Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
Social-Emotional Learning:
The students filled our classroom buzzy jar again for being safe, kind and responsible. This time we celebrated with “Choose Your Own Adventure”, a time when the students chose to use chromebooks, listen to music, read or draw. They made terrific choices reflecting their own preferences and needs.
In mindfulness this week, the students learned about various breathing techniques. They learned how deep breathing can help calm us down, feel happy and relaxed, while also helping us get back on track. They learned that we can use visual images to help us stay focused on deep breathing. The students learned about “the square”, “the triangle” and “the star” breathing methods. For each image, the students practiced breathing in and breathing out as they imagined tracing their fingers along the outlines of these various shapes. They also learned about “the infinity breathing technique” and my favorite, “the belly breathing method”. Ask your child to show you at home. You might want to try some of these breathing methods as well?
The students also learned how we can use “the mindful morning countdown” from 5 as a way to regain focus and regulate our emotions. In addition to using 5 deep breaths, the students learned a series of new strategies following the countdown structure from 5. They did an outstanding job.
You Can:
You can support your child’s new mindfulness strategies by having a conversation with your child about the different methods introduced this week. Your child has our “mindful morning countdown” strategies in the Home Folder this week. Perhaps you want to integrate some of these strategies at home when your child needs to regulate and refocus? Using positive self-affirmations and thinking about something that makes you happy and grateful help children re-set their thinking patterns and get back to the task at hand. Learning to self-regulate and choose that strategy works best is empowering for young learners and builds resilience, confidence and independence.
Reading:
First grade readers continued to practice reading strategies and skills this week. We started our guided reading groups, a time when the students meet with the teacher/adult to receive individualized reading instruction. The students are participating in reading groups through a series of stations and small groups.
We continued reading our classroom chapter book too and several shorter books during snack/read aloud time. The students love books and being read to! A new favorite book is “The Peace Book” by Todd Parr. They loved his illustrations too and we got many fabulous ideas for making new drawings in class too.
You can:
You can support your child’s learning at home by reading together every day. Daily reading with young children leads to many positive outcomes, not just in terms of reading skills and achievement, but also in terms of connecting on a personal level. Thank you for reading the library books every week and returning them promptly the following week so other students at our school can enjoy them too.
Since we cannot send home classroom/team instructional books with our students, I will start to send home printed books/texts and pages. If your child has been working on texts that I can share with you at home, these texts will be inside your child’s Home Folder. There is no need to return these books. If there are no books/texts inside your child’s Home Folder this week (or next), your child received instruction from guided reading books that we unfortunately cannot send home. Thank you for understanding.
Your child will periodically take home Scholastic magazines. Sometimes, we read them at school and sometimes we send them home for optional reading and learning. This week, we are sending home a magazine we read at school and another that we did not. We hope you will read this together at home. There is no need to send back the magazine.
Writing:
The students continued to develop their phonological awareness and decoding skills in our Fundations and writing classes. This week, they learned to tap our and represent the sounds of shorter CVC words. We primarily focused upon the medial, vowel sounds as they can be tricky for young spellers and readers.
The students also learned about heart words this week. Heart words are words that break the traditional phonological spelling rules and thus cannot be “sounded out” so they must be memorized and learned by heart. This week, we practiced the following words: said and because.
You Can:
You can support your child’s emerging phonological awareness skills and confidence by encouraging your child to “sound out” words they attempt to write. Stretching out each sound and tapping also help our students isolate each sound.
You can ask your child to explain why “said” and “because” are considered heart words and why sounding out would not be an efficient strategy when spelling or reading these words. Your child brought home these two words on index cards. Please consider placing them in a safe place for future use as your child will need to practice reading and spelling these words.
Math:
In math this week, the students continue to deepen their understanding of composing and decomposing numbers. They played various games in our workplace stations and had the opportunity to play together in partnerships.
The students also learned about how “Number Bonds” can help us visualize smaller groups/parts of numbers. A Number Bond mat provides a graphic organizer for young mathematicians to interact with physical objects as they build their understanding of smaller groups of numbers. We used unifix cubes this week.
The students also learned how to mathematically represent these parts in abstract mathematical writing by using this format to write an expression to show their understanding. Ask your child to show you at home! Here is an image of a Number Bond so you get the idea:
You can:
You can support your child’s learning of mathematics at home by providing opportunities for your child to interact with smaller objects in an effort to build number sense. Research shows that young students learn best when they have opportunities to use their hands/play/interact with materials while simultaneously using their verbal knowledge and showing their thinking in drawings and/or mathematical representations. Most parents do not have rekenreks and unifix cubes at home. Instead, consider using things your child can count and divide into smaller groups. How about uncooked pasta? Small rocks or pebbles outside, or use legos? Encourage your child to represent their number parts by creating two small groups from their starting total and then show their understanding as a number bonds.
Science:
We had another 4 Winds class. This time the students of Harmony House learned about erosion. We enjoyed a puppet show and explored erosion in different stations outside.
A note from PE:
We have completed our soccer unit and will now begin the first of our endurance runs that will occur sporadically throughout the rest of the school year. This year we have chosen to run the Pacific Crest Trail which is 2,650 miles in length. Each class from Kindergarten to Grade two will run and collect miles, we add up the totals and slowly move our marker along the route map which is displayed in the gym. The aim of this unit is to teach students how to pace themselves, how to set a goal set, how to persevere and how to keep their hearts and bodies healthy. If you take a walk/hike as a family please record how far you went and send a note of paper into school and we can add these extra miles to our total.
Thanks for all your help sending in spare shoes and socks during our soccer unit as we dealt with the morning dew. Our runs will take place on the bike path and lessons will return to the gym on the week beginning October 30th. Please remind students to bring their sneakers on PE days. Any questions please email us at kgrozier@cvsdvt.org and lporter@cvsdvt.otg.
Keep on running,
Ms. Kate and Ms. Porter
News and Reminders:
Your child’s school pictures are inside the Home Folder today. If you wish to re-take these pictures, please contact the front office. I do not know when picture retakes will happen yet, but please make sure the front office staff knows your child will participate. Thank you.
Have a great weekend,
Maria
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