We had another busy week at school with school pictures and Curriculum Night. If you were unable to attend our Curriculum Night please do not worry. I will share all the information in our upcoming newsletters. If you have specific questions regarding the curriculum and the scope and sequence of specific academic areas, please let me know and we can find a way to address those concerns or questions you may have. In short, I try to integrate as much of the scope and sequence of our curriculum every week as I share our learning with you.
Reading:
I finished most of our reading assessments this week. The students had a substitute teacher for two days and they did an amazing job working together as a group showing safe, kind and responsible choices. I will share the assessment data for your child when we meet for our October conferences. I will send out a sign-up doc soon.
Your child brought home his/her first reading log today. It is inside the Friday folder. Your child is encouraged to read at least 5 nights every week. It is great to read more, but it is not required. Please encourage your child to write down the title/titles of the books read by himself/herself. It is good to have daily practice with writing. The reading log will stay home until next Friday when it is returned inside the Friday folder. We will check it here at school and your child will earn a buzzy for our class jar.
If your child loses his/her reading log, you can print another one on the wiki, under printables, reading logs.
Your child also packed books to read at home for the week. This year, students can not take home guided reading books and instructional books from our small groups in class. Instead, they are encouraged to choose books in our classroom library on their own. Please have a conversation with your child at home if you notice that your child does not take home "just right" books, books he/she can read on his/her own. Also talk to your child if you feel that your child is bringing home books that are too easy, or too hard. We hope to encourage more independence and accountability for our learning this way. All books and book bags are due on Fridays. If your child forgets to bring back the books, he/she will wait to choose new books until they are returned. This mirrors the routines from our school library and we hope it makes sense for everyone.
As always, let me know if you need help with this at home. Reading homework should not be a struggle. Reading should be an enjoyable activity and a time for you to connect with good literature. Please let me know if it is not. Thank you.
Science:
We started science in our classroom a couple of weeks ago already. We love science! The students are currently learning how to act like scientists, using their observational skills. I brought in some "mystery vegetables" from my garden and the children used their senses through a variety of exploratory activities in an attempt to figure out what they are. They have yet to solve the mystery! The students decided that they wanted to compare the mystery vegetables with "real" ones, so we compared them to other vegetables. Next week, we will dissect the mystery vegetables and the "real" ones and see if we have enough evidence to decide what they are!
We started our new author study this week. We will study the books written and illustrated by Mo Willems in the next few weeks. We started reading the Pigeon books. Ms. Kendal, our UVM intern even read a book to us! Thanks Ms Kendal!
We will start our author study with exploring the different story elements; character, setting, problem and solution.
I hope you all will have a great weekend.
Best,
Maria
Maria, thank you for sharing so many pictures so the parents know what our kids are doing in the classroom. You are a great teacher.
ReplyDeleteJiyon (Celine's mom)