Weekly Update

Dear Families,
Welcome back to school! It is wonderful to be back again with all of the students. I hope you had a great vacation with plenty of opportunities to rest and spend some time together. The students had so many great stories to tell about their exciting adventures and trips.
We are back in the full swing of things already. Homework folders and reading bags went home on Tuesday. If your child did not get an opportunity to write three times this week, please do not worry about that since we had no school on Monday. Reading selections this week were primarily just right books with students' own interests and desires as we have not had a full week of guided reading groups yet. Brand new book will be coming home next week. Every week, the students also have a free choice (or two) and some students might re-select some books. Re-reading books offer unique opportunities to practice fluency and word recognition which help in overall comprehension and automaticity. Re-reading books also offer students an opportunity to write about the book in new ways as the story is already familiar. Some ideas for writing entries are listed below but always check the weekly updates on the blog so you can integrate themes discussed in class.

Ideas for writing entries in the reading log:
My favorite part and why
My favorite character and why
Compare yourself to a character
How the character changed in the story
How the character is the same (or different) between different books (or chapters)
How a story reminds you of something
Write about the ending...did it surprise you, and if so, why?
Make a prediction before you read the book (then read the book and check. Was your prediction correct? Why/Why not?)

The above topics are only suggestions and completely voluntary. Your child can of course, retell the story and come up with his/her own ideas as well. The weekly entries are open-ended. Be creative. I look forward to seeing more wonderful writing. I will send a lists of possible topics in an email attachment so you can print it at home if you wish to see it. I also have many other reading logs listed online on the wiki. Please visit the wiki under "printables" if you wish to access them. Thank you to all of you whose children already started using some of these. Amazing.

Math homework comes home in the Homework folders as well. First grade mathematicians do not always have weekly homework, but 2nd graders usually do. Please make sure the math homework gets returned upon completion so I can check it off. I will send it back again so these games can be played over and over again. Math homework is homework. We usually do not have time to finish any un-finished math work in our classroom unless you specifically request that we do. Please let me know if you need assistance.

The weather is quickly becoming colder every day. Please remember to send your child to school with weather-appropriate clothing. We have outdoor recess every day. We also have snack every day. Please make sure to pack a healthy snack for your child every day. Thank you.

This week the students started writing "Buzz Mail" to each other and the teachers at our school. I think some students also wrote some "Buzz Mail" letters to their parents as well. "Buzz Mail" celebrates and highlights the wonderful choices the students make every day, showing that they are safe, kind and responsible. We wish to share that with you and our school community so we write letters acknowledging each other and sharing our accomplishments. This week, for example, a student wrote a "Buzz Mail" letter to Mr. Terko and invited him to our classroom celebration next week. Guess what? He accepted and even delivered a letter back to the student in our classroom!!! Wow, we were so amazed. We looked at the letter on our document camera. We decided that we would like to have a special snack/celebration when he comes next week. I will provide more information when I know the date and time, but we would like to ask parents to contribute small treats and snacks for this very special day. Thank you.

Lastly, Team Harmony learned about many exotic creatures today when three students' dad visited our team with animals from all over the world. Here is a video of this terrific event. Thank you, Mr. Anderson!