September 13, 2013
Looking forward...
Scholastic Book Orders
...are due today (Friday). However, I will not be placing my order online until Sunday, so there is still time to order at scholastic.com (class code: MDRPH) if you would like to still order.
Parent Information Night
...is this Tuesday from 6:00-6:45pm. This is a meeting only for parents, so please make arrangements for your children. We will be discussing the course of our day, our curriculum, field trips, volunteers, and anything else that you have questions about. I am looking forward to meeting with all of you on Tuesday night!
Mrs. VanderZyden, our school social worker, will be coming to our classroom for 1/2 hour for the next three weeks to talk with us about solving problems with friends and our new school-wide strategy of "talk, walk, squawk." As our first graders enter out of the realm of egocentrism and recognize their friends in a different light, new learning opportunities come about with friendship squabbles and disagreements. First "talk" out the problem--ask the person to stop or trying to find a compromise. If that doesn't work, "walk" away to remove yourself from the situation. If walking doesn't change anything, "squawk" to an adult so that the issue can be solved.
What we learned about this week...
This week we dove into writing! I will explain a little more about our writing workshop at our informational meeting; it is a key component of our day. We are generating "Small Moment" stories in order to grab vivid details within their writing. "Small Moments" are snapshots of events in your children's lives that they can feel confident writing about. For example, on Thursday we discussed my family trip to Nova Scotia. That is a BIG moment with too many details to convey. Focusing on a smaller moment within that BIG story, such as when Mr. Miller saw a snake on the trail in Nova Scotia when we were looking for moose (ask your child about THAT story :), brings more details and depth to writing. Small Moments can motivate young writers to begin writing and to continue writing more.
How you can help...You can help your writer by retelling small moments of your child's life (things that have happened to them in the last year) with your child. I know my girls LOVE when we retell stories of adventures, mishaps and funny happenings. They think it's hilarious. These retellings might initiate great ideas to write new small moment stories in the classroom!
Math has also begun! We are focusing on addition operations, using key words like "sum," "plus" and "equals" to generate, write and understand number sentences. We also have been playing fun number games such as high/low and *sparkle.*
How you can help...Have family game night and choose games that focus on counting and math concepts (Monopoly, Top It/War card game, Sorry, etc.) Have fun with math!
On the reading front, I am individually reading with each child to find each "just right level" to begin small group reading instruction. During this time, your child is participating in various literacy centers focused on vocabulary, word sense, writing and soon--fluency ("reading like you talk"). We've been practicing our routine, working towards independence in our centers and focusing on fine motor skills, beginning letter sounds, syllables, finding small words inside of words and writing a Me Book. We introduced iPads (we have 6!) in our centers this week. More information to come on the iPads and technology and how it will support our curriculum at our Info Meeting on Tuesday.
Have a wonderful weekend! I hope to see you Tuesday night at 6:00pm!
