Upcoming Events
*September 30- Late Start
*October 7- Late Start
*October 7 - Student Count Day
Last we welcomed two new friends to our class. Claudia Engeln and Kinsley Flynn have joined us and fit right in! We now have 19 wonderful students!
It has been great having our whole class together this past week! The children have been doing a great job of getting to know routines and procedures better each day in our room and school. They are fast learners and are doing well. I am incredibly proud of them!
We have had a great start with the Read to Self portion of Daily 5. Students have been building their stamina by reading silently for up to 15 minutes. We have also introduced Work on Writing as a choice as well. This is a time for students to write words or phrases they know or even copy words from around the room. Spending time doing these things is helping us become better readers and writers. This week will introduce a third choice for Daily 5! You can help your child increase his or her stamina at home by having them read quietly each day. Remember there are three ways to read a book: read the pictures, read the words, or retell a familiar story. Make sure your child stays in one spot and reads quietly for this practice.
We have participated in each special now and are comfortable with the process and teachers. On Monday we met Mr. Pfhaler for gym. We met Mrs. Warsow on Tuesday for art. Mrs. Richards is our music teacher we see on Wednesday. Thursday is Media Center with Mrs. Bacolor and this week Mrs. Gruchot visited our classroom and students were able to check out books. This first time we have kept the books in our classroom (they have them in their book boxes). We have read them during the week and discussed good book care. Next Thursday the children will bring them home for the week. We have a wonderful assortment of books in our library that I’m sure your family will enjoy ☺. On Friday we spent time with Mrs. VanHekken learning about our feelings and appropriate ways to interact with our friends.
We took the reading and math NWEA tests in the computer lab last week. The children learned to follow the directions and manipulate the mouse. This is solely to get a baseline for the children.
We had our first fire drill last week. The students were wonderful at listening and following directions!
If your student is going to have school lunch, please remember to order in advance. The link to order is on below. By ordering lunch in advance, our morning routine will go much smoother. Thank you!
Please make sure you are checking your child’s folder each day!
What we are doing
In our writing program we will continue working on telling stories. Writers always begin with a story to share. We will be verbally telling our stories now to a buddy as we practice being a good speaker and a good audience.
This next cycle we will be starting our first week of our Benchmark Literacy Program. We will be talking about identifying the main idea of what we read. We are also going to learn how to ask questions while we read to make sure we understand what we are reading!
In social studies we will be learning about ourselves, and how we are special and unique. We are learning that we each have “roles” (like daughter or son) and that we can name something we like about ourselves.
In Science we will be learning how to be “weather watchers”. We will learn that 4 things tell us about the weather: the sky, the temperature, the wind, and if it’s raining or snowing.
When writing in our journals, we are listening for letter sounds in our words and putting spaces between our words. Our newest focus is starting a sentence with a capital letter and ending it with a period.
Homework
October calendars will come home and September calendars are due by the end of this next week. Your child will receive a prize from our treasure chest when his/her form is returned to school with your signature. This homework is not mandatory and can be used to reinforce what we learn in class.
The Math About Me form that came home last week can be done and turned in by the end of this week. We will be sharing these with the class and comparing some of the numbers. We will also put them into a class book that we can enjoy as the year goes on. This assignment was to help your child see important reasons for using numbers. Thank you!
