Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
I just emailed everyone a link to our upcoming October conferences.  Please let me know if you did not receive this email, or if you have difficulty signing up.  I am very excited to meet with all of you and talk about your child's progress at school.

Reading:
The students continued guided reading groups this week.  Each student is part of a small group and we read books together in what we call "Book Clubs".  We work on targeted reading strategies that address the specific reading needs of each learner.  We also practice word work or different types of reading comprehension strategies.
As a class, we also continued our work on the books by Mo Willems and our discussions on story elements.  While reading the books about Pigeon, the students are participating in learning activities emphasizing character traits, setting, problems and solutions.  We also practiced finding character traits in another character (Duckling) and in ourselves.  Next week, we will deepen our understanding of setting; where the story takes place and how that affects the plot.

Writing:
Our writer's workshop is up and running and the students started writing their first personal narratives last week.  We discussed how we find stories all around us and how we can help each other develop our stories by "making a plan" and "talking it through" before writing it down.  We are excited to share these with you at our conferences.
The students have also participated in many science writing classes.  We will share those as well.

Math:
First grade mathematicians continued to work on concepts related to decades and the importance of understanding our number sequence 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.  The students continued working on their numeral rolls and learned new games addressing addition strategies and finding 5s and 10s. All first grade math families should have received a unit letter from Bridges inside your child's Friday folder.

Science:
We finally figured out what our mystery vegetables were.  They were cucumbers!  The students compared the insides of different types of vegetables with that of the mystery vegetables and through reasoning and careful observation, they decided that they must be cucumbers.

Next week, we will start a mini-unit exploring magnetism.  Throughout this unit,we will continue to practice scientific inquiry skills, prediction and data collection.

We also had our first 4 Winds class last week.  This monthly science class is led by parents and it allows students to explore different scientific concepts in a hands-on way, many times outside as well.  This time, the students learned about insects.  We also went outside and carefully collect a few which we could observe with magnifying glasses.

Traveling Around the World:
Last week, our English as a Second Language Teacher, Patti Tursi, joined our class to read a very special books about flags from around the world that our students had made.  I even got to participate with the Swedish flag!  We have this book in our classroom now.  Thank you Ms. Tursi for giving it to us. Please stop by to read it.

Chromebooks:
We used chromebooks again.  This time the students joined our google classroom and took a brief survey about our classroom and favorites at school.  They did a great job!  You can help your child's technology learning here at school by teaching your child how to spell his/her first and last name.  In order to log onto our chromebooks, the students must type their first and last names. It can be challenging for those students who do not know how to spell their names, especially if they are used to a nickname. Our school policy is to use the children's proper first names.  Thank you.

Volunteers:
If you are interested in volunteering in our classroom, please let me know.  In the past, parents have helped out with reading and writing in the afternoon.  Some parents have also helped out in math and during special events or with projects.  Please let me know what you are interested in doing and thank you so much for supporting our learning.

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

• I will have parent teacher conferences the week of October 16th.  I emailed the link to our sign up doc to you.  Let me know if you did not get it.
• Our next 4 Winds class is scheduled for October 26th.  Please make sure your child wears sneakers and weather appropriate clothing on that day because we will be going outside.
• Harmony House will host a special Family Breakfast on November 17th between 7:30am-8:15am.  Please consider joining us for some early morning breakfast treats.  More information will follow.

Best,
Maria