Line Creek, Prairie Point and  Union Chapel
ESL Newsletter
OCTOBER 2001
Explorers

 

Last month was such a shock for all of us.  The terrorist act was so unexpected.  It made us all pause and reflect on the things we sometimes take for granted.

Our country, surroundings, home and family were threatened in a way that I had never imagined. My heart goes out to those families in New York and Washington DC.
  Their sadness affects the whole nation.

 
 

Since so many of my students did not understand the symbolism of the world trade center and did not know about the pentagon, we discussed symbols of America.

We also discussed different military branches in the United States.
(a brief description is found in May-Memorial Day)
Stanford 9 Testing also occurred for students in grades 2-5

Therefore the homes unit has been extended into October.
It is a high interest topic because the students love to share their pictures and they learn from each other.
I am always so impressed when my students don't have words for certain items but after our discussions and readings they are using the vocabulary that has been introduced.
I marvel at your children's abilities.

When we begin October's unit we will discuss the voyages of Christopher Columbus and  the influence he had in regards to Europeans coming to the "New World."  We will learn how America got its name.  We will discuss how explorers influenced the colonization of the United States and discuss cause and effect.   We will practice writing friendly letters and of course for the younger ones practice learning our letters. We will make a timeline of our lives and look at the timeline of explorers in America.   We will also discuss directions, a compass, ships, other explorers and decide and write about a place students would like to explore.  We will practice retelling the story of Columbus with puppets on a stick.  Some of my students will decide what items Columbus took on the trip and some students will count items. We will discuss singular and plural words.  We will work on sound and letter association with vowels, consonants and blends.

My older students will become acquainted with longitude and latitude, prime meridian and the international dateline.  They will be able to tell us about and locate the equator and and name the oceans and continents. Some of us will write a biography of a real explorer, some of us will write and illustrate a newspaper article and some of us will decide which items  were taken on the ship and label parts of a ship.  We will learn about an Almanac and an Atlas too.
There is a wonderful link on the internet called Little Explorers so you and your children can explore the letters of the alphabet and learn new things.
I hope those who have computers have checked my web pages.

http://www.parkhill.k12.mo.us

All my schools have my web pages connected to their school sites now.  Each web master has a different access after you click on their home page.

Line Creek's ESL page can be found at the top of  Line Creek's web page.  After you click on ESL click on ESL news. It will open to my page.

Union Chapel's ESL page can be found under Faculty and Staff on Union Chapels web pages.
At the top of that page you will see Classiest by Far
Click on Classiest and you will find
Kathy Hutchinson
Click on Kathy Hutchinson and you will be at my web page

Prairie Point is under staff and class newsletters.
Then click on Kathy Hutchinson
Then click on ESL News

If you have a problem pulling up the page let me know.
My page is blue.  It has many useful links at the bottom of the page.

ALWAYS be sure that you explore the web pages with your children.
At school we have blocks to unsafe pages.  At home they may unknowingly find an unsafe site.
Your supervision can keep that from happening.

Later in the month on Halloween classroom teachers will have a costume party in their classroom.

Students can dress up as someone else such as a story book character or an animal or an occupation or an object.  I plan to be a clown this year.  In previous years I have been a witch, a bee, an indian, a skeleton, a baby, Uncle Sam, a pumpkin, a coke can, a gypsy, a cowgirl and a mouse.  Just use your imagination. Wal Mart and K-Mart also have costumes if you don't want to make your own.  Candy and cookies and cupcakes are usually served in the classrooms and children play games.  If you need more information click on Halloween on the calendar on my web site. I have tried to explain the custom.
 
 
 
 
 

As always I am always interested in helping your child.

Kathy Hutchinson
ESL teacher