Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We have had a wonderful couple of days together in our 1st and 2nd grade classroom. It is great to be back with our new and "old" friends again. Although getting back to school is fun and exciting, transitioning from summer activities can sometimes be tricky, so please make sure your child gets plenty of sleep these first few weeks. Our schedule this year has changed as well, with lunch very late in the day (I hope you all received the paper copy I sent home in the Thursday folders today. Please let me know if you need another copy). As lunch is so late in the day, it is important that your child has a healthy and sustaining snack each day. Thank you.
We will continue with a sharing schedule this year, but our "official" sharing schedule does not start until the first full week of school, which is Monday September 12th. That first week of sharing will be "Week One" on our classroom Sharing schedule. When it is your child's sharing day, please encourage your child to share something about herself/himself, such as a favorite book, a favorite sport or activity. The goal of sharing is to build community and a sense of belonging, while we get to know each other. Sharing is not meant to be elaborate or even stressful. In fact, some students like to share a special book or art project from school. Of course, your child can bring in items and mementos from home to share as well, but please refrain from sending in toys and trading cards, even for sharing. Thank you.
Your child also came home with a September Calendar today. He/she had the opportunity to fill it in himself/herself. Please note that there is no school on Monday (9/5/11) and that the ABS Curriculum Night is scheduled for Septehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmber 21st between 6:30-8:30pm. More information will follow.
I hope you have had a chance to familiarize yourself with the various web-sites I use in our classroom. The school is still having some networking challenges, so I have not been able to update everything on our school web-site, but my classroom blog has links to many external sites that I use. The sidebar has been updated so please check it out. Thank you.
If you want to give your child some exposure to educational games on the cohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmputer, please click here to get to Team Harmony's Wiki. (It is also linked on the sidebar).
If you wish to listen to some podcasts from last year, please click herhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife for our classroom podcasting library. It will certainly grow this year as we start podcasting again. For example, we learned a new greeting song and song about the days of the week today, so please look for the podcasting of those tomorrow. Thank you.
If you wish to listen to books and poetry online, please visit our Team's podcasting web-site, which links out to other online podcasting sites. Click here to access. Perhaps your child will discover a new favorite author or book?
Thank you all for sending in the hand-print cut-outs for the "Kissing Hand". We started our special projects today and they look amazing. If you did not send them in, please do so tomorrow. Thank you.
Thank you for a great first week with the students. We are off to a great start.
Regards,
Maria