Friday, May 23, 2014

Volunteer Tea, Wednesday, May 28, 8:45 in the cafeteria!

Oh, dear!  I thought the invitations went out last Friday, but they didn't!  Volunteers are so important to Laurelhurst.  Thanks for all the hours with the auction, the play, field trips, room parents, novel studies, Wordly Wise, art projects, filing papers, Passport Club and so on.  We will be walking across the stage Wednesday morning.  I hope to see all of you in the audience.  Thanks for all you do.
I am putting the official invites in their Special Delivery envelopes.
Have a fabulous three day weekend and see you all on Tuesday!
Mrs. McKenzie

Monday, May 19, 2014

News from Room 21


May 19, 2014

Dear Families,

Within a month summer vacation will begin and your students will be headed to fourth grade!  It has been an incredible year, full of learning and fun.  It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with your kids.

Next week we have our field trip downtown, Thursday, May 29.  This is a wonderful experience and caps off our year of studying Portland.  Ms. Crandell’s class had beautiful weather, let’s hope we get as lucky.  I got a lot of offers to volunteer, I can only take four people with me. I had to put names in a bucket to choose.

My volunteers will be:

Heather Whiteford, Molly Raimondo, David McLaughlin and Laura Ehrlich.  We will leave at 8:45 and return before lunch.  If you can’t make it, let me know immediately.  I need all of you.

The end of the year brings many celebrations; the Rose Show, Field Day and more.  But for third graders the big event is the Coffee House.  This celebration of classroom writing is held during the last hour of the last day of school –June 13, 2013.  Students will share some of their writing “beatnik” style, dressed in black and snapping fingers instead of clapping.  We’ll turn the room into a cafĂ© and set the mood with lights and music.  It is a joyful way to end a year!

It has been a pleasure to watch your kids grow and learn.  I can really see this in their novel studies.  Each of the groups is taking their responsibilities seriously and are working together.  We’ve also begun a Storyline (remember the Henry Huggins Storyline at the beginning of the year?)  This one is science based, looking at plants and cycles.  We are building a nursery and stocking it with flowers, fountains, trees and other plants –all out of painted paper!  Stop by and see this garden grow!

We have just completed our “I Am From” poems-amazing! I’ll post them in hall this week.   Now, we are working on color poems, using Molly O”Neill’s book, Hailstones and Halibut Bones as a mentor text.  It’s fun.

Thanks for all you. 

Valerie McKenzie