Weekly Newsletter

Dear Families,

We have almost completed another busy week in our 1st and 2nd grade classroom. Lots of new learning is taking place right now and we are eager to share it all with you. I hope you take the time to look through your child’s folders when they come home and together check our blog, podcasting sites and digital portfolios for almost daily updates!

In Reader’s Workshop, 1st and 2nd grade students have continued guided reading groups this week. Please make sure that your child’s brightly colored book bag returns to school every Friday. We fill the book bags on Mondays when they come home again. Please note that most of the books inside these book bags are shared among all teachers, and all teams. Hence, it is important to return the books promptly as other children (and teachers) wish to use them. I miss many guided reading books in my classroom. I have asked the students to please locate their book bags at home and the missing books. Please assist them if necessary. Thank you for supporting literacy for all students!

We had our second reading celebration with our reading buddies this week. It is so great to see our friends share books and stories together. Please ask your child to explain how we choose appropriate books for this special time.

In Writer’s Workshop, the students began writing constructed responses this week. A constructed response is a writing piece that follows and aligns to a specific topic, usually given to the students by their teacher. In constructed responses the students learn to structure their thinking through their writing and justify their arguments in more ways than one. For example, the students wrote about their favorite winter activity this week. Together as a class we brainstormed reasons why a particular activity, such as sledding might be somebody’s favorite winter activity. Ask your child to tell you all the different reasons we came up with. After the students have brainstormed their ideas, they write these into a coherent paragraph, complete with an introduction, supporting paragraphs and a conclusion. We are very excited about the writing we have accomplished so far and hope to share these through our podcasting in the weeks to come.
In math, 1st and 2nd graders are doing a fantastic job working together in their partnerships, or dyads. Please ask your child to explain how we practice our dyads every day in Number Corner and what it looks like and sounds like in our classrooms.

We continued exploring scientific observation skills this week as well. Please encourage your child to think about, and verbalize, words that describe what objects look like and feel like. How are two objects the same and how are they different? How can we use our words in specific ways to “paint” a picture for somebody who was not there but would like to know? We also experimented with snow melting inside our classroom, using differently sized cups and spots to make predictions which cup’s snow would melt the fastest (and slowest).

Our unit on the Moon and the Sky started this week. We read several books on the moon and space, and the students participated in many writing responses. They also began gathering information on the moon and space on our classroom chart, which we will add to as this unit progresses. We will read both non-fiction and fictional stories about the moon and space. Ask your child what real information we learned from “The Moon Book” by Gail Gibbons, and what real and pretend information we learned from “If you ever went into space” by McNulty.

Important reminders and Updates:
• Our Moon and Night Sky Journal comes home next Tuesday, January 18th. Students are expected to observe the moon in the night sky every night. They are expected to write about what they observe and draw a picture, showing what they see. The Moon Journal comes back to school the next day so the teachers can check the daily entries and we can share their wonderful work on our document camera. The Moon Journal comes back home again. In other words, this Moon Journal will travel between the classroom and the home every day. Please help your child make entries every night. If it is cloudy outside, or there are other circumstances preventing you from observing the real moon, please know that I have linked a Moon Widget to our classroom blog so you and your child can see its phase every day. I have also created a new folder on the class wiki so you can all explore the space and the moon at home. NASA has some spectacular sites for young children. It is well worth the time to explore! Thank you for those families who have sent in books and pictures of space for us to use in the classroom. It is much appreciated. (Click here to access the Moon and Space folder on the team wiki).
• Our trip to the Flynn is scheduled for Tuesday, January 25th. More information will follow. Unfortunately, we cannot invite parents to this trip as we do not have any additional tickets.
• Martin Luther King Day will be observed on Monday, January 17th so there will be no school.

Have a great rest of the week!
Regards,

Maria McCormack