Mrs. Mattison's Mountain Climbers

What's Up in March?

Sharing Our Traditions

March is the month we honor the many cultural heritages represented here at Mountain View.  In today's fast-changing world, respect for our families, our traditions and our differences is important, no matter what our age.

Multicultural Arts week will be held March 24-28.  During the week, the children will attend multicultural performances, and be involved in creative crafts that reflect diversity.

Please plan to attend the International Evening Festival on Thursday evening from 6:30-8:30 pm. Along with tasting many marvelous foods from our Mt. View community cooks, there will be professional performances and a student costume parade. Also, taking place that evening is the School Council Silent Auction. You are encouraged to bid on a wide variety of classroom baskets and teacher-led activities.

Mrs. Mattison, together with Mrs. Chambers, are putting up for auction an afterschool game time. Students will play, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? with us and enjoy some special treats. We're looking forward to it!

You will soon be receiving the Sharing Our Traditions homework. The children are to create a picture and/or a brief essay showing a family tradition.  We will be sharing these in class and displaying them in the hall.

As always, thank you for all your support!  Mrs. Lynda Mattison

Warm Readings to All!

Dear Parents,

December gives us so many opportunities to spend time together giving, sharing and celebrating. It's a wonderful month for reading aloud special stories holiday together. So, I'd like to offer you one of my favorite strategies to build language, creativity and critical thinking: QUESTIONING

Having your child ask questions that a book or story brings to mind before you begin reading lays an important foundation . It helps them set their own purposes for reading/listening and helps them verbally begin to interact with the ideas and pictures. Your attention to their questions tells them that what they think about is important.  As a child, I used to think  that the only important thing in a book was what the author wrote, but as a teacher I've learned that what children are bringing to the story before it starts is very important because it leads to what they carry away from the story.  You also want to encourage your child to ask questions as you read. This again, builds their interaction and involvement with the text, it's vocabulary and it's themes. They may simply ask what certain words mean or why a character would do something. Every question is a link for understanding. Finally, model for them asking questions after they read.  This takes them beyond the story and builds critical thinking skills. Personally, I feel our questions are extremely important in life. They lead us forward and help us build new understandings. Enrich your child with your own examples of questions and this will encourage them to create more of their own.

Happy Holiday ( and everyday) reading!

Mrs. Mattison

November's News is Weighty!

Fall's on our plates now, bringing the holidays we love. This time of year lends itself well to developing your child's language and skills for better understanding what weight's all about.

Here's how you can help develop the concept of measuring weight.

Talk about how weight is measured: with scales, in pounds and ounces. Show your child where food items tell their weight on each package, box or can.  Have them line up several items from heaviest to lightest.

Having turkey or ham for Thanksgiving? Many people purchase a weighty piece of meat to share with family and friends.  Let your child hold the packaged turkey or ham and guess its weight. Then, set them on the look-out for something that weighs about the same, weighs less and weighs more.

Don't forget the bathroom scale! Have your child study it to see how the numbers progress.  Ask them to tell you the numbers they see. Can they find something that weighs about 10 pounds, 20 pounds? How much do they weigh? What can they think of that weighs about the same?

Please send me notes sharing your child's discoveries about weight. I will be sure to give each one an opportunity to "teach" their peers all about it!

Happy Fall to All!

We have been working very hard this month.  Thank you so much for all your support and encouragement. Now, more on how you can help your child understand and build their thinking skills for measurement.

Using measurement in daily life involves making comparisons. This language takes practice to develop.

Start by modeling a comparison and then ask an open-ended question that allows your child to explore. For example, "A plate is heavier than a fork.  What can you find that is heavier than a plate?" 

Some basic terms to practice:

heavier and lighter, nearer and farther, younger and older, taller and shorter,

more and less, longer time and shorter time

Have fun extending your child's language of measurement!

How many ways can we measure September?

Measuring is a life skill that we use to count and compare. Understanding its language is key to applying this skill.  With measurement, much groundwork is laid early and September's blog is focused on ways to apply key words used for measurement around the home.

Here are a variety of discussions and activities you can do.  All of them will help with understanding measurement.

What shape is your dining room/kitchen table? Does it have straight edges? If so, help your child measure the dining room table to the nearest inch. If it is round, show them how to take a piece of yarn or string and walk around the edge with someone holding the beginning so you will have a piece of string that is as long as the table is round. After measuring write sentences that say what you did. Read these aloud and post them on the frig so you can find new things to measure and compare.  Is your bed longer than the kitchen table or shorter?  Is a knife shorter than a spoon? How about measuring a napkin? In the kitchen alone, there are many possibilities?

Can you line your family members up in order from shortest to tallest? Look at a ruler and make a guess how many inches tall you are, then measure and find out. 

You can use steps to measure and compare distances. Be sure to step one in front of the other.  How many steps from the kitchen sink to your bedroom?  Start at the sink again and find out how many steps to the front door?  Which was farther?

Key words to use and develop: taller, shorter, longer, wider, farther, ruler, inch, foot, yard, centimeter, meter, distance, length, width, height

Send me your great ideas for measurung and we'll post them on this blog!

Happy September!

Ready! Set! Go!

I am delighted to be back on the mountain with the joy of setting the stage for your children to learn every day. Each year, my blog has a learning focus and parents will find monthly activities and suggestions for how you can extend concepts your child is learning about at school. This year we will dramatically increase the use of language for math and writing about what we do in math. So get ready!

Check the blog early in September when our focus will be measurement. You can start using some of the key words now with your child; length (how long), width (how wide) and height (how tall). Here are some examples.

This table is long. Let's run our hand along its length.

Let's compare our hands. My hand is wider than your hand.

Stand next to me. My height is taller than your height. Who is the same height as you?

Send me some samples of your key word conversation and I'll post it in this blog.