Weekly Update

Dear Families,
It is hard to believe but another week is almost done!  Thank you to those of you who attended Curriculum Night last night.  I hope our information regarding our curricular programs was helpful and informative.  For those of you who could not attend, I assure you that my blog posts include information about our curriculum as I share the learning we do on our team.  If you are interested you can also visit our Family Resource Page on our team web-site to access online resources of the programs we use at ABS.  Thank you.
This week in reader's workshop, the students continued to read independently and in small guided reading groups. Books went home in our students book bags again on Monday.  We hope to have those back on Thursdays along with the red homework folder.  If your child wants an additional day to complete reading or math homework, that is fine too.  Please return the two items by Friday so we can get ready and pack up for the next week's book selection.  I hope your child feels more confident reading and writing at home.  I appreciate your thoughtful comments and observations.  They are very helpful to me.  Thank you.  Let's keep the conversation going!
In reading this week, the students also learned more about stamina.  This is a familiar topic to most students.  Stamina in reading means the ability and willingness to read independently for longer periods of time.  In our classroom, we discussed what we can do to help develop reading stamina.  Some of the things we explored were reading a variety of just right books, partner read, taking notes on post-it notes or index cards, doing word hunts/graphs and setting daily personal goals for reading.  The students do a fantastic job reading!  It is clear they love reader's workshop!
In writing this week, the students continued to create stories of different nature.  We read the book "Wemberly Worried" by Kevin Henkes and talked about how we can create stories about strong feeling we have had.  The students loved this idea.  Some students decided to write stories of the first time the rode a bike and felt very happy, while others choose stories about feelings of nervousness, such as the first day of school or losing a first tooth.  Next week, we will explore stories about people we admire and then learn about the publishing process.
Next week, we will begin sharing in our classroom.  I sent home a sharing schedule in your child's Thursday folder.  We rotate through the kids every two weeks.  This means that approximately two students share each day.  Next week will be week 1 and then the following week will be week 2 and so on.  If this sounds confusing, please do not worry.  We keep track of our schedule in class and the students know when they share.  Sharing is an opportunity for us to get to know each other better and it is not supposed to be a high stress situation for your child.  If he/she feels worried or anxious about sharing, let me know. We share in our morning meeting.  Some children like to bring in objects or pictures from home to share, and that is great, but it is equally fine to choose to read a book from your book box that you really like.  Last year, for example, the children loved to share their own written pieces from class.  I encourage this type of sharing as we emphasize the learning we do together rather than toys and video-games.  Thank you for encouraging your child to share stories and experiences rather than objects!

I hope you have a great day tomorrow and a wonderful weekend.
Regards,
Maria