A Day for Friendship!

Friday, February 14th is Great Hearts Day! We have reserved this special day to focus on the virtue of friendship and celebrate the traits that make a great-hearted student. Teachers are planning interactive and fun activities centered around these topics. Archway Arete strives to cultivate a rich, academic environment rooted in the classical tradition. This many times requires popular culture to be left at the door. On that note, students will not be permitted to bring store-bought valentines, candy, or gifts to school. Thank you for partnering with us. 

Week 23: 01/27-01/31

Hello KC Families ,

It was a big weekend at the Howard home, Harper turn the big THREE! We had so much fun celebrating her and really just wish time would slow down, am I right?!

Don't forget Field Day is THIS FRIDAY! Students must wear athletic shoes (they don't need to be all black) should wear athletic clothing, and are encouraged to wear our team color, blue. See previous blog post for more details.

Here's what's going on this week in our classroom.

Spalding:  Our two new phonograms this week have the same sound so we will learn two new cues to help us remember, they are,  kn (cue: two letter, beginning) and gn (cue: two letter)

The spelling words will be: an, my r. 5 (the y may say i. ) 6. (English words don’t end in i so we use y) , up, last, not. As Spalding increases in difficult it is imperative that your child is doing homework every night, we appreciate your continued support! Note, your child’s Spalding test will be on Thursday to accommodate for field day. 

Sight Words: We will continue to review this week, focusing on list 5.  

Literature: We will continue our unit on Mr. Popper’s Penguins.  We have enjoyed meeting the Popper’s and Captain Cook.  The sweet giggles I hear as we are reading about the penguins and their crazy antics has been a highlight of my week. Our poem will be Go to Bed Tom and Are You Sleeping?

Math:This week we will begin learning about number bonds. Number bonds are a visual way to explain the relationship between a number and the parts that combine to make it. For example, the number 7 can be broken down into parts made up of 6 and 1, 5 and 2, and 3 and 4. Throughout the week we will use number bond mats and manipulatives to tactilely explore number bonds for numbers up to 8. We will create life-size number bonds using hula hoops and students!

Science: This week we will be exploring all about insects! Students will learn the parts of an insect and what makes insects unique from other bugs. We will talk more in depth about bees and ants. Then, students will get to make their own insect using fun paper shapes and give it a name!

Thank you all who donated for our 100th day of school. All the kids shirts looked so great and they had a great time!

Harper even snuck in to join in on the fun!

Athletic Field Day

Good Morning KC Families, 

I am so excited one of my favorite events of the year is here, Athletic Field Day! The kids are busy practicing with Coach Warren and I know they will have a blast, I will be the crazy teacher on the side cheering them on (I might be a bit competitive), here are some things to know about this fun day!

Athletic Field Day is next Friday, January 31st,  from 8:30-11:00 for K-2 classes and from 12:00-2:30 for grades 3-5.  Each year classes are assigned a Greek City State for their team.  This year, our team is Croton (attached is a picture), and our team color is blue. Students may wear athletic clothing, sports teams are ok, but no pop culture please. Students are required to wear athletic shoes (they do not need to be all black) and encouraged to wear our team color, blue. You are also welcome to decorate a blue shirt with our Greek City State. There will be no school lunch offered on Athletic Field Day, so please be sure to pack your child’s lunch. 

To make it easier we will provide snacks and water on this day. Follow the link to sign up to bring a snack or to volunteer the day of the event.

Coach Warren also needs help running the events for the day so if sports are your thing follow this link to sign up.

Thanks in advance for your help. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me!

Week 22: 01/20-01/24

Happy Friday Eve!

I hope you are all ready for the three day weekend! I am looking forward to an extra day off with Harper :) A couple quick announcements:

1. We still need some supplies for the 100th day of school, follow the link to sign up to bring a snack.

2. Friday 01/24 is the 100th day of school, your may wear a shirt depicting 100, see picture for example or refer to the prior email. Uniform bottoms and shoes must still be worn. 

3. Field Day is quickly approached, look for a blog post and email coming soon about ways to volunteer for this fun day and what your child should wear!

Here's a look at next week: 

Spalding:  This week we will learn three new phonograms ough, igh (cue: three letter), ey. Students will have five spelling words: top, 

he r. 4 (e may say e at the end of a syllable) 

you

will r. 17 (we can double the l following a single vowel at the end of a one syllable word.) 

we  r. 4 (e may say e at the end of a syllable) 

Friday is our 100th day of school so we are challenging our students to write 100 phonograms and spelling words, wish us luck! 

Sight Words: This week we will review list 3.

Literature: We are so excited to begin reading our second Classic to Keep, “Mr. Popper’s Penguins.” We will be reading this story for the next three weeks. We will be reading the story to the class, so no books are needed. We ask that you please hold off on reading the book with your child at home until we are finished with the entire story so we can enjoy it as a class family. We will have Mary Had a Little Lamb for our weekly poem.

Math: This week we will continue to work on numbers 10-20 focusing on number order. Students will practice counting and writing in ascending order. We will work on finding the missing number in a sequence and identifying numbers that are more than others. For example, students will say “17 is one more than 16; 12 is two more than 10.” On Friday, we will be taking an assessment on place value (tens and ones) and numbers to 20.

History and Geography: We will review the names of the seven continents and spend this week learning all about the continent of Australia! We will learn about Australian words and animals, especially the kangaroo. Students will also learn about aboriginal art in Australia and they will create their own dot paintings.

In math we practiced place value by making a group of ten and ones. 

We practiced sight words using play-doh!

We earned our last marble and had a pizza/balloon party! It was just as fun as it sounds :) 

Week 21: 01/13-01/17

What a wonderful first week back, we are slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things.  The 100th day of school is quickly approaching, look for a sign-up and a fun at home project coming to your inbox this week. Remember to check your child's yellow book back on Wednesday for their additional leveled reader.

I hope y'all have a wonderful week ahead, here's what we will be up to.

Spalding: This coming week we will learn three new phonograms: oa (cue: boat), oe (cue: toe), gu. We will learn 4 new spelling words that are very similar to each other, they will share the same beginning and ending consonant they are: ten, tan, ton, tin. We will also learn the word bed for five spelling words total. There will be no new rules to learn. 

Sight Words: We will continue to review list 2. 

Literature: This week we will read the fun story of The Bremen Town Musicians. We will identify the problem/solution, setting, and characters of the story. Our poem will be Jack Be Nimble.  We will be working on phonemic awareness with the poem by identifying rhyming words and acting our the poem. 

Math: Students will be able to understand place value using tens and ones.  Students will group ten objects together to make one group of ten, and any left overs are ones.  For example, the number 15 consists of one group of ten and five ones.

History: This week we will be learning about Martin Luther King Junior. Students will discuss what it means to be kind and fair to all. We will learn about the life of MLK and the positive things he did. We will learn all about words and acts of kindness and why they matter. Later in the week we will learn about another kind person in history; Mother Teresa. We will talk about how MLK and Mother Teresa are similar and different.

We used goldfish in math to compare numbers and decide who had more/less.

Thank you Adams family for sharing your awesome shell collection while we studied oceans this week.

Week 20: 01/06-01/10

Welcome Back and Happy New Year! That was a fun filled, just what I needed, winter break. Harper kept us busy and we got lots of family time in. I hope everyone enjoyed their break as well and hopefully it was just what your family needed too :) 

Harper and Santa were old buddies and she only asked him for chocolate and ice cream.  

She got her first play house for Christmas.  

We saw all the animals at the zoo.

Had too much hot chocolate and cookies at The Princess.  

Also saw all the animals at the aquarium. 

And enjoyed Christmas Eve at our church.

Ok now that we looked at all the fun, let's jump back into what we have going on this week.

Spalding: We will begin our week by learning two new double phonograms igh and kn (cue: two letter, beginning). Our five spelling words will be so, no, man, now, the (as review). So, no, and the all follow rule 4, “the a vowel can say it’s name at the end of a syllable.”

Sight Words: We will start back at list 1 and use the week to review those words. 

Literature: This week we will explore the Native American legend, “The Story of Jumping Mouse.” We will search for virtue in the story and then finish the week by reading another Native American folk “Rabbit’s Snow Dance.”  Our poem will be Old Mother Hubbard.

Math: We will begin Book B this semester.  Students will take the skills they learned last semester with more and less and find sets that are one more or one less. They will continue to compare numbers and use words such as greater than and less than.

Science and Geography: This week students will explore the oceans of the world. They will learn the names of the major oceans and point to them on a map. We will spend time learning all about the various ocean animals and will explore more in depth information about sharks and octopuses. Students will enjoy writing about the ocean animals they’re introduced to.

Here's the fun from our "Holidays Around the World Party."

Filling our ornaments with goodies from all our stops.

In Holland. 

Enjoying some yummy food from Brazil.