Week of December 6

Computer Charging

Many students have still been coming to school with a computer that is not charged or without their computer.  Please help to remind your student that Chromebooks must be charged at home before coming to school.

Toys for Tots

It’s that time of year again! The Student Council invites you to fill Santa’s sack to help those less fortunate by donating to Toys for Tots. Classrooms will be collecting donations Monday, December 6 through Friday, December 10. The two classes that bring in the most donations will receive a pizza party with Silver Beach Pizza courtesy of Chris Thompson at The Mitten Insurance Agency. Donations must be new, unwrapped toys and could be for a wide age range. All donations will stay local here in the Benton Harbor/Stevensville/Saint Joseph area. We appreciate all of the support in years past and look forward to another great Holiday season. Thank you for the help.

Winter Celebration

We will have our Winter Celebration on Friday, December 17 from 12:30-1:45.  If you would like to sign up to volunteer to plan and run a rotation during the party, please CLICK HERE. You MUST have a background check on file for this year in order to volunteer at the party.

Book Fair

Our Scholastic Book Fair begins next week. A paper went home earlier this week with information. Book Fair Family Night is on Monday December 6 from 5:30-7:30pm - see Mrs. Bawks' family blog for more details.

Birthday Party Invitations

As a reminder, birthday party invitations may only be handed out at school if the entire class is being invited.

 

Dressing for the Weather

As winter approaches, please make sure your child is dressed appropriately.  All students are expected to be outside at all 3 recesses and often times during P.E.  Once the snow begins, students will not be allowed to play beyond the blacktop without boots and snow pants. If your child is in need of a winter coat or any other winter apparel, please let me know.

Please talk to your students about their responsibility in wearing what you send/expect them to wear during recesses. Brown School is focused on teaching personal responsibility/natural consequences for student choices. For instance, if their pants get wet going down the slide when they chose not to wear their snow pants, they will be sitting in wet pants for the day. We will not call home for dry clothing.

 

What we are learning this week:

Math:  We will continue practicing multiplying a fraction by a whole number; we will also begin to learn how to add and subtract fractions.

ELA: We will focus on summarizing the big ideas in a passage to express what it is all about.  We will also explore realistic fiction.

Writing:  We will continue our study of prefixes and suffixes.

Science:  This week in science, we are continuing our study of volcanoes. Your child will learn about different kinds of volcanoes and how the thickness of the lava can explain the shape and eruption pattern of the volcanoes. Using lava made out of water and flour, they will test how different lavas create different shapes and trap gases differently. We will solve the mystery, “Why do some volcanoes explode?” You can support this week’s learning by watching this high definition video of lava flowing in Hawaii with your child: http://video.link/w/iel. See if you can figure out the shape of the volcano that’s producing the lava. (hint: the lava is pretty thin so it doesn’t trap the gas very well.) Good luck!

Social Studies:  We will continue our unit on geography of the United States.

P2: We will study the Other People Matter mindset.  We will specifically focus on “knowing my words and actions affect others.” 

 

Important Upcoming Dates:

Wed. 12/8 - Late Start (school begins at 9:20am)

Wed. 12/15 - Late Start (school begins at 9:20am)

Fri. 12/17-Winter Celebration in the afternoon

Mon. 12/20 through Fri. 12/31 - Winter Break

Mon. 1/3 - School resumes

Wed. 1/5 - Late Start (school begins at 9:20am)