Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

I hope you had a relaxing week off from school and digital learning tools.  I also hope you feel ready to get back to remote learning together again!  I am very excited.

My family and I had a fun-filled week together with very little technology.  We hiked in the woods and did some yard-work, which at my house entails clearing some land and chopping down trees while moving rocks!  I will share more with the kids tomorrow on seesaw.

Our new remote learning schedule is complete.  I wanted to send this email to you as early as possible so you and your family can plan the upcoming week.  I know what it is like to manage multiple children's schedules, broadband capacity as well as your own working schedules.

Before you look at it, I wanted to explain a few things:

1. Our days/times remain the same for our small group google meets.  We will have another whole class google meet on Friday and there is no need to sign up for that.

2. Most slide-decks have been linked in a slightly different format.  I did it in the "preview" mode so the images would be bigger for everybody to see, but this means that you will need to use the arrow keys to forward through the whole presentation and get to my video-recording.

3.  We will start a new writing unit on Wednesday.  Wednesday's slide-deck is a little longer than the average ones from last week because I wanted to introduce/explain opinion writing and how to get started in depth.

4. Monday's schedule has two lessons for literacy; one for reading and one for writing.  They are related and we will share on Friday.

5.  As we did in the past, I will post a morning message on seesaw around 8am.  This message can be followed up on right away, later during the day, or simply thought about, or talked about at home. I hope your child visits the remote learning schedule (on the wiki and linked below) after that to watch/listen to the literacy lesson.  This lesson is followed up on and modeled by me on seesaw again around 8:15-8:30.  Since these are recorded, there is no need to watch them at this particular time, but the sequence, seesaw, wiki, seesaw-post, helps your child make stronger connections now when we are teaching new materials.  I also hope it helps families by having one child at a time online since passcodes vary and many times devices are shared.

Here is week 2 (2nd grade math will be linked later today)

Remote Learning Schedule Week 2

Lastly, I wanted to offer parent-teacher conferences in google meets in the next few weeks.  They were cancelled due to the school closings, but if you would like to meet up for approximately 15-20 minutes, please email me and let me know which days/times work best for you.  My "office hours" are on the remote schedule as well.

Thanks for reading this very long email.  I will "see" everyone tomorrow:)

Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

Congratulations! We've officially navigated the first week of remote learning and everyone deserves a pat on the back !

Thanks for all of your support during this transition and thank you for helping your child get online to participate in our google meets and online learning activities.  I love watching their videos and reading their responses on seesaw.

As I mentioned in our whole-class google meet this morning, I strongly encourage students to take a break from SeeSaw and screen time next week. Instead, I hope you and your family will go outside, explore nature and do things together that does not require a device or any electronics.

I would like to invite students to participate in the Egg Drop Challenge, if they would like to! This engineering task is completely optional, and just for fun! 

Please see the wonderful resource for other fun and engaging activities to do together. This guide to play was compiled by a fellow educator and parent. 

Lastly, I wanted to share some of the wonderful posts made by students on seesaw this week.  Enjoy our seesaw blog!  Click here (I emailed the password to you)

I will be taking a break from my laptop/email and will be back in touch on Sunday, April 26th with an updated remote learning schedule for the week of the 27th. Have a wonderful week!

Best,

Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

I hope you are still enjoying a nice and relaxing weekend.  It seems like the weather is slowly warming up a bit.  The snow and ice finally melted at my house and I am starting to see some birds and ducks. 

Thank you all so very much for your support, patience and flexibility in the last couple of weeks as teachers are setting up structures for remote learning.  This is a challenging time for everyone so I appreciate your dedication to our continued learning community and relationships.  It was wonderful to see so many students join our google meets last week.  I hope to see all of you in the upcoming week.  I will send a separate email for sign-ups.  Thank you Ms. Z. for joining us as well!  We miss you so much but it is great to stay connected online.  She will continue to check in with the students in the weeks ahead.

Our learning together will transition from maintenance of learning into remote learning of new materials in the next couple of weeks.  Our school administrators have already started sharing some of this with families via phone-messages and emails and I will communicate more details as soon as Team Harmony has finalized plans.  In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly if you have any concerns or questions.  We are all stronger if we manage these uncertain times together.  I will continue to post weekly newsletters on the blog as in the past, although most of our communication now occurs on seesaw or via email.

Best,
Maria