Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
Social-Emotional Learning:
This week, the students learned about feelings. They learned that all people experience different feelings. Sometimes those feelings are conflicting and they differ between people. People can react and experience the same situations differently. We read the book “A Little Spot of Feelings” by Diane Alber to learn more. The students had the opportunity to act out different feelings and be “emotion detectives” to figure out what feelings their friends acted out. The students learned that facial expressions, body language and tone of voice/volume give us clues. They also learned that we can show empathy and kindness by anticipating other people’s feelings by adjusting how we interact and act in any given situation.
Team Harmony students also participated in a series of activities with all the teachers on Harmony. The teachers rotated between the classroom and provided a short activity for the students so we all had a chance to get to know each other better.
The students continued to share their “Me Bags” this week. They all did a great job sharing about their carefully selected items and the audience members showed respectful listening. We learned so much about each other. Thank you for helping your child at home to prepare for this special activity.
The students filled our classroom buzzy jar twice again this week. This time, we had extra arts and crafts time. We also had a longer snack break outside as a class picnic. It was wonderful.
You Can:
You can support your child’s emerging understanding of different emotions at home by encouraging your child to name his/her emotions. Having the ability to label one’s emotions allows young children to start understanding what they are feeling and why they are feeling that way, which helps them make more responsible decisions in managing those emotions. Encourage your child to use nuanced words. For example, if your child says “I am mad” encourage your child to use more descriptive adjectives such as frustrated, furious, agitated, irritated or angry. Young children do not have the vocabulary yet to describe and label their emotions so explicit instruction, patience and time must be given to our young learners as they start to learn these social-emotional skills. Always validate your child’s emotions and help your child name them. Share your own too. Young learners benefit from seeing the trusted adults around them model the same social language and expectations.
Reading:
We continued reading books written by Kevin Henkes as part of our reading mini-unit. Ms. Lucy, our UVM Intern, read a book to all of us. She read the book “Sheila Rae, the Brave” by Kevin Henkes. The students made personal connections to the character in the book and shared times when they can be brave. They had wonderful things to share with the class. For example, some students shared that they are brave when they show a growth mindset in learning! WOW!
This week, first grade readers practiced increasing their reading stamina and looking at a variety of books. They practiced independent reading, while having a calm body and eyes on the book. They are doing great by increasing their independent reading time every day.
You can:
You can support your child’s reading at home by reading together every day. Daily reading is important for continued literacy progress. It is great to establish a routine for daily reading at home. Perhaps your child wants to do some “popcorn” reading with you? Perhaps your child will start recognizing some trick words/heart words in the text? (More information on these words below)
Writing:
We started spelling this week in our classroom. All first graders participated in a beginning-of-the-year spelling inventory. This week, first graders started to practice letter writing and matching the sounds they hear to each letter correctly. On Team Harmony, we integrate phonics instruction along with phonological awareness skills and penmanship practice. Our curriculum is called Fundations. We do not send home spelling lists, but you will receive some practice pages along with a parent letter when new units are introduced so you know which writing skills we are working on at school. The practice pages are optional, but we encourage parents to support this learning at home too. More on this next week!
Your child will also bring home individualized collections of “trick words/heart words”. These are words that must be memorized since their spelling patterns do not follow our phonological rules. When these words come home, please consider practicing them at home and place them in a location so your child can access them many times for repeated learning this year. We hope to start this next week too!
You Can:
In first grade, one of the expectations in writing will be to adhere to lower case writing and save the upper case letters for the beginning of sentences, names and places. You can encourage lower case writing at home too!
Math:
This week, our first grade mathematicians started to learn about subitizing. Subitizing in first grade is the ability to see groups of objects in a larger group without counting by one and being able to add them together to see the total number of objects. Subitizing is a powerful strategy and helps students understand that mathematicians group objects into various sizes, which helps them make more efficient calculations. This week, the students practiced their emerging skills by using dominos, dice patterns and dot patterns. They practiced finding different groups of dots and adding them together. They did an outstanding job.
First grade mathematicians also learned about the importance of having a growth mindset in math (and all other subjects too). They learned that the brain grows and makes powerful connections when it is working and making mistakes. They learned that mistakes lead to new learning and allow the brain another opportunity to make connections, strengthening learning. We are building a thinking classroom culture, a classroom culture that encourages all students to see themselves as fully capable mathematicians with the power and ability to participate, think and problem-solve.
You can:
You can support your child’s subitizing skills and strategies at home by encouraging your child to group objects into smaller groups for more efficient counting. How about taking a handful (or two) of legos and instead of counting them by ones to find the total, encourage your child to group them before counting? How about using dice and looking at each side. Can your child quickly identify the pattern represented for the number 5? Can that pattern of dots be replicated and found in a larger group of objects?
You can support your child’s learning about the importance of having a growth mindset by supporting your child when a specific task feels challenging. Rather than giving up and immediately stepping in as a parent to help/solve the perceived problem (within reason, of course, always considering the situation and their young developmental age), ask your child what can be done. Can another solution be attempted? How about taking a quick break before continuing? How about taking some deep breaths first and then trying again? It can be difficult as a parent to give your child the time to figure things out by themselves, but they are very capable of showing these strategies in our classroom. Practicing and experiencing a little frustration and then overcoming that to return to the task at hand leads to self-confidence, resilience and perseverance. Praise them for having a growth mindset and for showing effort.
Your child has several math games for optional home practice inside the Home Folder today. Please consider playing these games with your child at home to reinforce the math skills worked on at school. There is no need to bring these games back to school. Place them in a safe place for repeated use. Have fun playing with your child!
4 Winds:
Harmony students had their first 4 Winds class together this week. For those of you who are not familiar with this, 4 Winds is a parent-run hands-on science program. We typically meet once a month for science explorations. This year, we will be learning about the earth. The students will learn about the geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. In our first lesson, the students had the opportunity to go outside and learn about the sun and the earth’s rotation by measuring shadows. Thank you parents for providing these opportunities for our young learners.
News and Reminders:
There is no school on Monday, 9/26 (Yom Kippur)
We have a UVM Intern helping us in our classroom twice a week this semester. Her name is Ms. Lucy and we are so grateful that she is with us this semester. Welcome Ms. Lucy!
Our ABS Open House will occur on Thursday, 9/28 between 6-7pm. More information will follow shortly but please keep that night open for some socializing and visiting at ABS!
Some students asked me to share the link to our school songs again. Here is the link to my school web-site again with a variety of links you might find useful at home.
Have a great weekend,
Maria
No comments:
Post a Comment