Week Ending 9/27

Happy Friday!  It was good to see many of you at our Open House morning yesterday!  I thank you for being flexible and trying something new with us this year.  The students were very excited to see all of you and show off where they spend their days.  I look forward to a great year with all of them and as we work hard, be kind, push through challenges, and laugh along the way, I know they are going to grow so much.

Important information:

• Monday there is no school.
• Wednesday, October 9th, and Monday, October 14, there is also no school.  
• Please help us remind your children that Monday is library day so if they want to take out new books, they should be bringing the other books back.  

3, 2, 1 things you should know about our week...

3 read aloud we read were The Mightiest, Sheila Rae the Brave, and Arthur's Tooth.  We used to The Mightiest to focus on how we self monitor while reading.  As I read aloud, students listened to my think aloud on how to self monitor.  While reading we should be thinking about our pace, stopping at punctuation, sounding out words, rereading when confused, as well as working on strategies for understanding such as making connections and predictions.  They loved telling me when I was doing something I should be paying attention to and then they practiced this with their own books before sharing with their partner what they noticed.  We used the other two read aloud books to focus on making connections to the book.  For example, we focused on how Sheila Rae was brave and a time they were brave.  We also used these read aloud to help set us up for using our binders during reading workshop.  Many times after a read aloud and discussion students will write a response to that book or their own in their binder focusing on the skill we worked on.  It helps them apply the work right then and I can check for understanding.
**Ask your child which book they enjoyed reading this week.  

2 read workshop activities we worked on were choosing our small moment story topic and stretching our ideas.  We started by looking at all our brainstorming and deciding if the story idea was a big idea or a small idea.  If it was a big idea, we needed to do some more work to choose one small idea to write about.  If it was a small idea, we began telling our story to a partner over our fingers focusing on beginning, middle, and end.  Some of us even started our writing!
**Ask your child their topic for the small moment story they started during writing workshop.

1 fun activity we started this week was Team Time!  Friday afternoons we take about 15 minutes to work together as a team to accomplish a task.  It could be small groups or the class together but it's a time to practice listening skills, patience, being open to other ideas, and following directions.  Today we played Don't Wake the Dragon and they did a great job!  

Week ending 9/13/19

We've finished our first full week of school!  We've spent a lot of time these past two weeks reviewing classroom routines and expectations for students, teacher, and class subjects.  We'll continue working on this hard in September and when we take the time now, the rest of the year runs much smoother.

A few important things to remember:

• We have PE on Mondays and Thursdays so don't forget sneakers.  
• If your child is signing up for ASCA, please email me as well so I am aware.  
• On Mondays we have two specials so our snack/recess is in the afternoon.  We will however, have a quick working snack Monday am.  Please send in an additional small easy to eat snack.  Good choices would be pretzels, goldfish, a granola bar, etc.  Something that's quick and clean to eat.  If they can work or read while they snack, we'll keep it going each Monday.
• Please remember that the school opens at 8:20 and attendance is taken at 8:30, so being on time is very important!  Also, dismissal is at 3:00.  Please be on time to pick up your child.  If there is a change, please email me ahead of the day or call the office. Thanks for your help with this!
• There is an early release day on Thursday, Sept. 26th. Please plan for a 12:30 pick up.
• Also, please save Thursday, Sept. 26th for a morning open house in our classroom.  You'll arrive with your child in the morning, check out our classroom, and hear information related to our upcoming year.  We hope to see you then!

3, 2, 1 things about our room you should know...

3 read aloud we read this week were A Quiet Place, Going On a Book Hunt, and Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I Don't).  We use these books to think about our favorite place to read, how to decide if a book is just right for us, and to think about why we might choose a book (interest, characters we love, etc.).  

2 math activities we worked on this week was Today's Number and Do We Have 100? Today we worked with the number 7 and brainstorming different ways to show it.  They could write addition or subtraction sentences, show 7 with cubes or tally marks, or spell the word.  We also identified and counted coins, collecting pennies to get to 100 with our partner.  

Ask you child 2 different ways to show the number 7.

1 Fundations routine we started this week is Word of the Day.  When we do word of the day, we practice spelling words that fit our spelling focus and create sentences that fit the word.  We worked on the words rich and shred this week (both words with digraphs).  

Ask you child for a sentence using those words.  

We have begun setting up our reading workshop routine and so far so good!  Students have decorated their book bags and have chosen their first books!  

We started morning bins this week!  It's a great way for students to get in the room, start working on an activity, while encouraging creativity and team work.

 

Week Ending 9/6/19

We've had a great first week back to school!  We've spent this week getting to know each other, learning the classroom routines, figuring out where materials are located, and getting back into school mode!

If your house is like our house, the first week of school can be busy and everyone is going in different directions.  We spent last weekend going over the first week of school for my daughter, talking about what went well and what she was looking forward to. I encourage you to spend some time this weekend talking about school and encouraging them to look forward to a great year!

Here's some info you need about our class...

• We'll be focusing this month, and all year of course, on setting routines, expectations, and building independence. 
• During morning meeting and closing circle we are learning more and more about each other and are learning to work together as a class.  
• We started math and are focusing on identifying all the different ways smaller shapes fit in a larger shape and identifying coins and their value.  
• During reading workshop we started recording our reading stamina and reviewing letter sounds.
• Don't forget to let me know if there's any dismissal changes by sending a note in with your child and reminding them to pass it in when they arrive.  
• We have snack every day so please send in a healthy snack and please keep nuts at home.  
• We have physical education  on Monday and Thursday.  Be sure your child has sneakers for those days.  
• Library is on Mondays.
• We wrote about our week and have put it in our folder so please pull it out and see!

Here's a few pics of our math work yesterday morning: