Classroom News: October 30th

Dear Barn Swallow Families,

Tillamook Forest Trip:

We will have enough volunteers for our trip to the Tillamook Forest this Thursday! Thank you family volunteers! The bus will be leaving at 9:00 and returning to school at 2:15. (We will park at the Tillamook Forest Center.) We will be learning about the layers of the forest, nurse logs, fungi, and the living plants and creatures of the forest. The majority of the day we will be exploring outside. Please help your child to dress in plenty of warm layers, long pants, and shoes that are comfortable for hiking. Warm coats will be required for this trip!

Costume and Candy Reminder:

FGCS sent out an email to families about refraining from wearing costumes and sending candy in lunches to school. If you have questions, please email me. Thank you families!

Upcoming Out and Abouts:

Students will be spending more time getting to know the Backyard garden during most of our Out and Abouts in November and December. We hope to be planting garlic from seed saved this summer as well as fava beans to enrich the soil with nitrogen in the newly dug garden beds. On Thursday, December 8th, from 1:00-3:00, students will be cooking at the UCC in Forest Grove. We may make garlic bread using the garlic and some of the wheat from the school gardens. We may also make a fava bean hummus. Students are also interested in using the grain called amaranth in order to make an amazing (and healthy) dessert. We will see! Students will be cooking in small groups and we will need 3 or 4 parent volunteers. Please email me if you are interested in joining us. Thank you!

What We Did Last Week:

Last week students worked on editing and publishing their stories about our trip to the Kittle's Farm. Students know how to use carrots in their writing in order to add more details. They have been learning about capital letters at the beginning of sentences and punctuation at the end. We have discussed adjectives and even touched on similes and metaphors.

We studied why leaves change color and then went on almost an hour long leaf walk. Students' goals were to gather leaves from different types of trees, to find a variety of colors, and to find some leaves that were still green for an experiment. On the walk we saw mushrooms popping up all over. We were amazed to see large, bright red mushrooms with white polka dots scattered between the road and sidewalk by Wells Fargo Bank on A Street. (It is worth the walk over, if you'd like to see them! We were careful not to disturb them.) We ended our short week with a leaf experiment. We used rubbing alcohol and coffee filters to draw out the chlorophyll and pigment from the leaves. There are now 'ribbons' of green, orange, and yellow pigment trailing up the coffee filter!

Math:

In math, the 1st graders classified, sorted and graphed a variety of manipulatives. The 2nd graders practiced single-digit addition and subtraction. They reviewed telling time by the hour and identifying coins. Soon they will be working on fluency with single digit addition.

Home Bags:

This Monday is the first day for Home Bags! With this being the first week of work-at-home for level 1 students, it's important to take some time to discuss with your child the new routine that works for your family. It may be helpful to make a chart with days of the week and pictures showing what will be happening each day and when for your child to refer to. Thank you for making this important effort in supporting your student at home! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Garden Work Party:

I hope you are able to join us on Friday for the garden work party. In order for our level 1 students to have a garden to work in regularly, starting as early as November, we will need many adults (and kids!) with shovels this Friday. Our goal is for small groups of 4 or 5 students to each have a 4' by 8' garden bed to learn and work in for the rest of the school year. We want our students to have experiences growing, caring for, and tasting fresh vegetables and fruits. The garden work party will be from 1:30-5:00 in the Backyard and you are welcome to join us for all or part of that time. Once the beds are dug, we will welcome leaves from your yard to serve as mulch and for learning about decomposition.

It was great to see you all at conferences!

Sincerely,

Sherry

Classroom News: October 24th

Dear Barn Swallow Families,

As you already know, school photos will be taken tomorrow! Please send your completed order form with your child, even if you will not be ordering photographs. Thank you!

Your child brought home his or her Personal Learning Plan today. Please take some time to read it before our conference. At the conference your child will share his or her goals with us and we will discuss ways we can support the goals. Next we will discuss work at home, which begins next week. After your child has had the chance to ask questions, he or she will go to the foyer for a quiet activity. Last, we will discuss your child's next steps for reading, writing, and math. This is also a time to ask questions and devise a plan so that together we can support your child academically at school and at home.

Our next big trip is to the Tillamook Forest (meeting at the Forest Center) on Thursday, November 3rd. We will be leaving at 9:00 and will return to school by 2:15. We do not currently have other trips scheduled, but are working on some for the spring. If you are able to join us for the Tillamook trip, we would love to have you! We will need 3-6+ volunteers in order to go on the trip. Thank you families!

On Friday, November 4th, from 1:30-5:00, we will have a work party so that we can get the garden beds ready for students. We need your help! Would you and your family like to join us? If you have leaves to donate to the school garden, you may drop them off at the garden on this day. Thank you families!

Next week we will begin sending home just right books and a spelling activity in "Home Bags". Students will bring home their "Home Bags" every Monday (or the first day of the school week). Please return your child's Home Bag each Monday morning to ensure that our volunteers are able to switch and replenish your child's books.

The students learned SO much at the Audubon Sanctuary last week and were brimming with facts to share when we returned! Thank you to Becky, Sue, Dick, and Craig for volunteering. Students took a tracking class and learned more about looking for signs of life in the woods. They also went on a hike and visited the many birds in the wildlife care center. Students are working on figuring out which native plants, trees, animals, and insects would help create a biodiverse and healthy forest ecosystem. We are planning for our school forest by using our wall as a giant mural and soon we hope to be adding models of the life we hope to have and help in our forest.

This week in the garden students collected edamame, calendula, and bean seeds. We will be saving them to plant in the spring. Students also moved logs and rocks from the garden to the forest area in hopes of creating nurse logs and animal habitats.

In writing students are working on adding details and adjectives to their stories and students are meeting in reading, spelling, and handwriting groups. First grade math students worked on graphing sea creatures and measuring in cups. Second grade math students worked on their fluency with addition and subtraction facts.

Please remember to sign up for conferences, if you haven't already done so. I look forward to seeing you then!

Sincerely,

Sherry

Classroom News: October 18th

Dear Barn Swallow Families,

We had a great time at Gales Meadow Farm last Thursday! Students prepared for the trip by writing questions to ask Farmer Anne. We were able to taste test many different organic heirloom vegetables, observed runner ducks working (They were busy eating slugs), helped harvest a variety of colorful squash, and gathered ideas for our own school garden. Thank you Phil for volunteering! Soon we will need a lot of extra adult help with getting our school garden ready for two classes to work in it at the same time. Would you like to help us dig new beds? A garden work party after school is soon to come and I will let you know the date as soon as it's finalized!

Students will visit the Tillamook Forest on November 3rd for an all day trip, in order to learn more about what makes a forest a balanced ecosystem, as well as to help them plan how to enhance our school's forest in the making. We will need 3-6+ volunteers for this trip. Would you like to join us? We'd love to have you! Please send me an email if you are interested at: S.Reuter@fgscshool.org and thank you!

Do you have piles of leaves at your house? Soon we will be gathering leaves for mulching in the garden (as well as to learn more about decomposition). If you are able to, we'd like your leaves! Please let me know if you would be able to bring leaves to school. Thank you!

Janelle, our former special education teacher, and Kate, our Americorps volunteer, have been working with our students in the mornings during our literacy block, allowing us to offer additional time in small reading groups and for individualized instruction. Thank you Janelle and Kate! Please continue to encourage your child to read 5 to 7 days a week for about 20 minutes each day.

This Friday we are having our All School Meeting in the Grove Room at the old Central School. Our class will be singing some of our morning meeting literacy songs, and they know many! It will be hard to narrow down our list of options! All School Meetings also call for school spirit, which means Friday is an optional 'Crazy Head' day where students can wear crazy hats or make their hair crazy.

Student goal setting conferences will be held October 27th and 28th. Please call the office to set up your conference. I look forward to seeing all of you!

Sincerely,

Sherry

Classroom News: October 10th

Dear Barn Swallow Families,

We had a fantastic time at the Kittle's farm last Thursday! We spent the morning in the woods looking for signs of forest life and collected branches to build shelter structures in the school garden. We found deer trails and saw scat and tracks from a variety of animals. Students were like detectives and used clues to figure out what animals lived there in the woods. In the afternoon we collected eggs, picked Italian plums and cooked delicious plum custard tarts. We also fed the horse carrots and ate salsa made from the garden produce. Thank you to the Kittle family and to our volunteers Jenna, Scott, Dick, and Sheila!

This Thursday we are going to Gales Meadow organic farm to see what food is growing in October. We will be leaving at 11:10 and will return to school by 2:15. We will be outside for this trip. Please help your child be prepared with warm layers, a rain coat with a hood, rain boots, a healthy lunch, and a full water bottle. We have enough volunteers for this trip, but if you are interested, you are welcome to join us!

This week students will continue reading in their book clubs. At the beginning of the school year we brainstormed a large list of WHY people read and the students came up with many reasons. Most of all, reading should be fun! If your child does not yet have a habit of reading at home, please take some time to consider what kind of reading routine would make sense for you and your child. Five to seven days a week, for about twenty minutes at a time is a good goal for first and second graders. You can read books to your child, he or she can read them to you, or he or she can read them alone. Soon we will be sending home 'just right' books with all students so that you will always have reading material that fits your child!

We are also working on our personal narrative writing unit, which will focus on our experiences at the Kittle's farm. We filled up almost three pages with favorite memories when we came back to school that afternoon! I think the students have a lot to write about and am looking forward to their stories! Students will continue working on handwriting this week, as well as spelling, and are deciding what their own school goals should be for this year. Students will share their goal with you at their goal setting conference on October 27-28.

Since we have a short week this week, I'd also like to check in with families about our trip on Tuesday, October 18th to the Audubon. If you have volunteered to join us, could you please send me a short confirmation email? We had many parents interested in this trip and I want to be sure I have my volunteer list in order! Part of our trip will entail a hike and tour through the forest. Then we will take a class on identifying animal tracks and detecting other signs of life while out in the woods. This class will help us when we go to see what lives in the Tillamook Forest in the spring, as we are trying to build a forest habitat for forest creatures at school! ***The day we go on this trip is normally a pizza fundraising day. Please remember to send a healthy lunch with your child and your pizza order will be pushed up to the next week, if you ordered. Please also help your child be prepared for wet and cold weather by wearing warm layers, a rain jacket, rain boots, as well as a full water bottle.

Thank you Barn Swallow families! We have a great class!

Sincerely,

Sherry

Classroom News: October 3rd

Dear Barn Swallow Families,

We had a great time last week learning about forest and garden seeds and plants at B Street Farm. We were cool in the shady forest there and VERY warm in the vibrant sun in the garden. I wonder if that was our last 'hot' day?! Keep sending rain jackets and rain boots to school every day. (You are welcome to leave them there at school, too.) Thank you to our volunteers that day; Brenda, Camille, Beth, Luke, and Chelsea! Your help made a difference for the class!

This week, our tentative trips to Ayers Creek Farm or Tillamook Forest did not work out. HOWEVER, Beth and Jeff Kittle, Tommy's parents, have offered for our classes to come to their farm this Thursday to pick and eat food in their gardens and study forest amongst their many trees! All students will need to come with a full water bottle, healthy lunch, rain jacket, and rain boots. We are still looking for more parent volunteers for this trip. If you are able to join us, please email me. We look forward to having you!

We are still looking for more parent volunteers for our trip to Gale's Meadow Farm on Thursday, October 13th and to the forest sanctuary on Tuesday, October 18th. If you are able to join us, please email me. Thank you!

This week students are beginning their book clubs! It's so nice to see everyone with 'just right' books. We are also starting a non-fiction personal narrative writing unit this week. We have been working on handwriting and are starting spelling this week. Tomorrow students will pick a little wheat and we'll see if we can grind it into flour. Wish us luck! We are also writing a letter as a class to Terry O'Day, who runs B Street Farm, to see if we could have some of the farm's amaranth grain. I told the class that a few years ago students in my class picked amaranth, got the grains out, popped it into tiny popcorn, and mixed it with honey and chopped walnuts to make 'candy'. The students are very intrigued and excited to try it! I will let you know if we have a cooking day scheduled in the near future.

Thank you families!

Sincerely,

Sherry