Weekly Update

Dear Families,

Another great week is almost over. Time flies when you are having fun learning in our 1st and 2nd grade classroom. Learning is taking place in all areas. I hope you see progress in reading, writing and math at home as well as our students become more efficient critical thinkers.

In Reader’s Workshop, the students started their partnerships. In partnership reading, we are very careful to use quiet whisper voices when we share our reading with our partners. We also start by reading quietly to ourselves and use Private Think Time to think about the text before we are ready to share our reading. The students also learned to “Stop and Jot” down their ideas this week. I introduced the concept of a “Reading Pencil” a few weeks ago as the students practiced their reading stamina. A Reading Pencil is simply a regular pencil, but it is easily accessible during the reading process and part of the experience. It allows the students to read and jot down ideas and questions they have throughout their reading. Many times jotting down questions or observations on post-it notes and index cards help us with our comprehension. Please ask your child to explain how jotting down ideas and observations help us understand better.

In Writer’s Workshop, the students continued to explore small moment stories with clear beginning, middle and endings. They used pictures to go along with their writing pieces, clearly connecting the various elements of their stories.

In math, 1st graders recorded their sea star and crab number stories. We used the video camera used for skyping and unfortunately I have not been able to publish it yet as I am trying to compress it. I will share the movie as soon as it is in the right format. The students did a great job sharing their number stories.

The students are busy reading and listening to books written and illustrated by Steven Kellogg. Please note that I have added many new sites to our Team-based Author Web-site lists. Steven Kellogg and David Martin are both there for easy access. We will skype with the author David Martin again this Friday. We will sing the song “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” to him in both English and Swedish. He will also share why one of his books was inspired by a song. We are very excited to have this wonderful opportunity again.

Lastly, as the weather gets colder, please make sure that your child has warm clothing every day as the students have outdoor recess every day. Warm winter jackets, snow pants, gloves and hats are necessary every day so the students can stay warm and healthy. If you wish, your child can keep an extra set of gloves and socks in his/her locker in case they get lost.

Have a happy and great rest of the week!
Regards, Maria