical, etc.) for this project. Please send them in by 10/21 or earlier. We will let you know when we have enough. We need some volunteers to help with opening the pumpkins up, and helping the children get past the goo and do some preliminary counting on Thursday, October 27 from 9:00-10:00 am. If you can join us for this one please sign up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0e4daaab2da2ff2-pumpkin

Halloween treats 10/31:

We will not be having a Halloween party, but if you would like to send sealed treats or small items for your child to give to their Green Cluster friends, we would love for them to take the party home with them. If you do decide to bring something to share, please bring enough for 47 students by Wednesday, October 26th. We are looking for a handful of volunteers to help the children pass out the treats on Monday, October 31 from 9:00-10:00 am. If you are interested please sign up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0e4daaab2da2ff2-halloween2

What we have been doing in class:

Language Arts

We are working on the letters Bb, Aa, Mm, Tt, Pp, Dd, Ff, Ss, Hh, Ll, and Nn. The children are practicing letter formation. They are also working on the letter sounds and sorting them to the correct letter.
The children continue to explore phonemic awareness with daily word work rituals around rhymes, initial sounds, final sounds, syllables, and making substitutions with onset and rimes.
We are teaching sight words by looking at each letter and determining whether each letter is following the rules or not. For example, if we looked at the sight word “my” the letter “m” is following the rule because it’s making its intended sound, whereas the “y” is not following the rule because it’s making the long /i/ sound and not the /y/ sound. Teaching it in this way helps the children remember and spell these often undecodable words.
We are continuing to read books and the children are branching out to read the books they are reading to the other children in class.

Math

We are learning a new pattern during our Calendar time. This October’s pattern is pumpkin, bat, bat or ABB. We’ve also been highlighting counting bundles of tens and loose ones building on the concept place value.
We have also been counting dots! We went on a dot scavenger hunt where we looked for matching pictures and wrote down the numeral for the number of dots they found. We are building the children’s numbers sense and their ability to quickly organize a group of dots into smaller groups and subitize or quickly recognize how much there is. In the process, we are building some counting strategies, fact fluency and even some fun art has come out of the process!
We’ve been learning to sort various leaves and graphing them. We use the word “organize” for the children to learn how to sort and classify objects to then be able to graph and look at the data.
We are becoming experts at counting different kinds of collections. We’ve been comparing groups of objects and numbers. We are comparing whether these groups of objections/numbers are greater than, less than, or equal to other groups of items/numbers.
The children have also learned about how to subtract numbers. We learned different strategies on how to subtract. The children learned how to subtract using their fingers and drawing pictures.

Other News

The children will be starting dance classes every Monday starting 10/24 for six weeks!

Gratitude

Thank you to the amazing volunteers who have come in to enrich the children’s experiences at school by working in small groups, providing extra support for the children, and for all the extra fun and creative projects in Green Cluster! WE APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH!

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Important dates to remember:

10/12 - LA Zoo Field Trip
10/14 - Minimum Day - Dismissal at 1:00 pm

Week of 9/16/22

Hi Green Cluster Families,

We are opening up the classroom to volunteers. If you are interested, please sign up using the link below. Please be sure that you have been cleared through the district and the main office before getting started.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0945AAA628A7F94-green

With regards to birthdays, we will be celebrating birthdays on a monthly/ bi-monthly schedule. A designated birthday coordinator will reach out to you to with regards to organizing treats for the celebration. Here are the dates for the birthday celebrations for the year. They will all take place in Thursdays from 2:00pm - 2:30pm.

August/ September: 9/29/22

October/ November: 11/3/22

December: 12/15/22

January: 1/26/23

February: 2/23/23

March: 3/30/23

April/ May: 5/11/23

June/ July: 6/15/23 (+end of year celebration)

Let us know if you have any questions.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Christine and Julienne

Week of 9/12/22

Newsletter - Week of 9/12

A reminder that picture day is this Tuesday, September 13th. Cheese!

Thank you to the families that have brought in many cases of water and continue to fulfill our Amazon wish list. We appreciate you!

If you would like to sign up for a Mystery Reader spot please use the sign-up link below. Please read the information page carefully.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E4DAAAB2DA2FF2-mystery3

We are going to experience another delay in getting the iPads out to those families

who have completed a device loan form. We are waiting to hear how the district would like us to move forward with setting up passwords given the recent outage.

In mid-October, we are hoping to take our first field trip to the Los Angeles Zoo. We would like to get a pre-count for planning purposes. If you would like to volunteer please use this sign-up link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E4DAAAB2DA2FF2-zootrip

What we have been doing in class:

Language Arts

We are working on the letters Bb, Aa, and Mm. The children are practicing letter formation. They are also working on the letter sounds and sorting them to the correct letter.
The children have also been exploring phonemic awareness with daily word work rituals around rhymes, initial sounds, final sounds, syllables, and making substitutions with onset and rimes.
We will be working on a series of learnings around the long and short vowel sounds. This past week, we started with the long and short ‘a’ sounds.

Math

We are learning a new pattern during our Calendar time. This month’s pattern is book, book, leaf, or AAB. We’ve also been highlighting counting bundles of tens and loose ones building on the concept place value. We continue to count together as we snap on the ones, put our hands up for the fives, and clap on the tens. See if your child will show you how we count together in class.
From rocks to large rulers, the children have been counting many different kinds of collections. This activity helps build the children’s counting fluency, one to one correspondence with the number they say with the objects they touch, sequencing, and organization. As the children practice more counting they become more sophisticated in their counting, making groups of twos, threes, fives, and tens and ones.
We are continuing to learn about patterns and discovering that they are EVERYWHERE! We watched how a snow artist Simon Beck found many different kinds of patterned inspirations on his way up the mountain to create his masterpiece in the snow. He saw patterns in his curtains, on the front grill of a truck, on a bridge, the inside of a log, spider webs, snowflakes, and so much more! We looked for patterns in the classroom and starting next week we will be going on our own pattern adventure outdoors to see how many more patterns we can find!
The children have also learned about how to add numbers. We learned different strategies on how to add. The children learned how to add using their fingers, drawing pictures, and using objects/counters.

Other news

Next week we will begin Buddies of the Week. Two students are chosen randomly. We will be highlighting their names, talk about how names start with capital letters, and then decipher which letters are vowels and which are consonants in their names. We include a horizontal equation where we add the consonant and vowels together to find out how many letters are in their names.

Reminders

If your child gets a breakfast from the cafeteria first thing in the morning, they will not be able to have their second chance breakfast from the cafeteria during their snack recess.

Please pack a snack and water for your child everyday.

Label water bottles and jackets.

Important dates to remember:

9/13 - Picture day
9/26 - No School in observance of Rosh Hashanah

9/27 - Makeup picture day

Week of 8/29/22

Hello Green Cluster Families,

If you are reading this newsletter, you have successfully accessed our website. Here you will find tabs for the daily bell schedule, tech tips, any additional resources, Scholastic Book access, and a page where you can read more about us. This is also where we will be posting bi-weekly newsletters about the things we‘ve been, and will be, learning and doing in class.

We would love to start by saying thank you to the families that have generously fulfilled our wishlist items, brought in bottled waters for the children, special books to read to the children, and even non-toxic solutions for our ant invasion (which we think is working)! We also appreciate the dialogues and support you all have been feeding us. We are welcoming volunteer opportunities so please stay tuned. If you haven’t already, please make sure to be processed by the district before signing up for a volunteer opportunity.

We would also like to introduce and welcome you to our room parents for this school year: Caitlin Dubois (Alaina’s mom) and Billie Ortiz (Hayden’s mom). Thank you in advance for your support as a liaison between the teachers and the families!

On Tuesday, August 29th, we will be having our Back to School Night. We will be talking about all things Green Cluster. We would also like to pass out the iPads for them to use at home and at school. There is a loan device form that you will need to be completed and signed before we can hand it over to you. We are expecting the iPads to be charged daily and kept in your child’s backpack for use at school. If you would rather have the iPad be stored in the classroom, let us know, and we can offer that to you as well. If you can print and sign the form before Tuesday 8/29, that would help us expedite the process that evening. Click on this link: Loan Device Form

Beginning Monday 8/29, our parent volunteer line leaders (Laura, Billie, Rachel B.) will be escorting the children back to Green Cluster to meet us at Green Cluster and start unpacking. In an effort to get the children into a morning routine, we ask that the children line up with the rest of the children on the big yard instead of walking them directly to Green Cluster (before 8:15am).

Important Dates:

8/30 - Back to School Night 5:30pm
9/2 - Admissions Day - No School
9/5 - Labor Day - No School
9/13 - Picture Day

What we have been doing in class:

In the first week of school, we went on our annual Bear Hunt! We went on an adventure to find these friendly bears who left clues for us around the school to help us find them. We checked out the cafeteria, library, garden, student bathrooms, and the office but we couldn’t find any bears! But these friendly bears left us a special treat in the office.

Every day, we have been learning about the calendar and singing the “days of the week” song. We are counting how many days of school we’ve been in. We are building the numbers and identifying if the number is an odd or even number. This month, we are learning about AB patterns. Ask your child if they can make an AB pattern!

We had several “name” activities and learned about ourselves. The children created self-portraits of themselves. We also read the book, Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal, and learned that our names have meaning and stories. Since we are learning about AB patterns this month, the children created their own AB pattern on their names using pasta and beans. We also counted our name and determined who had the shortest and longest name. Ask your child about who has the shortest and longest name!

We have been learning about how to properly wash our hands and about different types of germs and bacteria. We’ve learned that there are bad and good germs. We talked about how we can keep those bad germs away from us. One such way is to keep our hands clean. We wanted to know which way is the best way to keep those germs away. We are experimenting with different ways to clean our hands and how it might spread using bread as our petri dish. We have five focus groups with the bread: 1. controlled (no hands touched the bread), 2. Dirty hands, 3. Hand wash with soap and water, 4. Hand wash with no soap, 5. Sanitize. We have been noticing some interesting changes to the bread. Ask your child what they are noticing that is happening to each bread. Eeeeeewwwww!

We read the book, I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont and learned more about all the amazing things we love about ourselves. The children are being asked about some of their favorite things. Their responses are being captured by the voice typing technology in Google where the children’s responses are being recorded and typed into the device. They are so fascinated by it that they are asking us to ask them more questions! We look forward to sharing their responses on Back-To-School Night!

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