Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• This week the students learned about making responsible choices in our classroom and at ABS.  They learned that making responsible choices do not only apply to academic learning but also to how they handle and treat each other and the materials we all use collectively.  We had restorative circles and conversations about how we can act responsibly when things break, for example.  We have noticed that many items have broken lately on Harmony House.  Pencils and legos have been snapped, clipboards and books broken and other materials that we use have also been damaged.  Things have broken in our classroom or Harmony team-space for a variety of reasons; sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident.  The students learned that it is important to tell an adult when this happens so we can help mend the item (if possible), replace it (if possible) or find new productive ways to regulate the strong emotions causing this behavior.

• The students continued to celebrate each other’s resilience and perseverance in math class.  In our closing circles, the students celebrate each other’s efforts, hard work and sportsmanship when playing games and sharing materials together.  

You Can: 

• You can support your child’s understanding of making responsible choices by following up on these conversations at home too.  How do you handle these situations at home?  How are your expectations the same and/or different from those we have at school?  Consider involving your child in the process of mending a broken item or if an item has to be replaced.  Young learners love to help out.

Reading:

• This week, first grade readers continued to rotate through a variety of reading stations to improve their decoding skills while also developing a love of reading while reading authentic text.  They did a great job. This week, they accessed lexia, razkids and played a variety of games to practice decoding skills connected to their reading goals.  

• We continued reading books from Kate DiCamillo, our new author study.  The students love the books about Mercy Watson; books about the pig who goes on adventures with her owners and the neighbors.  We read these books on our document camera, projecting the pages so the students can see the text as it is read aloud.

• The students also went on “sound scavenger hunts” in decodable texts using highlighters.  They were tasked with finding words that represented/contained various phonological sounds and highlight those graphemes (letters/letter combinations).  They quickly discovered that searching for the /t/ sound, for example, does not mean that every t letter makes that sound (such as in the digraph -th)

You can:

• You can support your child’s reading at home by encouraging your child to read every day.  Reading every day and having a routine for reading time help your child develop confidence and independence in reading.  As mentioned before, repeated reading builds automaticity and fluency.  Consider interacting with the texts/books too.  Perhaps your child wants to go on a scavenger hunt at home too, circling all the long vowels, underlining the digraphs, or finding rhyming words for particular words?

Writing:

• This week, first grade writers practiced a variety of heart words, words that break the traditional phonological rules for spelling.  As mentioned before, these words cannot be “sounded out” but must be memorized, or learned by “heart”.  The students created a series of “heart word cards'' for repeated practice during literacy times.  First grade students are expected to master both reading and spelling these words by the end of first grade.  Please look for these cards next week in your child’s Home Folder.

• First grade writers also wrote responses to the stories they read this week in class.  They learned that authors sometimes write about the books they read.

• First grade authors wrote in their Friday Journals and this time they enjoyed chewing gum.  Thank you for supporting our fun and engaging way to engage the students in attending to grammar, usage and mechanics (hence, GUM).  In first grade, we focus primarily upon finger-spacing, letter formation, proper capitalization and proper ending punctuation.

You Can:

• Last week, I suggested supporting your child with “sounding out” strategies.  It might feel confusing that this week, we are focusing upon words that break that pattern.  The English language is filled with exceptions!  We call them “rule breakers”.  It is vitally important that young learners develop an understanding of the two categories so they can rely on a variety of strategies to solve their literacy needs.

Math:

• First grade mathematicians participated in Number Talks this week and had the opportunity to share their mathematical reasoning using different strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems.  

• In our small group rotations this week, first grade mathematicians developed a greater sense of  number sequences and the relative magnitude of numbers.  They used number cards and ordered them consecutively as well as non consecutively.

• In our closing circle, the students had the chance to celebrate each other's growth mindsets and perseverance in math.  They love to notice the positive contributions of their peers in math class!  

You can:

• You can support your child’s developing understanding of number sequences by engaging in conversations about number ordering and counting.  Rather than just asking your child to count forwards or backwards within a certain range, ask your child to explain which number comes “just before” or “just after” a specific number.  Ask your child to tell you which number is “2 greater than” the specific number or “2 less”.  

News and Reminders:

• Please consider sending in a grocery bag/plastic bag for your child’s snow gear.  Many times your child’s snowgear gets wet at/after recess and having an extra bag to pack in at dismissal will keep books and items inside your child’s backpack dry!  Thank you.

• There will be no school 12/25/23-1/1/24 due to the holiday break.  We return to school on Tuesday 1/2/23.

• Please consider donating money to the Horizon Craft Fair.  See this link (Horizon Crafting Company) and contact jbenoit@cvsdvt.org with any questions. 

Have a great weekend,

Maria