Miss Pollack's Kindergarten
Classroom Newsletter
Final Smore
It is hard to believe that this is the final newsletter I will be sending you for this year. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for multiple things this year! First and foremost, thank you for your patience and trust in the beginning of the year. I am sure it was scary to be getting the "new" teacher last minute and your open-mindedness was much appreciated! It made my life much less stressful and easy knowing that I had your support. Also, thank you for all of the work that you have put in with your children at home. Hopefully we didn't send home too much homework and I can definitely see the results in school of the time put in outside of school. And lastly, thank you for sharing your children with me. Watching them grow as students and people has been such an amazing experience. I got to go through all of my kindergarten "firsts" right along with your children so this class will always have an extra special spot in my heart!
A few things to keep in mind as we wrap up the year...
**Please return library books ASAP. They are due tomorrow.
*I will be sending final guided reading books home tomorrow. Please send all guided reading books back by Monday.
*Please check backpacks and folders daily as we will be sending lots of things home over the next few days!
Monday 5/21- Wacky Hair Day
Tuesday 5/22- Report Cards Home. Field Day. If you are interested in helping please sign up or let me know!
Wednesday 5/23- Year End Clean-Up Day
Thursday 5/24- All school field trip to the movies. Pizza lunch and final afternoon as kindergartners :)
April 26, 2017
Hello Parents!
Hard to believe there are only a few short weeks left until summer break! A few things to keep in mind as we approach our last day of school...
*ABC Countdown: Please check daily so your child can participate in the fun!
*Sight Words: Please continue to practice these daily. These are extremely important for your child to know and we have found that the more they know the more fluently they can read.
*Field Trip: May 7th is our field trip to the DuPage Children's Museum. Please make sure to pack a sack lunch in a container that can be thrown away at the end of lunch.
*Assessments: I am beginning to assess students for Trimester 3 report cards. I will do my best to get guided reading in but I may send your child home with a book that he/she has not read with me. If they seem to need more help with a book than usual that will likely be the reason!
*Lexia: I know many of you already are using Lexia at home but I sent home an extra copy of you child's login information. This will be a great tool to use over the summer to help avoid the "summer slide." If your child is not currently using Lexia at home you may want to give it a try! We have seen some really great growth in reading from using the program.
Reading and Writing: We have finished up with opinion writing and are now reviewing narrative writing. This will be the first unit of writing in 1st grade. Next week we will read some books from the Pigeon series by Mo Willems and complete comprehension activities with them. These books are also great for teaching students about including details such as speech bubbles in their writing.
April 6, 2018
I want to start by celebrating the fact that we have won our new "lunchroom competition" three days in a row! Our class has been the quickest and quietest when getting ready to line up. As a celebration we will be having lunch and a movie in the classroom on Tuesday. The students will still be able to get hot lunch.
Please note that I sent home talent show permission slips in the folders today. The due date says April 6th, but if your child would like to participate please bring it in Monday or Tuesday. I apologize that they did not come home sooner!
DOJO Changes
I have decided that the class will be switching to a whole classroom only reward system. Before we were using a whole-classroom and individual systems. The ultimate goal with any reward system is to teach the students expectations and fade this support to the point where they are motivated to do what they're supposed to do because it makes them feel good and confident as a person. I have seen an awesome response with the fading of DOJO and the use of the gem jar. Also, pointing out the students who are meeting expectations and following the rules has been great for encouraging the other students to join them. If I see that there is a need to use DOJO again, I will let you know! They're also very motivated by the idea that we are really getting ready for 1st grade right now :)
Special Reading Moment
This week the students all had a very special moment in the library, which was also a very proud teacher moment, that I wanted to share with you. I have been working hard in the library about book selection by looking at pictures to see if it looks interesting and, more recently, looking at words to see if they can read it. There were a few kiddos that had an "aha moment" in which they realized they can actually READ the library books they are checking out. The excitement and enthusiasm spread like wildfire through the class. As a result Mrs. Love and I have decided to let the students check out more than one book AND check out more often. If they finish a book they will be able to check out another as soon as they bring it back. We will continue our weekly library time on Thursdays but we wanted to make sure that their excitement and love for reading is encouraged!
Math, Reading, Writing, and Science
We started our new math unit this week. We are working on counting in terms of ones and tens. While we work on this unit we will also continue our practice with number bonds, addition, and subtraction. We will be finishing up our opinion writing unit next week. With this week being poetry month we will take some time to explore poetry writing and reading. We will also continue working on inquiry with sea turtles. Now that questions have been formulated we will work on answering them as a large group and in small groups. Our small groups will be presenting and teaching the class about the questions they had and the answers that they found. Pretty amazing that we are doing this all in a kindergarten classroom but they are ready for it!
March 16, 2017
Sorry for the delay in sending this newsletter out and thank you for coming to conferences! I enjoyed spending time talking about how your children are growing as students. I talked to most of you about what we have been doing in the classroom but here is a little recap of what we have been doing and an update about what we will be doing next!
Also, please don't forget to submit the field trip permission forms at your earliest convenience! I have two chaperones but am looking for a third if anyone is interested.
Writing: We are continuing with our opinion writing unit. The students are currently working on writing letters to express their opinion on things that should change in the classroom. Part of this process is to brainstorm a problem, solution, and three reasons to support their opinion. Next we will work on ways to make the school a better place and how to write/ express our opinions through creating posters and petitions.
Reading: This past week we have been reading Irish and St. Patrick's Day themed books. The students completed writing activities related to the books. On Thursday we read How to Catch a Leprechaun and the students completed a writing activity on how they would catch a leprechaun and created leprechaun traps. They were very creative in completing their traps and enjoyed the activity! As always we are working on comprehension and decoding strategies during our large group read alouds and guided reading.
Social Studies: When we return from spring break we will begin a new social studies unit. The social studies curriculum will be inquiry based and student led. We will be covering the topic of: what are the roles of people in authority, which is one of the social studies standards that have been newly released. We will start this unit by presenting the students with pictures of our principal, a police officer, a judge, and one of a mom and dad. The students will take time to develop questions based on these pictures to guide their learning. I will be teaching them about statements vs. questions and what makes a question open-ended vs. close-ended. They will also be learning about how to answer their own questions through research and how to determine if a source is a good one or a bad one. I am very excited about introducing them to this inquiry based way of thinking and I can't wait to see where they take it!
Math: We are wrapping up our addition and subtraction unit but will continue to work on math fact fluency through the end of the year. I was happy to hear so many of the kids are enjoying our current math unit, thank you for that feedback! Next week we will finish up this our current unit and I will be assessing the students. Our next unit will writing numbers 11-20, counting to 100, and thinking of number in terms of tens and ones. More information on Module 5 to come! A parent letter was sent home yesterday with tips for the newest module.
February 22, 20
Thank you for your patience during this latest round of assessments! Report cards will come home Thursday and I am happy to report everyone is growing both academically and socially in the classroom. In the report card there will be a sheet that has your child's Fountas and Pinnell reading level. There is an explanation about what this level means but if you have any other questions please let me know. Please note, that while it says that students are assessed 3 times per year, kindergartners are only assessed at trimester 2 and trimester 3.
In the homework you will find a math fact fluency page. This is a timed activity and you should see how many your child can accurately complete in 3 minutes. Some will complete them quicker and some may not finish all of them. The more practice they get with completing these math fluency fact sheets the quicker they will be able to finish them. They have been taught multiple ways to complete these problems including using their fingers or drawing dots on the paper. The ultimate goal is for them to be able to just look at the problem and quickly answer it, which many of your children are already able to do!
Please continue to work on sight words daily. Being able to quickly recognize the sight word is very important for reading at this age!
Reading: In reading we learned about Abe Lincoln, President's Day, and talked about government. We have also been doing some Dr. Seuss activities to celebrate his birthday and will continue with Dr. Seuss books next week. Rhyming is a big theme in these activities. Starting yesterday we are getting back into guided reading and the kiddos seemed to pick up right where we left off!
Writing: We have officially wrapped up our how-to unit and will be moving onto opinion writing. We are starting by learning the difference between a fact and an opinion, brainstorming "problems" that need to be solved, and writing about these problems and solutions using various forms of print. These forms include posters, letters, and books. I am sure this will be an exciting unit for them as we know the have MANY opinions on many things!
Math: We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction through ten. We have been working on subtraction and addition word problems and writing number sentences to solve the word problems. The grade that you see on the report card is for the first half of this unit. In trimester three you will see the final grade for this unit.
Dates and Things to Know:
Thursday, March 1: Open House, Book Fair, and Ice Cream Social, 6:30-8:00
Friday, March 2: No School- County Wide School Improvement Day
Monday, March 5: Online Conference Scheduler Opens
Thursday, March 15: 1/2 Day of School, PT Conferences 3:00- 8:00
Friday, March 16: PT Conferences 11:00- 4:00
February 7, 2018
Hello Parents!
We had a wonderful and busy 100’s day celebration last week! Thank you for sending in the projects, the students enjoyed both presenting them and watching the presentations!
I am beginning to assess for the upcoming report cards, so the guided reading folders will not be coming home as often over the next week or two. The majority of our kindergarten assessments are given 1:1 and the time I typically spend doing guided reading is one of the best times for me to assess. I just wanted to give you the heads up as to why you may not be getting books as often!
In reading last week we read Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester. We completed a retelling activity, we predicted what would happen next in the book, and were also able to tie in some social emotional conversations about how being yourself and about being unique. This week the are reading The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Marcus Pinkwater, which allowed us to continue our conversation about being unique. The students will be making connections with of these books by thinking about what makes them unique and writing about it. We are also making text to text connections and talking about the common themes in them. The students completed a creative writing activity in which they thought drew a picture and wrote about the kind of house they would want to live in if they were the main character of The Big Orange Splot.
In math we are continuing our work with addition and subtraction using number bonds. I have introduced word problems and writing equations this week. These are all difficult concepts and I see all of the kiddos working hard to understand it. I have seen lots of “light bulbs” going off across the room during math time so I know we are getting to where we need to be as a class! We will continue to work on all of these concepts into next week and I will be assessing where the students are at with them next week. If you want to try at home you can give them tell them simple word problems such as: "there were three dogs playing fetch at the park and two dogs on a walk at the park. How many dogs were there all together?" We are currently working on writing a number sentence for these problems. They may draw a number bond or pictures in order to complete the number sentence, as everyone has learned various strategies and have been using whichever they prefer!
During our writing time we are continuing to work on writing “how-to” books. They are working multi-page books that have a title page, material list, step-by-step numbered pages teaching how to do something, and a conclusion. Some of their self-selected topics have been: how to get lunch, how to train a dog, how to make a present, and how to make s’mores in the oven.
Social Emotional: We have been working on various methods for kids to use when they need to calm themselves down and/ or get themselves ready to learn. A few of these are lions breath, pinwheel breathing, yoga poses, and deep breathing. We have also been practicing a “thumb check” that helps students to identify how they are feeling in a given moment. They can give thumbs up when they are feeling good/happy/calm, thumbs sideways when they are just feeling okay or maybe a little tired, and thumbs down when they are sad/angry/sick. When the students identify their feelings they can better figure out how to manage them.
Please remember that there is no school February 19th for President's Day weekend!
January 22, 2018
Hello Parents!
Sorry for the delay in getting this newsletter to you but I hope you all had a wonderful winter break!
Math: In math we are beginning to learn about number bonds and decomposing and composing numbers up to ten. This will lay the foundation for learning how to add and subtract to ten, as well as teach number sense. See the link below for more information on our current math unit.
Reading: Since we have come back from break we have completed a book study on The Snowy Day by Jack Ezra Keets and focused on visualizing, connecting, and retelling to understand the book. We also talked about Martin Luther King Jr. and the importance of why we celebrate him. This week we will combine reading with science to study polar bears by reading the book Ice Bear by Nicola Davies and Gary Blythe. We will talk about how we learn information from books, making connections, and we will complete a science experiment. I would also like to take a moment to thank you for all of the work that you are doing with your children at home in regards to reading. They have grown so much as readers and you have all helped so much in this process!
Writing: We have started a multi-week unit on writing how-to books. Our focus will be writing books with a materials list, step by step instructions that are labeled with numbers, using "expert" language within out writing, and a topic page. As always, we will continue to work on our illustrations by adding details, writing out words and sentences, and using proper sentence structure. We will also be writing how-to books as a class and once completed, we will try to "follow" our own steps to see if our books gave good directions! We are currently writing a class book about how to make mudpies. Our next class book will be how to make oobleck.
SEL: We will focus on relearning the rules and expectations the first few weeks back from break. As part of this review we will revisit the Bucket Filling/ Dipping concepts and what it means to be a good friend in general.
Reminders:
*Please send snack with your child daily.
*If there is snow on the ground your child will need snow boots AND snow pants to play in the snow. If you would like for your child to leave extra shoes, boots, or pants at school please feel free to do so!
*Our specials schedule has changed a bit and our PE days are now Monday and Friday. If your child does not wear gym shoes to school on those days please send them in your child's backpack.
*January 29th will be a school Spirit Day so please send your child in their spirit wear or any red clothes that they might have.
December 11, 2017
Hello Parents!
There are a few new things that I wanted to let you know about. First and foremost, we will be going outside for recess unless the temperature is very low and the principal decides that it is not safe for the students to be outside. Please make sure to dress your child accordingly.
You should have received a list of sight words, along with a parent letter, in your child's red folder today. Beginning December I will start monitoring student's progress with learning sight words. Each month I will send a new list of sight words that will be worked on and that I hope you will work with you child on at home. These words will be assessed at the end of the month, and again when we are doing assessments for report cards. When your child learns these high frequency words it is easier for them to read and read fluently. I know this seems a lot so just have your child do their best and we know that we are working on them in school as well!
I have also decided to change Class DOJO up a bit! It seems to have lost some of its luster and the students aren't as motivated as they once were for it. We are going to start earning DOJO Bucks. It will work just like the DOJO computer program that I currently use but they will be getting a tangible "dollar" to save for the store. I am hoping by giving them something tangible and immediate the students will be more motivated to earn something by following the rules and directions. With three full weeks until break I know that they will need a little extra something to help them with this! We will continue the store as usual and I will be adding coupons to the store to do various jobs since they seem to enjoy doing that so much.
Here is a quick look at what we will be doing through the month of December...
Reading: This week we are reading various versions of The Gingerbread Man stories. We are talking about problem and solution within a book we read and a book we write. Reading will combine with our Holidays Around the World social studies unit.
Writing: In writing we are continuing to work on fictional writing. Within our writing we are working on sounding words out, having a beginning, middle, and end, having a setting and characters in that make sense, and having a problem and solution in our books. Students will be setting goals this week for their writing. Some examples of goals would be: I can write the whole time, I can tell my story with pictures and words, and I can add spaces and punctuation. I will be working individually with children to set these goals.
Math: We have been working on measuring and comparing using non-standard units of measurement (unifix cubes, counting bears, etc.) for weight, length, and height. We are moving on to comparing quantities using the terms, enough, not enough, too much, equal, more than, and less than. We will then move on to comparing numbers using more than, less than, and equal.
Social Studies: Social studies will combine with reading for the last two weeks of December to explore holiday traditions around the world. Some of the countries we will study are Mexico, Israel, and India. I will be sending home an OPTIONAL project for your family to complete together about your holiday tradition. If you would like to complete this project there will be opportunities for your child to share their project before we go on winter break. There will be more to follow about this!
November 17, 2017
It is hard to believe that we are already going into parent teacher conferences and our Thanksgiving break! Here's what we have been up to the past couple of weeks...
Reading
We are continuing to focus on comprehension during reading. We are currently working on making predictions and connections with the stories we read. Being able to identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story will be something that we work on throughout the rest of the year. During our reading block we read the stories Wemberly Worried, Scaredy Squirrel, Turkey Trouble, and various books about Thanksgiving.
Writing
We are continuing to work on personal narratives. Students are working on understanding what a setting is and making sure the characters match the setting. We are working on stretching out words to try write them. We are also working on correctly forming letters. If you are working with your children on writing letters at home please double check that they are writing their letters from top down. You can ask them when to start their letters and they should be able to tell you "at the top."
Math
We have started our measuring unit. We have been measuring to determine whether an object is shorter, taller, or longer than a given object. This past week we began measuring using non-standard units of measurement using unifix cubes. I shared a video on Seesaw of your kiddos in action. Our half hour lesson turned into over an hour because they were so engaged and excited about measuring various items in our room! Next week we will move on the measuring heavier and lighter.
Social Studies
In social studies we have been talking about why we celebrate different events and people. We studies Native Americans, Pilgrims, and why we celebrate Thanksgiving. We also talked about what we are Thankful for.
Next month we will studying holidays around the world, completing a book study on The Gingerbread Man and we will continue to work on measurement and fictional narratives.
October 27, 2017
We had a fantastic time at the field trip this week! Thank you again to the chaperones for donating your time and to the many parents that offered to come as well. If you were unable to help with time there will be more opportunities in the future!
You should have received an email about signing up for the Seesaw app. If you have not done so already, please read this email and sign up to see pictures and videos of your child hard at work. I am very excited to be able to use this as a communication tool and to provide you with an opportunity to "step into the classroom" and see what your child does during the day!
If you have not been getting guided reading books home there is a good reason! I am currently assessing students for report cards and parent teacher conferences. Because most of the assessments are given one-on-one I have been using my guided reading time to complete them. I apologize that I did not communicate this sooner and wanted to make sure you knew why they aren't coming home. I was able to send home books with a few groups this week and will get to the other groups next week.
Here's what we have been working on...
Math: In math we are working on shapes. The flat (2-d) shapes we have focused on are rectangles, squares, circles, hexagons, and triangles. We are working on describing them (curves/no curves, how many sides) and recognizing them in various forms. Solid shapes (3-d) were introduced today. We are focusing on the cone, cube, cylinder, and sphere shape. We will learn to identify if they have faces (flat side) or do not have faces. We will compare and contrast the flat and solid shapes. We are also working on the positional concepts: below, above, next to, in front of, beside, and behind. I will be assessing these concepts next week. One fun way to work at home with your child is to play "I Spy" with the different shapes or positional words.
Reading & Science: We have been reading the story Pumpkin Jack this week. It teaches us about the life cycle of a pumpkin (seed, sprout, plant, blossom, green pumpkin, orange pumpkin) and about how pumpkins rot, which we will be observing first hand at school. We have been working on character identification and prediction during our read alouds.
Social Emotional Learning: We are working on identifying feelings (sad, happy, angry/ mad, frustrated, excited) and what to do when we are feeling a certain way and "want to change the way we feel" as one of the students put it so well! My hope is to create an area where children have some tools to self select when they need a minute to get them to a place where they feel calm and ready to learn. I also hope that students will learn to regulate their emotions in a meaningful way outside of the classroom as well.
Writing: We are continuing to work on writing personal narratives, with a focus on having a beginning, middle, and end. Next week we will begin writing fictional narratives and introduce settings. I am very excited to show you how much your children have grown in this area during parent teacher conferences!
Dates to Know...
Tuesday, October 31st: No School
Friday, November 3rd: Online Parent Teacher Conference Scheduler will open. MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW!
Monday November 20- Friday November 24: No School
October 16, 2017
Hello Parents!
I wanted to start this week with a few important notes and reminders!
*Please make sure to submit your field trip permission slip and money. This was due today but I will take it until Tuesday next week. We are in need of ONE more chaperone, so if you are interested please let me know ASAP. There will be other opportunities to chaperone or be involved in the classroom so please do not worry if you are unable to help with this one.
*If you received any paperwork from the office about incomplete registration please be sure to return it Monday. If we do not receive it Monday your child will not be allowed to attend school until it is received.
*We have made an addition to the homework packet. There are sentences that your child can practice reading with you. These sentences contain sight words and simple CVC words that your child can sound out. If they cannot sound the words out please practice and model for them. The more practice the better :)
*Please keep an eye out for any information regarding the online sign-up for conferences this year. ALL of the conferences will be scheduled through Skyward.
*If you have any items at home that could be used in our "creation station" for playtime I would appreciate any donations! Some ideas might be... small boxes, shoes boxes, empty tissue boxes, paper towel/ toilet paper rolls. These open- ended materials are great for kids to create with during our purposeful play time.
*Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the many fundraisers so far this year!!
Here's what we have been up to...
Math
We are working on finishing up our first unit. We are currently working on one more and one less. An easy way to practice this with your children at home is to play the "show me" game. You tell the child to show you a certain amount, between 0-10, and they will show you with their fingers. You can then say "show me one more" or "show me one less" and have them tell you how many. This is a new skill, and a tough one so if the skill isn't solid yet, that's okay! The practice will help. I will begin assessing them on number recognition and number writing 0-10 next week. Again, if you are looking for something to do with them they can practice but it can be fun. They LOVE writing on white boards or they can do things like writing with their fingers in rice or flour if you have it at home.
Writing
In writing we are continuing to focus on having a beginning, middle, and end to our narratives. You can help reinforce this concept when reading nightly with your child. Talk about what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the book.
Reading
Please continue reading with your child nightly and working on sight words. I have seen some great growth in the area of reading for many of your children. We are continuing to talk about characters, predicting, sequencing, and beginning middle and end. These are all concepts that you can easily reinforce at home while reading, telling stories, or even watching movies with you child!
Dates to Know:
October 18th- I will be out for a training so there will be a sub.
October 25th: Field Trip to Johansen's Farm. Please remember to pack a cold lunch this day!
October 31st- No School, In-service Day
Building with Legos
Safety Talk with the Miss C.
Gabriel and Noah worked hard on building this aquarium for the sea animals to live in!
Working together to build on our light table.
Loving Music!
Loving Music!
Made a fox with the geoboard!
Math- Adding one more to a number
Math- adding one more to a number
When the kiddos are finished early they get to work in their workbooks- which they love!
Math- Adding one more to a number
Math- Adding one more to a number
September 30, 2017
Please forgive the lateness of this letter, we have been very busy in kindergarten and I was a little under the weather the last two weeks! Here is what we have been up to...
Math
During math we have begun working on word problems, addition to 7 and, decomposing numbers. Some of our goals for these lessons is for students to recognize numbers, write numbers, and count 1:1. The students have been playing games, sorting, and practicing counting with various materials in order to achieve these goals.
Reading
During reading we have been working on identifying characters in story, retelling stories, sequencing stories, and predicting while reading. These are all skills that you can practice at home during your nightly read alouds with your child. We have launched our guided reading, so please expect your child to bring a book home to practice every other day. If I can, I will send home a book daily but time does not generally allow for this. Make sure that your child reads the book three times to build fluency. If your child is able to read the book independently they can read it three times. If they are unable to read it you can read it to or with them, but please encourage them to read it with you at least one time. All parents: Please make sure that your child is pointing to each word as they read it! This helps to ensure that they are not simply memorizing the book. If you feel that your child is ready, you can ask them to point to a word on the page to check if they are truly reading the word. For example, if they read "I see the dog" you can ask them to point to "the" or point to "see." They may not be able to do that yet, and that's okay! I want them reading and interacting as texts as much as possible so they gain the skills needed to complete that task.
SEL
We have begun our Second Step lessons. Second Step is a social- emotional learning curriculum that works to teach students how to follow the rules at school and regulate their emotions. We will be teaching one lesson a week and these skills will be worked on and reinforced naturally within our daily routine.
I also introduced them to the concept of Bucket Filling. The idea is that everyone has an invisible bucket that can be filled or dipped in. When you are kind, helpful, and a good friend, you make people feel good and fill their buckets. By filling their buckets you also fill your own. If you are the opposite of those things then you dip into people's buckets by making them sad. They quickly understood this concept and they now love to share when they have filled a bucket or someone has filled theirs. When I "catch" someone being a bucket filler, I put gems into a jar. When the jar is full the entire class will get an extra recess time. This is meant to encourage kindness and cooperation in the classroom and so far it has had a really positive effect! In case you hear anything about buckets, this is what your child is talking about :)
Writing
During our writers workshop time we are focusing on writing narratives. The class created a rubric to help guide their writing. We are working on relating reading to writing in order to deepen the students understanding of how to write proper narratives. Reading books and pointing out features of texts, such as a story needs a beginning, middle, and end, helps students to understand that their writing needs those things. The students have continued to enjoy writers workshop, and I will be sending home some of their work in their folders soon. I do keep a few pieces of their work in order to assess their growth and how to differentiate instruction based on needs. I will share these during conference times and I will send a portfolio home at the end of the school year.
Odd and Ends
Please continue to work on letter sounds and sight words at home. The more they are refinanced the better the students learn them and the more fluent they become. Knowledge of the sounds and sight words is extremely important for both reading and writing. I have seen growth in these areas for all of the students, so I appreciate your help with this!
A note about Class Dojo: Students earn individual points daily for times that I "catch them following directions/ rules" or they earn points as a class when they meet expectations as a group. Bathroom breaks and walking in the hallways is always an opportunity to earn lots of points, and anytime one student or the whole class gets a compliment from a teacher they all get a point. It is very seldom when I take a DOJO point away, and it is only on an individual basis when I have repeatedly given expectations and directions and a student continues not to listen. Dojo is meant to be a positive and motivating tool to reward good behavior, which is why I rarely take a point away. On Fridays, the students get to go to Dojo store "buy" items with the Dojos that they have earned. They have the option to save up for the following week if they want to "buy" something they do not have enough points for yet. If they earn 100 Dojo points, they can pick a friend and eat lunch with me.
*No School Monday, October 9th- Columbus Day
*I will have a substitute Wednesday, October 18th so I can attend a training
*No School Tuesday, October 31st- School Improvement Day
September 11, 2017
Here is what we have been working on...
Math
In math we have been working on writing numbers zero through three, counting 1:1 through 5, recognizing how many in various representations up to five. Having a solid understanding of these concepts will help the students move into the next unit where we begin to introduce addition.
Reading
In reading we have launched our reading rotations. Students have been interacting with letters and words in different ways during our rotations. Some of the activities have included using playdoh to make letters, using stamps to match letters, completing words by stamping the beginning, medial, or final letter of the word, and completing ABC puzzles. These activities are aimed to increase students fine motor skills, understanding of letters and text, and they have the added bonus of gaining social emotional skills through direction following and group work.
We are also working on retelling familiar books. We have done multiple readings of The Carrot Seed, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The students are learning that when you reread books multiple times they can read the book themselves. You can practice this at home when you read nightly with your child!
Writing
Writing continues to be a class favorite. The students have begun to work with partners in order to brainstorm ideas for their writing, revise their writing, and read their writing to someone. We are working on having a beginning, middle, and end to our stories. I am continuing to encourage students to add details, words, and labels to their writing. When you are reading to your child nightly please talk to them about the beginning, middle, and end of the books. We are quickly finding how closely related reading and writing are!
Other Notes
We have started creating books for our sight words. These books allow for the students to color the word, write the word, and read the word in multiple ways.The students will bring these books home daily after they have been completed. Please give your child the opportunity to share them with you.
Please continue to work on letter name/ sounds and sight words with your child. We go over these daily but the extra practice will help your child with fluency.
I will be out Tuesday and Wednesday this week due to training. The same sub will be there both days and I have talked to the kiddos about it, so they won't be surprised!
Our LRC director has asked that students return their books by WEDNESDAYS. We are hoping that if we do this more students will be able to check out on our library day. Many students have not been able to do this due to library books being past due.
Dates to Know...
Friday, September 15: Last day to bring in donations for the hurricanes Harvey and Irma fundraiser
September 22: No School, In-Service
Please email with any questions or concerns!
August 28, 2017
In math we have been working on classifying objects by various attributes ( fruit/ not fruit, red/ not red) and describing whether things are exactly the same or the same but...
We have begun our writers workshop, which seems to be a class favorite! We are learning what it means to be a writer and how to think through the writing process. We are also learning to add details to our picture, to work collaboratively to revise and improve our writing pieces, and adding labels to our pictures.
During reading we are learning about how to read independently and in partners. During partner reading the students "seesaw" read. This means the students takes turns reading a page or two. Please feel free to practice this with you child when you read at night. They can read by looking at the pictures and telling you a story from the pictures. Some may be ready to start sounding out words. We also learned that when we read we look, think, read, and learn. Next week we will begin our reading centers and the students will have choice in hands- on reading activities while I meet with small groups.
What to expect next...
*We will be sending home OPTIONAL homework packets every Monday, these do NOT need to be sent back.
*Eureka Math curriculum info was sent home in the folders today.
*Sight words were sent home today. We are working on about three a week but have included all of the sight words so that you can practice at your discretion at home.
Please see below for pictures of your children hard at work over the last week and a half!