Weekly Update 12/14/15 - 12/18/15 and Small Group Opportunity

Two more weeks till He arrives, and one more week of school! Although, you would hardly know it given the beautiful 70 degree weather we had this weekend.

This week we will be wrapping up much of our work -- publishing letters, taking our end-of-unit math assessment, and wrapping up our work with non-fiction books. Please partner with us in encouraging your children to "finish strong" in these last few days!

We have a few additional items on our schedule this week that we'd like you to take note of:

• On Thursday, December 17th we will visit the Big Map with Mr. Smith for a second time. It was a hit last Friday and we're sure that with a bit more knowledge in our back pockets about North America, this second visit will be even better. Plus, taking your shoes off amplifies the fun. 

• Please join us on Friday, December 18th at 2:00 for Lessons and Carols in the gym. It is always a wonderful service and a beautiful conclusion to this portion of the year, as well as a perfect entry to the holiday season. 

Lastly, we want to draw your attention to an upcoming small group opportunity. We hope you have had a moment to meet Caroline Black, Trinity's Guidance Counselor, who has been a wonderful addition to our community. Caroline will be helping facilitate a small group in the new year called Child Parent Relationship Training (CPRT).

The group is designed to help parents with the following:

• Reducing problem behaviors utilizing limit setting and choice giving techniques
• Developing responsibility and self-control in children
• Increasing children's self esteem and self confidence
• Increasing parents' feelings of warmth for their children
• Communicating more effectively with your child

The program will run for 10 weeks starting in January and will be held every Thursday, starting January 14th, from 6:30-8:30. Should you have more questions regarding program content, cost, or other logistics, please don't hesitate to contact us or Caroline Black (cblack@tescharlotte.org) for further information.

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We wish you a festive, merry, and joyful last week of school before the break -- and hope to see each of you before the holiday begins!

Photos of the Week

Thank you to the many who came to join us this week during our exciting festivities! Tuesday was an incredible celebration at First Ward Park, and I know we all left feeling quite proud to be a member of the Trinity Episcopal School Community. We wanted to share a few photos with you that we took this week -- as it was quite an exciting one!

We hope you heard raving reviews about Ella's Big Chance! It truly was a fabulous show. No pictures inside the theater, so nothing to share on that front. However, the class was all smiles departing from ImaginOn and we enjoyed an opportunity to see one of Mrs. Postle's close friends perform.

Hour of Code was a hit! After getting started, we are pretty sure the class could have kept coding for much more than an hour. Thank you to Mr. Thorton and his students who helped us navigate. Should you be interested, please check out code.org with your child for more coding opportunities. From here, you can set up a personal account and create your own programs. Yesterday's program focused on Star Wars, but there are many other creations online that we welcome you and your children to explore. We have a feeling they would be eager to do so after yesterday afternoon! Take a look at some pictures below. Partnering with Middle School was a bonus!

We wish you a happy and restful weekend! 

Enrichment Updates

Art

The second grade artists have been working hard in the art studio.  They continue to find ways to express their ideas through each new piece they create.  In addition to our “normal” explorations, the second graders worked with a group of 8th graders to create one of the nine nutcrackers that are on display at 7th Street Public Market.  Here is the artist statement that is on display with the work:

Creating Scholars through the Arts

Collaborative effort: 8th grade Art Expo class and all 2nd graders

Both the visual and performing arts are a part of every student's life at Trinity Episcopal School. From kindergarten to 8th grade, students are exposed to music, dance, drama through the performing arts department.  From the youngest singing songs for the community at chapel to the oldest honing their acting skills on stage in musicals and plays, the days at Trinity are always filled with music, movement and dramatic play.  Additionally, students get weekly visits to the art studio to explore creative expression through a variety of student-driven ideas.  They can work on their drawing skills, learn how to watercolor, explore all that collage has to offer, build a replica of their favorite Charlotte landmark and even learn the ins and outs of woodworking and metal sculpting.  The colorful and musical base was created by the 8th grade Art Expo class and the 2nd grade artists added their ideas through music notes, art materials and drama masks (take a minute to read some, you will not be disappointed!).  

What to know what happens on a day-to-day basis in the Art Studio at Trinity?  Check out this story on our blog to get a little taste of what amazing things can happen when students create work that is meaningful and personal.  Although the story is about 5th graders, you can imagine what the creative 2nd grade artists would come up with.  As always, feel free to come visit to see everything in action! 

Thanks,

Jen Rankey and Mary Ann O’Sullivan

P.S.  Don’t forget the subscribe the the Art Department Blog (tesartdepartment.wordpress.com) and follow us on Twitter (@tesarttab1) to keep up with all the wonderful things happening!

Faith Studies

The Israelites have now arrived at the promised land and Joshua has helped them win many battles. Now the judges are guiding the people against the enemies of the Israelites as well as helping them to stay faithful to God.  We will complete the month with the book of Ruth. A most important book for our time of Advent. Please ask your children why!

See you at Lessons and Carols on the 18th.  

Spanish

Second graders have been working about biomes comparing words about habitats. They match names and words with pictures to read simple phrases about this topic. Students are developing listening and speaking skills with stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood". They repeat main vocabulary words and rhymes that help them remember topics like: food, clothes and family members.

http://tesguerrero.weebly.com/

Please click on your child’s grade level.

Music

This month, our 2nd grader musicians will continue to review basics of music. We have been introducing writing music using pitches. We will be reviewing the story of the Nutcracker as well as delve deeper into the concepts of movement to tell a story. We will learn how to play and use a dreidel and review our own holiday experiences. Our actors will begin blocking and process of the 2nd grade musical and once we return from break, we will be in full 2nd Grade Musical runs and the performance will be in January.  

Mrs. Postle

Weekly Update 12/7/15 - 12/11/15

Brace yourselves for the week ahead! Today marks our only "normal" day as we have event after event in the upcoming days. Mark your calendars!

• On Tuesday, December 8th, we will join the greater community to help open 1st Ward Park. We will depart from Trinity around 9:45, walk to the park and sing in celebration of the new park opening. Kindergarten students worked hard last year to plan for a new park, and now their work is coming to fruition. We look forward to this unique experience tomorrow! 
• On Wednesday, December 9th we will walk to the Children's Theater to see "Ella's Big Chance." The play is at 9:30 and will be our first trip to the Children's Theater.
• Mr. Thorton will be leading us in an Hour of Code on Thursday, December 10th and to be quite honest, we aren't quite sure what this will have in store for us, but be sure to ask your children what they learn during this time. 
• Our final event this week will be Friday, December 11th downstairs with Mr. Grady -- the Big Map! We'll be exploring North America and trust that Mr. Grady has a great afternoon planned. 

Whew! While all of this is going on, we'll continue forward with our units across the board. In Reader's, we are focusing on non-fiction and hope that you've noticed some non-fiction interest in your children at home. During our latest trip to ImaginOn, we encouraged everyone to select one non-fiction book in addition to their other selections. We've steered students towards the non-fiction section of our library and are continuing to learn about how to read non-fiction books during mini lessons. Much of this learning will be put into active practice when we return to school in January. 

Writer's Workshop continues to focus on persuasive letters, but we have shifted to a focus on the rain forest. After learning about deforestation during Storypath, students now have an understanding of the causes of deforestation. Coupled with their knowledge of rain forest gifts, we are excited to see how these letters turn out and look forward to mailing them out. 

We will conclude Unit 3 of Investigations in math before Christmas break and have been talking about even and odd numbers during the past week. This week, we'll dive into place value as a way to better understand bigger numbers. "Fun Friday" has become a bit of a routine in the classroom with various math games taking place, and we hope you have heard positive reviews about these exciting afternoons! 

In case you missed it, we stopped by 7th Street Market after our visit to ImaginOn and caught a glimpse of the Trinity Nutcrackers that are currently on display. We walked in just as they were being rolled out of storage and were able to help select spots for the nutcrackers. If you have not already, we encourage you to stop by the market and see the creative work of Trinity Wildcats!

We hope the Christmas and holiday spirit is finding its way into your homes -- it is certainly bursting through the doors here every morning and we couldn't be more grateful. 

Enrichment updates will be posted later this week, but in the meantime, we wish you a week just as exciting as ours!

Discovery Place: Rain Forest Edition!

Welcome back! We hope you all enjoying a long weekend, time with family, and the Thanksgiving holiday. While we are sure you heard many a story from our exciting trip to Discovery Place last Tuesday, we wanted to share a few pictures with you. 

Our first stop was the Rain Forest Exhibit, where we were able to share our knowledge regarding the different layers of the rain forest, and where we were able to learn a bit more from Mr. Stevens. We were both very impressed and proud of all the information our second graders have retained! We were also given the chance to see and feel what a real rain forest is like -- "It's SO humid!," we heard as we opened the doors to exhibit. And it sure was! We spotted many different animals, saw plants reaching tall into the canopy layer, and were excited to make our learning visible. 

What's a visit to Discovery Place without a little fun upstairs? Following a viewing of Rat Basketball (Go Blue!), we spent a while playing together on the many different machines and in the stations set up for exploration and learning. We enjoyed seeing this class work together, play together, and laugh together. It set us up just perfectly for the break! 

More fun awaits -- and the haul to Christmas begins!