Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Happy Snow Day!  I hope you get a chance to enjoy the outdoors today and this upcoming week when we have our Winter Break from school.  I will see the students again on Monday, February 28th when we return to school.  Have a fantastic break everyone!

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• We continued being “Kindness Detectives” this week.  The students complimented each other and used our Kindness Challenge board to recognize each other for using kind words, helping a friend or having a positive attitude towards learning and each other.  

• The students learned that positive self-talk is a powerful strategy to use when things feel frustrating, especially when the learning task seems challenging.  We explored different positive self-affirmations, such as “I can do this”, “I am worth it”, “I can try again”.  The students chose three statements that reflected their own needs and desires.  They personalized them with art-work.  They are on display in our classroom and remind us of how important it is to be kind to yourself and others. They also remind us how we can use positive self-talk to calm ourselves down.

• Valentine’s Day provided yet another opportunity to practice kindness in our classroom.  The students exchanged their gifts and thanked each other for the thoughtful cards and gifts.  Thank you all for helping your child prepare these wonderfully thoughtful gifts at home.

• Ms. Clark read the book “Hooway for Wodney Wat” by Helen Lester this week too.  We learned about friendship, empathy and diversity in this wonderful book.

Reading:

• Our focus this week was on fluency.  Fluency in first grade primarily emphasizes intonation, phrasing and prosody.  In other words, we encourage children to read out loud periodically to make sure their reading “sounds like spoken language”.  Reading out loud in our classroom means the students read with a whisper voice during our reading classes.  Practicing fluency with your reading partner, however, means that you can read  with a louder voice to check to make sure you (and your partner) reflect the punctuation and plot in your voice as you read.  Students are encouraged to read out loud to an adult at home too.  This helps students practice those trickier sight words/high frequency words in an effort to build familiarity and automaticity.

• This week, the students also practiced reading their books using different silly voices.  The students chose a random card from a bag to see how they should read their books.  It was so much fun because these cards were rather silly.  Some cards stated that the books should be read using your favorite zoo animal, while other cards stated that you should try to read your book using a pirate or monster voice.  Perhaps your child wants to create his/her own set for fun reading at home?

Writing:

• The students continued writing their opinion pieces this week with more independence and stamina.  They used a graphic organizer to help plan their writing and also used a writing rubric to edit/revise their own writing before handing it in.  The writing rubric reflected age-appropriate grammar conventions such as spacing between words, proper capitalization and ending punctuation.  The rubric also reflected spelling strategies to encourage the students to “tap out/sound out” blends and digraphs and check for trick word spelling.

First Grade Math:

• First grade mathematicians continued working on concepts of equality in math.  They continued sharing their reasoning and understanding of these concepts in our daily Number Corner activities, a time when we explore new expressions and equations.  They also learned many new games to practice these skills more independently.  Ask your child to explain “The Rainforest Adventure Game” for example.  It is a highly engaging way to learn math using the rainforest as a structural guide!

• First grade mathematicians also created beautiful rainbows to show their understanding of equality.  

Science:

• The students participated in a series of science lessons this week learning more about sound.  They learned about pitch and how sound travels. They created guitars in partnerships and played along with Ms. Clark as she played her own guitar.  When we return from our February break, the students will have the opportunity to create their own musical instruments for our own classroom band!  Stay tuned for more information.

News and Reminders:

• We have Winter Break (no school) 2/21-2/25.  Students return to school on Monday, 2/28.

• Test-at-home kits were sent home earlier this week in your child’s backpack.  Please read my email from the school nurse/school for further details regarding testing for Covid before returning to school.  Thank you.  If your child was absent when these tests were distributed, please contact the front office to arrange for pick-up.  Thank you.

Have a great weekend and week off from school!

Maria

Pictures from our week together

 Morning play time:

Learning from each other in writing:

Learning how light can be used to communicate:

Student wishes and dreams for the world (MLK Jr. Day):

Playing together:

Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Happy Snow Day!  I hope you are all enjoying this winter weather with some special outdoor winter activities.  Since we have no school today, we will celebrate the 100th day of school on Monday, February 7th instead.  Please have your child bring in his/her 100 small items on Monday.   Students are invited to bring in a collection of 100 to share at our Math Museum that day. Counting collections gives mathematicians opportunities to practice counting forward and backward fluently, and to organize large quantities into efficient groups. Collections should fit in a large Ziploc bag (examples: cheerios, raw pasta/beans, beads, paperclips, etc.). Students are welcome to organize a collection with items from the classroom if they choose not to bring something from home!

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• We learned about different ways to solve conflicts and play fairly with all friends this week.  Second Step, our school curriculum which centers around the social-emotional learning goals of our young learners, provides some explicit problem-solving techniques and strategies. We listened to the song Fair Ways to Play and talked about how we can take turns using the toys/materials in our classroom, how we can trade and how we can include everyone in our play. We even did some role play to show different situations that can arise.  The students did a great job performing to each other!

• We participated in “Global Play Day” on Wednesday.  We played a special partner game in science (see below for more details about the science content) and we had several stations set up, through which the students rotated.  They played a new game called “Helicopter” (I think this might be a new favorite!).  They also played a lego game with sight words and several word/rhyming games.  The students were encouraged to take turns, share and keep small problems small.  They did a great job working together

Reading:

• We have new reading groups in our classroom.  We periodically change our reading groups to reflect assessment data, individual student needs, or content focus.  The students are so excited to read with new friends!  

• The students also continued rotating through independent reading activities such as reading “just right” books/choice books, working on trick words or practicing rhyming/word endings.

• We encourage families to encourage daily reading at home.  Thank you for supporting us at home! Raz kids provides students and families with a solid platform and addresses accuracy, fluency and comprehension skills. We also encourage families to read the library books together as well.  Let me know if you need additional resources or help with selecting “just right” books for your child. Thank you for supporting reading at home.

• This week, the students listened to several read alouds related to our opinion writing unit.  They are learning about the importance of connecting reading and writing.  Sometimes it is helpful to read books as writers and pay close attention to the words and the structure of the writing rather than the overall plot.  Reading books as a writer can teach us specific skills to use when we write our own stories.  We read “I wanna iguana” and “I wanna new room” by Karen Kaufman Orloff, which showed us some new and interesting ways to share our opinions and how to justify those opinions with evidence and reasons.

Writing:

• This week, the students had a chance to share their opinion writing pieces with the class and give each other compliments as authors.  It was wonderful to see them highlight accomplishments and cheer each other on.  They complimented each other on the pictures, the penmanship, the ideas and the punctuation.  What a kind group of kids we have!

First Grade Math:

• First grade mathematicians started a new Number Corner calendar with a new focus.  This month, we will primarily explore the concepts of equality in math.  Equality in first grade means that we are comparing two quantities in terms of the number of objects (value) rather than what they look like (color, type of object, etc).  It is comparing two expressions that are equal (or not equal).  For example, we will explore equations such as 5+2=6+1 or 5+2=8-1.  First grade mathematicians are learning how to show their thinking about these expressions using pictures or models.

• First grade mathematicians also continued working on developing skills for adding 10 more to any number and finding the number “just before a decuple”.  Ask your child to explain how we played a game called “Ski Race” and how we use 100 rekenreks to show our thinking.

Science:

• We learned more about light this week.  The students learned how light and colors can be used to communicate with others far away.  They created their own color/light codes to send messages to each other using flashlights.  So much fun!

News and Reminders:

• Our school changed the dismissal protocols this week.   Our school now asks that parents pick up their children by 2:50.   We understand that traffic can sometimes back up and parents arrive late for a variety of different reasons.   If that is the case, your child will wait inside the building for your arrival.  Buses and Part 2 students will have the same dismissal procedures and nothing will change for them. 

• Here is a reminder for birthday celebrations:  On Harmony, we do not celebrate your child’s birthday with food/candy due to covid and dietary restrictions.  Instead, we do our best to make your child’s birthday special by singing to him/her, provide a birthday balloon and a special birthday covering on your child’s chair.  The birthday child also gets to choose a small birthday surprise from the classroom Treasure Box and go down to see Ms. Filion for a special birthday surprise.  If your child wants to bring in a special book for a read aloud, or show/share something special on that day, he/she can do that too.  Thank you for understanding.

• We will celebrate Valentine’s Day on Harmony on 2/14.  If your child wishes to share Valentine’s Day cards with his/her friends, please make sure all children in our class is included.  No food or candy, please. Please bring in these cards on Monday.  The students will hand them out to each other on Monday.  They will also create a special Valentine’s Day envelope/bag for all of these cards for storage. Your child has a class-list inside his/her Home Folder today.  Thank you. 

Don’t forget to visit the class blog for pictures from our week together at school!

Have a great weekend,

Maria