Quick Update

December 16, 2009

Dear Families,

I apologize that I haven’t been able to white you in a while. I have been so focused on creating and teaching excellent curricula that I have felt too harried to write a decent parent letter. I will take time over break to catch you up on what we have been doing in math, reading, writing, PE and gorge. Many of you have been anxiously asking about a music performance. We don’t have one on the schedule yet, but Mrs. Swanson promises that we will be performing some time in the spring. Also, the math worksheets your children are taking home are simply for fun. They asked for extra math and chose their own “homework”. Please help them complete and check their work as you are able. They are welcome to return them to me, but these are neither leveled nor graded assignments, they are simply the sheets your child thought they might like to do. More to come soon!

Best,
Miss Reed
aree@corbett.k12.or.us

Author's Tea

Our author's tea was a fine opportunity to discuss child-created literature. Thank you for celebrating reading and writing with us!

I will post the rest of the pictures Mrs. Weyhrich took to www.flickr.com/missreedsclass.

Eagle Creek/Fish Hatchery

It was a wonderful field trip. The salmon spawning was the best example our biologist friend (and father of Rowan), Dan Vassar(sp?) had seen in years!
For the complete set of pictures please visit www.flickr.com/missreedsclass. To download pics of your child, you can double click on the photo, then drag it to your desktop (mac) or right click and copy to your desktop (PC).

PS. I am currently at home recovering from an emergency gallbladder removal. The fabulous, capable and patient Miss Bekah Tucker will be making our classroom work this week. Miss Tucker was Mrs. Hanes' student teacher in the fall and has been Mrs. Chiu's long term sub in both the spring and fall of 09. The kids know her, the school knows her, and I am so grateful she was available all week. Please support her as much as you can. I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone next week. - Best, Miss Reed

Drama Photos!

These are a few photos from Drama time! A favorite time for children to engage in imaginative play whilst participating in our classroom community.
The basic plot of the play is as follows: A mother and a father go fishing in a rowboat for salmon. A villain keeps a princess in a tower. A dog says woof woof! Everybody bows. It is a little absurdist, but gives children the opportunity to direct, act, speak in public, perhaps more importantly, to play a role and receive praise.

Shape portraits

Last week, we gathered pics to make class book of shape portraits and played a game to gain familiarity with the tens and ones places.

Salmon Studygroups Celebration

Salmon Study Groups Celebration

To introduce the salmon lifecycle, we worked in K-5 teams through early October. Small groups of K-5th grade students from Chiu, Hanes and Ree'ds classes each took on a research project on a stage of the life cycle: Egg, Alevin, Fry, Smolt, Adult and Spawner. We celebrated the completion f our Salmon Life Cycle Presentations with a Science Fair Style Party in the cafeteria. Students hunted for information on each of the stages of the lifecycle. The first picture is a skit from my fry group. The bigger fish is about the eat the fry. A student posing with our native food themed snacks, and several students exploring a project table follow.

The Salmon Studygroup Kickoff

Our class, Mrs. Hanes' class and Mrs. Tucker & Chiu's class got a visit from Sammy the Superhero Salmon. Our class wrote and performed in a short play depicting Sammy's amazing journey upstream!Here he is about to jump over a waterfall.

Here he and the other salmon are being attacked by students playing hungry bears!
Thanks for taking pictures Tina W!

October 15

Dear Families,

Corbett Wind
Please help your children arrive at school in warm, layered clothing. The wind on campus can be extreme and we do need to walk through it to get to lunch and during various parts of the day.
Missing
Metal water bottle – black with silver stars.
Disappeared from Miss Reed’s lunch tote Wednesday and are dearly missed by its owner!
Please return- no questions asked.

Transportation
Children are not allowed to cross the fire lane or meet their parents in the parking lot. Families will pick their children up from the classroom. Mr. Dunton has requested that an adult must be between each child and the traffic at all times with no exceptions.

Our Classroom
This week, we completed banners depicting stages of the salmon’s life cycle. We increased our silent reading time during reader’s workshop to seven minutes. New readers are working with A- F sounds, as well as sh combinations. All readers are beginning new book groups. In math, we modeled addition and subtraction and began working with the relationship between them, culminating in adding and subtracting real jelly beans! In writing, we are beginning our first class publishing projects.

Take Care!
Miss Reed

October 7

Dear Families,

All teachers at Corbett School have received new phone extensions! My new classroom number is 503 695 3656. My email remains the same areed@corbett.k12.or.us.

We have a field trip next Wednesday, October 14 to Wahkeena Creek. The chaperones will be Mrs. Bucher, Mrs. Foertsch and Mrs. Henderson. Please send your children with a waterproof coat and in rain boots if possible. Chaperones will also want to be dressed for a hike in and around a wet creek. The following children still need to return their permission slips: Kayli, Taylor, Dylan Jadyn, Eduardo, Karlie, Isabella, and Evan.

Wondering about the blog? I will need photo release slips from Hallie, Kayli, August, Mya, Eduardo, Karlie, Isabella, Evan, Nathaniel, Shaylene and Elizabeth before I can post pics of our class on our blog. Please sign the attached photo release and send it with your student.

The Bonneville Dam/ Salmon field trip will be postponed until November.

Conferences are fast upon us! The schedule is on the reverse of this sheet. If you haven’t signed up yet, please write or call me and we’ll set a date.

This week, we enjoyed Junie B. Jones, a funny five year old fictional character, during read aloud. In math, we continued practicing telling time through bingo and whole group activities. We introduced squares and square roots and explored the relationships between addition and multiplication through the story, rhyme and written practice. We presented the best of our salmon life cycle research in a great big celebration with our K-5 study teams. We wrote our first entries for our Weekly outdoor watch (WOW) journals.

I look forward to chatting with you all at conferences!

Sincerely,


Alyssa Reed

Harley Tails

by Brittany Pace

The main thing I want to talk about is the drive there and when we saw the horse for the first time and walking around and getting him out of the car.



It was a long drive to the farm, where we were going to pick up our own horse. His name was Harley. In a picture we saw, he was three feet tall and had a star on his head. On the way there, we saw horses, barns and some geese.
When we arrived, they already had miniature horses. Three of them were running around with their tails up. When we got to the owner’s house, she was brushing Harley. He was wearing a purple halter. When we got out of the car, the owner said, Harley was rolling in the mud. When we walked up to him and patted him on his back, he didn’t pay any attention to us. We watched him for a minute or two and then we started walking him around. My dad got the papers from the owner of the horse. Then she gave my dad her card.
Then we tried to load Harley into the back of the car. He would not budge. He kneeled back. And then we tried lifting him up. He was kicking and neighing. We finally got him into the car. We tied his lead rope onto a hook in our car. Then we thanked the owner for giving us the horse and then we drove off.
The funniest thing on the drive was when we passed the rest of the horses, and then he started neighing.

When we got home, we got out of the car and opened the back of the truck. He tried to get out! We untied his lead rope and he jumped out. He pulled me to the grass and started eating. Then he saw our goat. Harley charged Billy. Billy ran for his life. Billy is four feet tall and taller than Harley, but Harley kept on chasing him. Billy was acting like a coward.
After Harley stopped running, we took him to go see the cats. The cats puffed up their tails and put their backs clear up in the air. However, Stripers just walked past Harley. Harley tried to step on him.
Then my mom went to the store to go get some brushes for Harley. After she came back, she had a purple soft comb brush and a pick for his feet and a currycomb. At first he didn’t like the currycomb, so we tried the soft brush. He like the soft brush better than the currycomb.
My dad went to the store after Mom came home and got posts and fencing and some hammers and nails. The next day he started building the fence.



XXX

I was rolling in the dirt one day, minding my own business, when the owner came in. She grabbed my purple halter and my black lead rope and put them on me. I did not like that. She took me out of my pasture and took me by the trailer where she had brushes, halters, picks, baskets, and hay.
She started brushing me. She brushed me for about twenty minutes, then a big, blue car pulled up. Two kids and two parents came out of the car.
“Oh no! More kids!”
They came running towards me and started patting me on the back. I knew if I didn’t pay any attention to them, they would probably go away.
They didn’t go away.
Then they grabbed my lead rope and pulled me around the car. I pulled, tugged, kneeled with all my might to make them stop.
Then they stopped and took me to the grass, for about ten minutes. Then the littler one came and pulled me.
The medium one said, “Stop it!”
Then my owner came out with some pieces of paper. The large one took the papers, put them in the big metal container and then, grabbed my lead rope. The large one tugged and tugged and tugged on me.
And then they lifted me up. I kicked and screamed as loud as I could. When they dropped me into the big metal container, they tied my lead rope onto a hook. My eyes grew. I looked all around. The smaller one and the other one jumped in the car and stared at me. Then the other two jumped in the car and turned on the engine. We started moving.
I saw my friends out the window. I called to them, “Help I’m being taken away!”
Then I got tired of the trip, so I fell asleep.

Next thing I knew, I was in this weird place with lots of trees, lots of grass and lots of good smells. Then they all jumped out of the car, opened the back, untied my lead rope, and pulled me out. I jumped out and ran for my life.

They weren’t holding onto the lead rope at the time. I ran towards the smell of female horses, but the next thing I knew, I was almost flipped over on my back by the large one. They tied me up to a tree and I ate grass for the rest of the day.

Salamander World

When we go down to the creek, we like to look for salamanders. There are big, small, fat and skinny salamanders. We have found lots of salamanders. The biggest one we have found was one foot long and two and a half inches wide. The name is the pacific giant salamander.

by Brady Clayton

My Field Trip to Multnomah Falls

I couldn’t wait. We were going on a field trip to Multnomah Falls. We went into groups and we had a helper. It was Lilly’s Dad. He was six or seven feet tall. He had short brown hair and was wearing a green plaid shirt and a brown coat. We were at the front gate entrance when we met him. Then my group and I walked into the front gate entrance. My group was all girls. We were just walking around and talking. We walked around and saw the beautiful scenery. The scenery was rocks, the great hill, and two dragonflies.
Mrs. Handy got our attention and told us to follow George. George was a worker at the falls. George told us the history of Multnomah Falls. He told us the rules. One of the rules was not to hang over the edge of the bridge. He finished up the story.
Then we started walking up the stairs. They were hard concrete. Then, when we got up the stairs, we saw the crystal water falling off the top of the hill. It was fall then and the trees were bare and brown. Some of the leaves on the ground were orange and red. I could see people walking up the top of the path, going up to the peak where you see the water falling down. I could just imagine going up to that balcony and seeing the birds by the waterfall, the hawks in the sky, the squirrels in the trees and the chipmunks gathering nuts.
While I was walking I remembered. It reminded me of when I went up there with my mom, dad, Nana, Papa and brother. We saw the little tiny rivers and the little tiny bridges and big huge fish. We walked up the path. It looked like a road, because it was all black pavement with a white line. We met up with my Aunt Shirley and then we went on walking three miles. We saw a bench and so my Grandma got out lunch. Mine was a cheese sandwich with turkey and some mayonaisse. That is my favorite type of sandwich.
We went on walking about a quarter up and my grandma threw out a walnut for a chipmunk. Then another little chipmunk appeared and they started fighting over the walnut. And then my Grandma had to give up her last walnut.
Suddenly, one of my group members said “Look at it!” Then I jogged back to looking at the falls. It was the biggest waterfall I’ve ever seen.
Then another one of my group members shouted out, “Look at that. That big, huge log is gonna tumble down the falls!” I looked up and there was a big, huge log falling down the falls. It started tossing and turning around the falls and then it crashed and split in half.
When my group and I went back on the bus, I ate my favorite sandwich again- cheese, turkey and mayonnaise. While we were driving off, we saw a flock of Canadian geese. They were flying in a V-shape. They had black heads, black beaks and white necklaces around their necks. Their bellies were white. Then, five minutes later, my friend Emma spotted a blue heron. It was standing sideways in a tree, on one leg. It had a very long nose, thin, spiky feathers on his forehead, and brown wings. I finally saw a blue heron! I was happy that Emma wasn’t absent, because if she had been absent, we probably wouldn’t have seen that blue heron. I felt tired. Barely anybody falls asleep, but I fell asleep.

by Brittany Pace

Some Good Gorge books

The students have been so focused on reading books and doing other writing projects, we haven’t taken the time to do Gorge writing together. Here’s a list of primary and intermediate books about Gorge animals, plants and related subjects just in case you are in need.

Awesome Ospreys: Fishing Birds of the World by Love, Donna
Black Bears by Feeney, Kelly
Little Beaver and the Echo, by MacDonald and Fox Davies
Clever Racoons by Kristen Nelson
Building Beavers by Kathleen Martin James
The Chinook People by Pamela Ross
B is for Beaver: An Oregon Alphabet Marie and Roland Smith

My favorite:
Day Hike: The Best Trails You can Hike in a Day by Blair Seabury

cheers!
Miss Reed