Weekly Update

Dear Families,

The students have settled in beautifully to school and know their schedule well. Thank you for sending in their sneakers for PE and library books on Tuesdays. As the weather gets cooler, please remind your child about the importance of dressing warmly. Sweaters and fleece jackets are great outer-wear this time of a year.

Next week, Team Harmony has a field-trip scheduled for Catamount. The field-trip is scheduled for October 15th. The bus will be leaving Allen Brook at 9am and return to our school around 1-1:30pm. Please remember to send your child to school with warm clothing, a packed peanut-free lunch and liquids. We will spend the entire day outside, so please dress accordingly. Thank you all for volunteering your time to chaperone this special trip. We could not do this without your help and assistance!

This week was very busy inside our classroom and I hope you had a chance to visit our classroom blog as we have posted many new pictures and updates. As part of our current unit on Community, fire fighters from the Williston Fire Department visited our team. We learned about fire safety and the importance of having two escape routes in case of a fire. We also had the opportunity to see their fire gear and hear the sound that their masks sometimes make. If you did not see the pictures from this special visit, simply scroll down on the blog to view “older posts.’ Please note that you can always access older posts and pictures for repeated reading in case you forgot or missed a post. If you feel comfortable using technology, or if you feel eager to learn how you can utilize more technology in your own life, please click on the little red “Posts (Atom)” link at the very bottom of our classroom blog to subscribe directly into you email. This way, you will get automatic reminders every time I post. These feeds can go into you preferred RSS feeders, such as Google Reader, Pageflakes or Live Bookmarks.

Please note that this is my last paper-based weekly news-letter. All weekly newsletters will only be posted on the blog from now on, unless otherwise indicated on the attached form. Please return this form to the classroom only if you and your family still desire a paper-based weekly update. I greatly appreciate your embrace of technology and enthusiasm. Thank you!

I have updated our wiki site this week. I do this periodically so please make sure you and your child browse often. I have added a new site, which links songs that we sing during our Kiva Singing time. The songs are posted as documents for you to print out at home. Please click here to access directly. I have also added information about spelling and Fundations activities in our “Word Study” folder. Click here to access directly. All of these sites are in our Link Library.

Our classroom digital portfolio has also been updated, representing the incredible mathematical learning our students show every day. The digital portfolio can be accessed through my school web-site but also by the url www.digitalportfolio2010.pbworks.com What a terrific groups of mathematicians we have in our classroom! The students are learning to justify their thinking every day and they are very comfortable sharing their challenges and using old mistakes as a first step in our evolving discussions. They trust each other and value each other’s opinion. The students are also learning to represent their mathematical thinking in many different ways, using many different tools, such as unifix cubes, tally marks, ten-frames and number sentences. I am so proud of them! Please ask them how many stars they earned this week. Please also ask them to explain how we use this star-chart to count by 10s. The students are recognizing that numbers can be represented into larger groups, which makes our mathematical thinking more efficient. They are already discovering the basis for multiplication! WOW! Among other things, first graders will learn about money and telling time this month. Please visit the wiki for many educational games targeting these two strands of math.

Reading groups started this week. The students will meet in small groups with me several times a week to read books on their individual instructional level. The students have filled their book boxes with these books and we read them together throughout the week. Starting on Monday, the students will take home a new Book Bag. This book bag contains leveled books that we read in class. Your child should be able to read these book easily as we have already read them together. Please praise your child as he/she reads and discusses these books at home. Please read these books many, many times together. Talk about the words, how the pictures help and how sounding out can help us tackle more challenging words. The book bags stay home until Friday, when it is returned to the classroom. Your child will fill the book bag again, with books read inside the classroom that week. Hence, your child will always bring home books that are familiar to him/her. Our team hopes this strategy will build reading confidence and reading enthusiasm.

Have a great rest of the week!
Regards,

Maria McCormack