Happy New Year, Cocoplum Families!
I hope you have had a wonderful holiday break. We are excited to jump back into the swing of things in the Cocoplum classroom. Our biggest news is the coffee shop. We will be dedicating a lot of time in the beginning, making our business a success. Each day we will be graphing and reflecting on sales and lessons we’ve learned that day. Thank you for supporting us in this new learning adventure!
A friendly reminder that all students will be training in and working the first week back at school, starting on January 7. Please make sure your child arrives at school by 7:30 a.m. and meets us in the classroom. We are learning great responsibilities, just like a real job.
In December, we enjoyed our local poet laureate, Arlo, and the funky musicians, Huck and Lily. Both visiting guests helped us with our writing skills. We even wrote a poem and song together!
Our afternoon work cycle went really well in December. We have more fun planned for January:
Monday: We will continue Literature Circle in January, where we delve deeper into literary terms such as summarizing, critical thinking questions, set up, problem, climax, solution, and conclusion of a story. Literature Circle goes hand in hand with and has helped us become better writers during our Writer’s Workshop story writing.
We will also start Spanish lessons with Ms. Jennifer on Mondays.
Tuesday: We look forward to starting our new self-paced Reading curriculum, SRA. Our SRA curriculum will help us develop comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, word analysis, and study skills. It will also help to reinforce specific skills that students may show weakness. It will also help to interest students in reading and to enlarge their specific knowledge, using a wide array of fiction and nonfiction stories. Students will answer 33 literary questions (comprehension, vocabulary, and word study) after reading each SRA story. This is a fantastic tool for the Montessori child to help bridge the gap to a more traditional Reading program. We will also help bridge a traditional school math approach by using math cards, similar to last year.
We continue to have PE on Tuesdays.
Wednesday: We are using our debate in Storyworks to have a Socratic discussion. Socratic discussions are thoughtfully orchestrated to listen to everybody’s viewpoint in a constructive manner. We listen to opinions and evidence and respond thoughtfully.
We also have Drama with Ms. Caroline on Wednesdays.
Thursday: We have been doing STEM, which teaches creativity, cooperation, and communication. We are excited to have the third years join us and help us with our creative problem solving.
We will start music with Ms. Ann on Thursdays.
Friday: We will wrap up our busy week. If your child was absent, they will receive their missed lessons. Students receive one-on-one lessons as needed. Self-paced work can be completed during this time as well.
We continue to have PE on Fridays.
Ms. Ann is also joining us in the afternoons to do one-on-one math help and extensions.
Here is a more in-depth look at our day from the sixth-year students:
“Hello, my name is Caber and I’m here to give you some information on what your child is doing during PE or physical education. First, we jump rope for around 10 minutes. We do these kinds of jump ropes: forwards, backwards, one footed on left and then on the right foot, high knees, butt kicks, crosses, and the double jump. We are throwing the football and doing spirals. We pass the ball to practice our spiral training. Then after jumping rope we learn basketball skills. We pass the ball, we dribble, we do layups and drills for basketball. In my opinion this is one of my favorite subjects but some others’ answers may be different.”
“The Cocoplum class came together (with the help of Ms. Amy and Mr./Dr./Financial Joe) to start a coffee shop. We needed a name for our shop and came up with Cocoplum’s Coffee & More. We brainstormed five name ideas to choose from: Coconut Coffee, Cocoplum Coffee, Children’s Coffee, Montessori Coffee, and Cocoplum’s Coffee & More (we chose the best one out of all of them). We (Stellina, Samara, and Hunter) drew three logos and as a class we voted and picked one of them. Our logos looked like this: a coffee with whip cream on top, one Cocoplum in a mug, and a Cocoplum tree inside of a coffee mug. We chose the last one to be our logo. We picked jobs that would be best fitting for the type of person we are. Stellina is the CEO of the shop, Samara is the CEO’s assistant, Caber is the treasurer, Mason is the treasurer’s assistant, Hunter is the secretary, and Noah and Kaia are the managers. We are all pretty happy with our jobs. The Cocoplums worked hard to put together the shop and we would love it if you came to our opening day, which is January 7, 2020, from 8:00 to 8:30 a.m. Cocoplum’s Coffee & More will be open every morning before school for the rest of the school year. We hope you can make it sometime!”
—Stellina
Please visit our Amazon Wish List for this year’s fundraiser gift basket. The theme of the gift basket is “Adventure!” If possible, please choose items for the gift basket and bring them to school no later than January 27. Please let me know which items you have purchased so I can take them off of the wish list (I’m not sure if it works like a registry). Also, we would love to add to the basket gift cards or certificates for “adventures” around Key West like Fury parasailing, sporting lessons, or any adventure ideas that you may have! If you have an idea, I would love to hear about it and add it to the basket. Thanks!
Also, we are looking for donations for making bread: bread flour, active dry yeast, milk powder, and olive oil. Each student will have a lesson on reading a manual, following step-by-step directions, and troubleshooting. All great life lessons.
We are excited to see all the Cocoplums Tuesday at 7:30 a.m.!
Sincerely,
Ashleigh
