Weekly Update

Dear Families,

Another week has passed already. Although we had an unusually warm week, the days will get colder and shorter soon as the winter darkness sets in. This is a wonderful time to explore the rapid changes occurring outside in nature with your child. What do you notice and observe? How can we explain these changes? Why do the leaves change and eventually fall off? These types of conversations encourage your child to justify his/her own thinking while exploring the outdoors!

Report cards will be mailed out on November 12th and conferences are scheduled the following week. I have an online sign-up wiki, which I have linked on the classroom blog, on the right sidebar. Many of you have already signed up. Thank you. If you have not signed up yet, please do so soon as the slots fill up quickly. I am looking forward to seeing all of you again and discuss the work we have been working on in our classroom.

The students will start using their own individual blogs this week. Their blogs are on a web-site called kidblog.org. This site is also used by some other teachers within our school system. The blogs are private and require log-in names and passwords. Only the students in my class can view other students’ blog entries. I will moderate comments as well. The students will blog throughout the school week, but my over-arching goal is to encourage the use of technology as a communications tool between school and the outside world. I encourage the students to access their own blogs from home and write about their lives outside of school. It is important, however, that the students write themselves-not the parents! For example, if you go on a special trip and wish to share a narrative or pictures, please post these. If you have something exciting happening in your life now and you want to share it, please post about that as well. Perhaps your child is getting a pet, a new book or a new tooth. Perhaps your child wants to write about a special book or author. Be creative-encourage your child to share about his/her life outside of school. Eventually I will add blog writing responses related to books we read in school. I will also ask the students questions to which they respond. The possibilities are endless and we are very excited about starting this new venture together.
Your child might need assistance navigating the kidblog site in the beginning as these skills are new, but he/she should be able to do this independently shortly. It is also important to remember that this blog is “public” to all in our class and other teachers I might invite to view (it is private to the outside world). That means that this blog is also public to all the parents as you will have access to these accounts as well.
I have linked the kidblog page to our classroom blog, where I post updates on our week, newsletters and pictures. I have linked it in the sidebar-below the parent-teacher conference sign-up. Your child’s log-in name is his/her first name (I used the shortened name for those with long names. For students with the same names, I used the shorter first name, space and the first letter of the last name).



Reminders:
• Please sign up for parent-teacher conferences if you have not already done so. Link is on classroom blog. If you need help accessing, please let me know.
• School picture re-takes will happen on November 3rd. Please contact the main office if you need to re-schedule your child’s pictures.
• I will be out two days next week (November 4th and 5th). As I will attend and present at a technology conference. The students will have a substitute teacher for the two days and their schedules will remain.
• Some students have not returned their Timeline Homework. I have placed new ones inside the Thursday folders. Please fill out and return on Monday as we will start our project then. Thank you.


Ask your child about:
• Our Guest Reader this week: Ms Nat.
• Our re-organized classroom with new table-buddies.
• Podcasting this week and read alouds on the computer. Click here to hear the latest if you do not RSS feed.
• Reading Stamina and Character Traits in books.

Have a great rest of the week.
Regards,

Maria McCormack