Happy New Year!

We started to learn about fractions in math class Tuesday morning. We’ve continued reading about Johnny Appleseed and working through our TOPS books. Everybody is getting more confident writing in complete sentences, putting a capital letter in the beginning and a period or a question mark at the end. It will be a short week. I hope you all enjoy the fireworks!

Lily has been focused in class. Things seem to have evened out between her and her friends again.

Sunny has been making considerable progress. She was punished on Monday for her behavior over the weekend and for not completing her homework book satisfactorily.

Lauren looks so pretty with her curly hair! She enjoyed telling me all about your day at the Salon. She has made great improvements on completing her work individually, as we spoke about before.

Esther is on track. We were working on counting by two’s today. She seems to be coming along.

Frank is on track but still needs regular reminders to stay focused in class. I’d like to see him do this independently.

Jerry is on the ball individually but he still needs to stop trying to look after everyone else in the school. His intentions seem to be in the right place. As one of the older students he ought to lead by example, rather than telling other classmates what to do all the time.

Tricia’s reading is coming progressing and she seems to have a firm understanding of the material. She still comes to class with an extremely positive attitude each day.

Eliza has brightened up a little bit but is still very quiet in class. I think it might just take her some time to wake up from her nap and get her head into ‘English Mode’ again. She’s doing good work.

Carson has made great progress this semester. His reading is improving. Keep up the hard work.

Henry is gradually making progress. He can recognize more and more words. He still needs to keep at the phonics and focus in class.

Samson mentioned the other day that he wanted to move up to teacher Andy’s class. His reading is superb as is his writing. He still has some trouble speaking in complete sentences. We’ll continue to work on this.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope everyone enjoyed there day off yesterday. We've been trying to get things back to normal. In reading, we've been working through a story about the American Hero, Johnny Appleseed. Feel free to ask your children to tell you about what they have learned.

Jerry has been doing good work but has continued to tell other students what they should be doing. He needs to take care of himself and stop acting so bossy. We’ve spoken about this a number of times now.

Frank is making solid progress. He’s come an awful long way in the last few months. Keep it up.

Lily has been very soft spoken this week. I know she is a bit worried about her friends in the class. They have had arguments like this in the past. Recently, things have been a lot better but I’m sure it will all blow over in a few days.

Lauren looks so pretty with her new, curly hair! She enjoyed telling me all about what she did on Christmas in class today.

Esther’s work ethic is a model for the whole class. When we’re writing sentences in our TOPS books, her work is often flawless the first time she turns it in. She’s very meticulous.

Sunny has continued on her same recent trend. She has come so far in the last few months. I’m proud of her.

Tricia is still doing good work but she has been a little too rambunctious in class. She needs to settle down.

Eliza, also, was a little disruptive this afternoon. She and Tricia were bickering about where they put their elbows on the table. There’s more than enough space in our classroom; that type of behavior is petty and unnecessary.

Samson told me the other day that he wants to join Teacher Andy’s class. His reading has improved greatly but he still has trouble speaking in complete sentences. He will need to pass this hurtle before he can jump forward.

Henry still has trouble focusing. His phonics is still behind but improving. His reading is progressing steadily. Again, he needs to be on task in class.

Carson is still a little bit behind the curve, but he has made extraordinary progress in the last few months. Keep it up!

Merry Christmas!

We’ve been focusing on writing in complete sentences and doing a lot of work in the TOPS books each morning. The students have all memorized a new poem about the seaside. Everybody’s getting very excited about this Friday’s Christmas Extravaganza! We’ve been practicing daily and hope you all enjoy the show. See you there!

Sunny’s been having a good week. No speed bumps so far. Her writing is coming along very well. She has been focused and well behaved. Her cough sounds a lot better than last week. I hope she gets well soon.

Lauren’s been doing great work this week and remembering her eye patch all by herself. I think her self confidence is really improving.

Lily’s on task and on the ball. She’s been doing great work in our Christmas rehearsals.

Esther speaks so eloquently in her role for the Christmas performance. Her work in the TOPS book has been stellar.

Jerry has been very well himself but he is beginning to be a bit bossy, telling the other students what to do and even telling other teacher’s what they ought to do. I hope we can stamp out this type of behavior before it becomes a real problem.

Frank has been making a lot of progress in his written work. He wrote some very good sentences in his TOPS book this morning.

Our afternoon classes have been cut short each day in order to practice for the Christmas performance. I hope to see you all there!

Week 19, I'm happy to be back!

I’m glad to be back after a short trip away. It’s very nice to return and see that everything is on track. We’re having a ball getting geared up for the holiday concert next Friday.

Lily complained her stomach was hurting a few times Wednesday afternoon. She looked uncomfortable in class but she didn’t want to go downstairs. This morning she threw up after morning snack but the she seemed to be fine.

Lauren seems to be in very high spirits. Her new eye patch is so cute! She has been much better about remembering it by her eye patch on her own. This morning she came back from break and said “Teacher Peter, EYEPATCH!”

Esther has been doing well. We had fun baking some brown sugar chocolate chip cookies on Tuesday. Her written work is coming along extremely well.

Sunny has been in very high spirits. She has made such great progress over the last few months. Keep it up!

Jerry is doing superb work. He has such a wonderful attitude every morning. He is very outgoing in class. He’s doing a little bit better about talking out of turn but it could still use a bit of work.

Frank is making solid progress. His writing, especially complete sentences, is very slow going. For the time being, I think he just needs a little extra time to finish his work but I have my eye on his progress. It is extra important, for students like him, to stay focused in class.

Evie still brings her wonderful attitude to class everyday. We need to focus on her speaking in complete sentences.

Eliza has been growing more and more quiet in class. I don’t think she’s unhappy, but she needs to speak out more. It sounds simple, but it’s sometimes hard to remember that the only real way to learn to speak a language is to actually speak it.

Tricia has been full of positive energy this week, as always. We’re working on stamping out those Chinglish sentence patterns.

Samson has been doing very strong work and making great improvements. He has been better about staying focused in class but I still have my eye on him.

Carson has been putting forth a great effort in class. He still has trouble making complete sentences but he is getting better.

Henry really needs to focus in class. It takes him a lot greater effort to keep up, but he is at risk of falling behind. I would hate to see him have to retake K3 again.

What a WEEK!

This week was really busy for the students because they had so much to learn. It was really exciting at the same time.

This week we had career day on Tuesday and we also studied about neighborhood and community in our social study and TOPS for our conversation. It was a great match for all the topics to come together with the career day. We have several parents that came that day including Lauren's mom, Marcus' father, Lauren's mom, Rain's father, Teacher John, and Ethan's dad.

We learn about many different kind of jobs and places where people work.
Doctors, nurse, clerk, dentist, laundromat, hospital, clinic, teachers, students, school, classrooms, store, supermarket, engineers, construction workers, chef, salesman, policeman, firefighter, actor, and vet are some of the vocabulary that we used for sentence pattern.

We learned about the similarity and differences of neighbors, neighborhoods, and community.

Henry was participating more this week and he is paying more attention when we are reading. His phonics is behind because he doesn't follow closely when we are reading.

Carson is also raising his hand more often but he also needs extra help in reading.

Esther some times will not pay attention but after I talked to her, she was better toward end of the week.

Frank's handwriting needed a lot of work. I printed out extra sheet of letter writing practice for him to work on. Frank has been more active in class this week because he was trying to pay more attention.

Lauren raises her hands very often and she is good in class. She is a little bit more reserved and careful. Lauren's handwriting also need some work because she pushes too hard on the pencil and she is not holding it properly.

Jerry also had problems with handwriting but mainly it was his attitude and discipline that had problem. He wanted to go play so he would do everything too fast and without effort. I also printed the writing worksheet for him as well and he stayed until the evening to finish. He is better now because he is not rushing to do his work.

Samson is great. His handwriting is excellent and he speaks loudly in class. He loves to help others. On Friday he had some concentration problems but after I spoke to him, he was back on track. I am very proud of him and his progress. I hope he can keep it up.

Eliza is a good listener and she pays attention but she is timid and shy in class. Hopefully she can be more open and speak louder with more time at Tree House. We will keep an eye on her and boost her confidence.

Lily is fantastic and she raises her hand on all the questions. She normally figures out everything and really pays attention. She loves learning and she likes to be first and best.

Evie is great sitting next to Lily because they try to out do each other. Evie is learning a lot from Lily because Lily is outspoken so it helps Evie to speak more in class.

Sunny loves to raise her hands too but sometimes she just want to get attention by saying silly things in class. She is opposite from Lauren, because she doesn't think before raising her hand. Sunny is doing well over all but she can be more disciplined and we are helping her to do that.

Tricia is just right in this class. It's fun and challenging for her. She is getting better and better with every class.

I believe every child can achieve excellence with the right balance of discipline and encouragement, rules and freedom. I love all my kids and I make sure they all have the right values.

Teacher Paul