Post 8

IMPORTANT DATES:

October 24th-November 4th: Fall Conferences - It has been great meeting with all of you to discuss your child's progress and I look forward to meeting with those of you who have future conferences. If you have not already signed up, please sign-up for a conference on Sign-Up Genius and note that conferences are for adults only.

November 3rd: 12:30 dismissal 

November 7th: Our book fair preview - We will be previewing the school book fair on 11/7. After our preview, your child should come home with a written or mental list of books that s/he would be interested in purchasing at our book fair. 

November 7 or December 1st from 6:30-8:30: Responsive Home Workshop - The Social and Emotional Learning Department of the Newton Public Schools will be sponsoring Responsive Home Workshops for families to help you create a calm, supportive and encouraging environment at home. This workshop goes hand in hand with the Responsive Classroom work that we are doing in the classroom. Although I have never attended one of these workshops, I have attended a week-long Responsive Classroom workshop with the presenter, Amy Kelly, and it was phenomenal! I am planning to put on my mom-hat and attend one of these workshops myself just to see what it is all about!  

November 9th from 2:15-2:45: Book fair classroom visit - This is our time to purchase books at the school book fair. If you and your child choose to purchase books at the book fair, please send in your child's money on this day in an envelope labeled with your child's name, my name (Ms. E-J) and book fair $. If you are able to join us during this time, it would be much appreciated! 

November 11th: Veteran's Day - NO SCHOOL  

REMINDERS: 

Homework: Homework will be sent home beginning on Tuesday, 11/1/16. In the meantime, please work with your child to find or create a comfortable place for him/her to do homework and determine how homework will fit into your afternoon/evening routine. Each night, students will have 3 pieces to complete: 1 math, 1 literacy and 20 minutes of reading. A packet will be sent home on Monday and will be returned on Friday. Here is a link to an article about ways to help your child with homework at home. 

Wow words: Thank you for your increased participation with this! Many children came in with words to share and our sharing was quite rich! Please continue to make it part of your daily routine. Each Wednesday in our class is Wow Word Wednesday. Our Wednesday morning work is to write and decorate a Wow Word and we need your help with this. During the week, as you are reading and talking with your child, there will be words that are new to him/her. I encourage your children to inquire about these unfamiliar words and I would like you to do the same, as this is one way your child can be in control of his/her own learning. These new vocabulary words are wow words - words that they can teach the class so that we are all increasing our vocabulary! Please help your child to learn what these wow words mean (Here is a link to Merriam Webster for kids - Word Central). If it is helpful to your child to help learn these words, s/he can jot them down on the Wow Word worksheet in our child's folder. If your child encounters many wow words each week, feel free to have him/her write them on the sheet, but they will pick 1 word to teach us each week. Here is a link to the wow word worksheet in case you need a new one.

Parent Volunteers:  If you are interested and available to volunteer with in-school tasks (such as photocopying, laminating and cutting materials, organizing materials, fixing classroom library books, etc.) and/or out-of-school tasks (such as helping with the Scholastic Book Order, helping to organize our classroom library by labeling books, picking up photos for our class from CVS, etc.) please email me to let me know. Thank you so much to those who have helped out already and those who have offered to volunteer! It truly takes a village!

CURRICULUM UPDATE:

In reading we: 

• Read The School Mouse by Dick King Smith and Ira Says Goodbye by Bernard Waber. 
• Continued practicing activating our schema before reading, using both fiction and non-fiction texts 
• Continued practicing using sticky notes to show our thinking (questioning, predicting, making connections, summarizing, inferring and solving words) while reading.
• Practiced making connections (text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world) connections to help us comprehend a text. 

At home, have books talks with your child. If you have already had your conference, please use the red bookmark that you received for question ideas. Also, as you are reading, "think aloud" to help them notice you using the same strategies that they are learning at school, such as activating prior knowledge about a topic or making connections to a text. Say things like, "This reminds me of the time..." or "This reminds me of the part in The Cricket in Times Square when..." Also, please discuss rich vocabulary that you find in the books you are reading. Have your child record these on their wow word worksheet and see if you can use some of these words in your daily conversations.  

Next week, we will continue practicing making connections to help us comprehend fiction and non-fiction texts. 

In Fundations (Word Study) we: 

• Reviewed glued sounds 
• Practiced making and writing words with bonus letters and glued sounds
• Trick words: shall, full, pull, walk, talk, both

At home, Please refer to the  Unit 2 family letter to learn how you can support our word study work at home. Also, look though the fundations - word study section on my website. There, you will find all of the first and second grade trick words. If your child needs practice with these words, please practice through activities such as playing bingo, memory or through reviewing them on flashcards.

In writing we: 

• Continued our work on writing small moment stories. We continued playing with our stories to add details. We are using Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson as our guides.  

At home, continue to support your child's use of his/her tiny topic notebook. Here is the bit on tiny topic notebooks from the previous blogs if you need a refresher: We are learning that authors often get their ideas from events that occur in their lives. To help us remember meaningful moments in our lives, we each received a tiny topic notebook. These notebooks will go to and from school in your child's folder and are a place for your child to jot down meaningful moments that s/he may want to turn into a Small Moment story for writing. If you notice a meaningful moment, please note it with your child. You could say something like, "That was such a meaningful moment. That would make a great Small Moment story." and suggest that s/he jot it on the tiny topic notebook.

Next week, we will study imagery, tension and literary language in Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and practice these techniques in our writing.

In math we:

• Worked on our fact power by practicing with fact triangles, naming numbers in various ways, building fact families with dominoes, and playing games such as Beat the Calculator, Subtraction Salute and Addition Top-It.

Next week, we will take our unit 2 math assessment and begin the next unit on place value, money and time. 

At home, continue to work on fact fluency. You can use games, such as Math Facts Basketball on ABCYa.com. They also have games connected to the next unit on money, time and place value. If  your child needs practice with these concepts, please check them out. 

In Science we:

• Engineered seeds that travel by wind and hitchhiking. Many of the wind travelers were light, had wings or had parachutes. The hitchhikers were sticky or spiky in some way.
• Classified the seed collections that your children brought in. 

This concluded our How Seeds Travel unit. Next week, we will begin our first Social Studies unit: USA and Geography.

Have a great weekend! 

Post 7

IMPORTANT DATES:

This weekend!!!: Playground Community Build - Our school's playground community build is this weekend and your child's school community needs your help! Please consider signing up for 1 or more time slots to help. Donating a few hours of your time this weekend will provide many, many hours of enjoyment for your child this year and in the years to come. Thank you to those who have already signed up! Let's get our community together and build this playground for our kids!

** As you sign up, please note that no one under the age of 18 will be permitted at the site, so please arrange for childcare. 

October 24th-November 4th: Fall Conferences - Fall conferences are here! Thanks to those who have signed up! If you have not already done so, please sign-up for a conference on Sign-Up Genius and note that conferences are for adults only.

October 27th: Flu Clinic - The Memorial Spaulding Flu Clinic will be held October 27, 2016. Parents may sign students up to receive the flu vaccine at no charge by returning consent and screening forms to the school nurse. MDPH is providing Flucelvax, a quadrivalent, cell-based flu vaccine, for our students. The nasal spray flu vaccine, FluMist, will not be offered this year due to updated recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The forms are due October 25, 2016. Forms and additional information are available online at www.newtonma.gov/flu or in the school nurse’s office.

November 7th: Our book fair preview - We will be previewing the school book fair on 11/7. After our preview, your child should come home with a written or mental list of books that s/he would be interested in purchasing at our book fair. 

November 9th from 2:15-2:45: Book fair classroom visit - This is our time to purchase books at the school book fair. If you and your child choose to purchase books at the book fair, please send in your child's money on this day in an envelope labeled with your child's name, my name (Ms. E-J) and book fair $. If you are able to join us during this time, it would be much appreciated!  

November 11th: Veteran's Day - NO SCHOOL  

REMINDERS: 

Homework: Homework will be sent home beginning 11/1/16. In the meantime, please work with your child to find or create a comfortable place for him/her to do homework and determine how homework will fit into your afternoon/evening routine. Each night, students will have 3 pieces to complete: 1 math, 1 literacy and 20 minutes of reading. A packet will be sent home on Monday and will be returned on Friday. Here is a link to an article about ways to help your child with homework at home. 


Wow words: Each Wednesday in our class is Wow Word Wednesday. Our Wednesday morning work is to write and decorate a Wow Word and we need your help with this. During the week, as you are reading and talking with your child, there will be words that are new to him/her. I encourage your children to inquire about these unfamiliar words and I would like you to do the same, as this is one way your child can be in control of his/her own learning. These new vocabulary words are wow words - words that they can teach the class so that we are all increasing our vocabulary! Please help your child to learn what these wow words mean (Here is a link to Merriam Webster for kids - Word Central). If it is helpful to your child to help learn these words, s/he can jot them down on the Wow Word worksheet in our child's folder. If your child encounters many wow words each week, feel free to have him/her write them on the sheet, but they will pick 1 word to teach us each week. Here is a link to the wow word worksheet in case you need a new one.

Parent Volunteers:  If you are interested and available to volunteer with in-school tasks (such as photocopying, laminating and cutting materials, organizing materials, fixing classroom library books, etc.) and/or out-of-school tasks (such as helping with the Scholastic Book Order, helping to organize our classroom library by labeling books, picking up photos for our class from CVS, etc.) please email me to let me know. Thank you so much to those who have helped out already and those who have offered to volunteer! It truly takes a village!

Responsive Home Workshop: The Social and Emotional Learning Department of the Newton Public Schools will be sponsoring Responsive Home Workshops for families to help you create a calm, supportive and encouraging environment at home. This workshop goes hand in hand with the Responsive Classroom work that we are doing in the classroom. Although I have never attended one of these workshops, however I have attended a week-long Responsive Classroom workshop with the presenter, Amy Kelly, and it was phenomenal! I am planning to put on my mom-hat and attend one of these workshops myself just to see what it is all about!  

CURRICULUM UPDATE:

In reading we: 

• Read The School Mouse by Dick King Smith, Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, and Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats by Ann Earle.
• Continued practicing activating our schema before reading, using both fiction and non-fiction texts 
• Continued practicing using sticky notes to show our thinking (questioning, predicting, making connections, summarizing, inferring and solving words) while reading.
• Practiced making connections (text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world) connections to help us comprehend a text. 

When reading with your child at home, have books talks with your child. Ask them what they already know about a topic before reading a book or invite them to share any connections they have when reading. You can share your connections, too. Say things like, "This reminds me of the time..." or "This reminds me of the part in The Cricket in Times Square when..."  

Next week, we will continue practicing making connections to help us comprehend fiction and non-fiction texts. 

In Fundations (Word Study) we: 

• Took our unit 1 assessment
• Practiced identifying closed syllables 
• Reviewed bonus letters
• Trick words: shall, full, pull

Please refer to the  Unit 2 family letter to learn how you can support our word study work at home. Also, look though the fundations-word study section on my website. There, you will find all of the first and second grade trick words. If your child need practice with these words, please practice through activities such as playing bingo, memory or through reviewing them on flashcards.

In writing we: 

• Continued our work on writing small moment stories. We practiced planning our stories and learned to include details.  

At home, continue to support your child's use of his/her tiny topic notebook. Here is the bit on tiny topic notebooks from the previous blogs if you need a refresher: We are learning that authors often get their ideas from events that occur in their lives. To help us remember meaningful moments in our lives, we each received a tiny topic notebook. These notebooks will go to and from school in your child's folder and are a place for your child to jot down meaningful moments that s/he may want to turn into a Small Moment story for writing. If you notice a meaningful moment, please note it with your child. You could say something like, "That was such a meaningful moment. That would make a great Small Moment story." and suggest that s/he jot it on the tiny topic notebook.

Next week, we will work on rereading our stories to make sure they make sense and setting goals for our writing. We will continue to use Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson as our guides.

In math we:

• Reviewed turn-around facts (ask your child why they give you fact power)
• Learned the +9 shortcut. We noticed a pattern that the one's place in the sum is always one less than the ones place in the other addend. We also saw that we can think of 9 as 10-1, so if we know how to quickly add 10 to any number, we can easily add 9, too!
• Practiced subtraction. 
• Learned about the 3 read strategy for number stories. This helps us to really understand what number stories are asking so that we can solve them thoughtfully.
• Held our first math congress, where we share our big math ideas.

Next week, we will continue working on addition and subtraction number facts.

In Science we:

• Dissected seeds and learned about the 3 parts of a seed.
• Learned about how seeds travel.
• Collected seeds in nature and sorted some by how they might have travelled. 

Ask your child about the different ways that seeds travel. When you are out and about, you could ask your child how they think different plants began growing in their locations.

In Mindfulness we:

• learned how to be leaders of mindful minutes in class. 

In Open Circle we:

• Read Nobody Knew What to Do by Becky Rae McCain and discussed that when we see someone being hurt or someone is hurting us, it’s important to take care of them or ourselves by letting an adult know. 
• Discussed how to handle annoying behaviors.
• Discussed befriending classmates who are teased or left out. 

At home, ask your child about these lessons and have open discussions about these open circle topics. 

Next week, we will discuss how to report if students are hurting each other outside of the classroom. 

Post 6

IMPORTANT DATES:

October 17th: ASCA begins

Please notify me in writing if you decide to enroll your child in the PTO's After School Creative Arts Program (ASCA) as this will affect dismissal plans. (Thank you to those who have already notified me). Please visit the ASCA site if you are interested in learning more or registering for classes.

October 19th: Picture Day - Coffee Pond will be at Memorial-Spaulding on 10/19 for picture day. Our class is signed up to have our individual and class pictures taken at 10:00. If you would like to pre-pay for an individual picture, please use either the order form sent home in your child's folder or you can order directly online. All children receive a complimentary class picture. 

October 27th: Flu Clinic - The Memorial Spaulding Flu Clinic will be held October 27, 2016.   Parents may sign students up to receive the flu vaccine at no charge by returning consent and screening forms to the school nurse.  MDPH is providing Flucelvax, a quadrivalent, cell-based flu vaccine, for our students.  The nasal spray flu vaccine, FluMist, will not be offered this year due to updated recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The forms are due October 25, 2016.  Forms and additional information are available online at www.newtonma.gov/flu or in the school nurse’s office.  Once again, the flu clinic will be on October 27^th and forms are due October 25^th.

November 11th: Veteran's Day - NO SCHOOL  

NEW NOTICES:

Homework: Homework will be sent home beginning 11/1/16. In the meantime, please work with your child to find or create a comfortable place for him/her to do homework and determine how homework will fit into your afternoon/evening routine. Each night, students will have 3 pieces to complete: 1 math, 1 literacy and 20 minutes of reading. Here is a link to an article about ways to help your child with homework at home. 

Fall Conferences: Fall conferences are here! Please sign-up for a conference on Sign-Up Genius and note that conferences are for adults only.

Playground Community Build: Time to get our hands dirty together and build this amazing playground! Please consider signing up for 1 or more time slots to help. If you come on Saturday morning, you will see me there! We encourage spouses, family members and friends to get involved too! The more volunteers we have the faster this will get done. As you sign up remember that no one under the age of 18 will be permitted at the site, so please arrange for childcare. We also need your tools and supplies! Take a look at the items needed and if you have anything we can “borrow” from Weds 10/19 to Mon 10/24 that would be great! Please label any items you bring. Thank you for your help and support! Donated food, drinks, snacks and lunch will be provided.

REMINDERS: (any new info added to these reminders is in bold. For those who follow weekly, this is the only newly added info here). 

Wow words: Each Wednesday in our class is Wow Word Wednesday. Our Wednesday morning work is to write and decorate a Wow Word and we need your help with this. During the week, as you are reading and talking with your child, there will be words that are new to him/her. I encourage your children to inquire about these unfamiliar words and I would like you to do the same, as this is one way your child can be in control of his/her own learning. These new vocabulary words are wow words - words that they can teach the class so that we are all increasing our vocabulary! Please help your child to learn what these wow words mean (Here is a link to Merriam Webster for kids - Word Central). If it is helpful to your child to help learn these words, s/he can jot them down on the Wow Word worksheet in our child's folder. If your child encounters many wow words each week, feel free to have him/her write them on the sheet, but they will pick 1 word to teach us each week. Here is a link to the wow word worksheet in case you need a new one.

Cool Weather Dressing: As the days are getting cooler, please be sure to send your child with a jacket or sweatshirt, if necessary.

Parent Volunteers: Thank you so much to those who have helped out already and those who have offered to volunteer! It truly takes a village! If you are interested and available to volunteer with in-school tasks (such as photocopying, laminating and cutting materials, organizing materials, fixing classroom library books, etc.) and/or out-of-school tasks (such as helping with the Scholastic Book Order, helping to organize our classroom library by labeling books, picking up photos for our class from CVS, etc.) please email me to let me know. Thanks!!

Responsive Home Workshop: The Social and Emotional Learning Department of the Newton Public Schools will be sponsoring Responsive Home Workshops for families to help you create a calm, supportive and encouraging environment at home. This workshop goes hand in hand with the Responsive Classroom work that we are doing in the classroom. Although I have never attended one of these workshops, I have attended a week-long Responsive Classroom workshop with the presenter, Amy Kelly, and it was phenomenal! I am planning to put on my mom-hat and attend one of these workshops myself just to see what it is all about!  

CURRICULUM UPDATE:

In reading we: 

• Read The School Mouse by Dick King Smith and Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.
• Learned about activating our schema before reading. 
• Used sticky notes to show our thinking while reading. 

Next week, we will discuss and practice using our schema and making connections to help us comprehend fiction and non-fiction texts. 

In Fundations (Word Study) we: 

• Continued our practice with the rules for the /k/ sound 
• Use k before e, i or y (e.g. kite, kit, or key)
• Use ck at the end of words immediately following a short vowel (e.g. sock or back)
• Reviewed the trick words they, said, one, you, your was
• Reviewed closed syllables

Please refer to the orientation and unit 1 family letters to learn how you can support our word study work at home. Also, look though the fundations-word study section on my website. There, you will find all of the first and second grade trick words. If your child need practice with these words, please practice through activities such as playing bingo, memory or through reviewing them on flashcards.

Next week, we will finish unit one, take our unit 1 assessment and begin unit 2. Here is a link to the Unit 2 family letter for you to support this important work at home. 

 In writing we: 

• Read Ralph Writes a Story and talked about how ideas really can come from anywhere in your life if you pay attention. Please continue to support your child's use of his/her tiny topic notebook at home. Here is the bit on tiny topic notebooks from last week's blog if you need a refresher: We are learning that authors often get their ideas from events that occur in their lives. To help us remember meaningful moments in our lives, we each received a tiny topic notebook. These notebooks will go to and from school in your child's folder and are a place for your child to jot down meaningful moments that s/he may want to turn into a Small Moment story for writing. If you notice a meaningful moment, please note it with your child. You could say something like, "That was such a meaningful moment. That would make a great Small Moment story." and suggest that s/he jot it on the tiny topic notebook.

• Continued our work on writing small moment stories. 

Next week, we will learn about including details in our small moment stories and creating powerful endings to our stories. We will continue to use Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson as our guides.

In math we:

• Watched BrainPop videos about Doubles and Number Stories. I have provided links to watch with your child if you choose.
• Played Grab Bag Addition, Grab Bag Subtraction, and Finding Doubles to practice our doubles and doubles +1/-1 facts. 
• Told and solved addition number stories.

Next week, we will continue working on addition and subtraction number facts.

In Science we:

• Observed our germinating seeds.

Next week, we will will begin learning about seed dispersal and will collect seeds in nature. 

In Mindfulness we:

• imagined that our arms and legs were filled with heavy, wet sand when practicing our anchor spot breathing to help keep our bodies still. You can practice mindful breathing with your children at home. It is so calming! 

Open Circle: 

We started a new time in our week called Open Circle. The Open Circle curriculum proactively develops children’s social and emotional skills, including managing emotions, empathy, positive relationships and problem solving. This helps build communities where students feel safe, cared for and engaged in learning.

In Open Circle we:

• Read Chrysanthemum and discussed how the main character in the story felt when she was teased. We discussed that teasing in unfriendly ways is not okay, it's important for everyone to feel safe at school and to keep everyone safe, it is not okay to hurt each other's feelings or bodies. 
• Read Odd Velvet and discussed how it is not okay to leave someone out on purpose, how we can help everyone feel welcome and include everyone.

Next week, we will further discuss befriending classmates who are teased or left out.  





  

Post 5

IMPORTANT DATES:

October 10th: Columbus Day - NO SCHOOL (Here is a link to a Brainpop Jr. video about Columbus Day. You will find login info in the email I sent today.)

October 12th: Yom Kippur - NO SCHOOL

October 17th: ASCA begins

Please notify me in writing if you decide to enroll your child in the PTO's After School Creative Arts Program (ASCA) as this will affect dismissal plans. (Thank you to those who have already notified me). Please visit the ASCA site if you are interested in learning more or registering for classes.

October 19th: Picture Day - Coffee Pond will be at Memorial-Spaulding on 10/19 for picture day. Our class is signed up to have our individual and class pictures taken at 10:00. If you would like to pre-pay for an individual picture, please use either the order form sent home in your child's folder or you can order directly online. All children receive a complimentary class picture. 

NEW NOTICES:

Wow words: Each Wednesday in our class is Wow Word Wednesday. Our Wednesday morning work is to write and decorate a Wow Word and we need your help with this. During the week, as you are reading and talking with your child, there will be words that are new to him/her. I encourage your children to inquire about these unfamiliar words and I would like you to do the same, as this is one way your child can be in control of his/her own learning. These new vocabulary words are wow words - words that they can teach the class so that we are all increasing our vocabulary! Please help your child to learn what these wow words mean (Here is a link to Merriam Webster for kids - Word Central). If it is helpful to your child to help learn these words, s/he can jot them down on the Wow Word worksheet in our child's folder. If your child encounters many wow words each week, feel free to have him/her write them on the sheet, but they will pick 1 word to teach us each week. Here is a link to the wow word worksheet in case you need a new one.

Buddies: Today, we met our 4th grade buddies in Ms. Fleming and Ms. Meredith's class and did paper crafts with them. We look forward to many fun encounters with them this year!

Photos: I would like to begin adding photos to the blog. These will be online, so if you have any objection to this, please let me know and I will make sure that your child is not included in any photographs. When including photographs, I will not label any photos, so names will not be attached to faces. 

REMINDERS: (any new info added to these reminders is in bold. For those who follow weekly, this is the only newly added info here). 

Cool Weather Dressing: As the days are getting cooler, please be sure to send your child with a jacket or sweatshirt, if necessary.

Parent Volunteers: Thank you so much to those who have helped out already and those who have offered to volunteer! It truly takes a village! If you are interested and available to volunteer with in-school tasks (such as photocopying, laminating and cutting materials, organizing materials, fixing classroom library books, etc.) and/or out-of-school tasks (such as helping with the Scholastic Book Order, helping to organize our classroom library by labeling books, picking up photos for our class from CVS, etc.) please email me to let me know. Thanks!!

Late Morning Snack: Thank you to all who have been sending these in! Your children are much happier during the late morning/early afternoon. Here is the original message for those who missed it: Please begin sending in a second, small, non-messy snack (such as a small apple, cheese stick, etc.) to eat during the late morning during a work time. The children eat lunch at 1:10 and have been getting very hungry around noon, so we are going to add this snack to hopefully fend off the hungry horrors! Please distinguish their early morning snack from their late morning snack so that they are clear which is which.

Responsive Home Workshop: The Social and Emotional Learning Department of the Newton Public Schools will be sponsoring Responsive Home Workshops for families to help you create a calm, supportive and encouraging environment at home. This workshop goes hand in hand with the Responsive Classroom work that we are doing in the classroom. Although I have never attended one of these workshops, I have attended a week-long Responsive Classroom workshop with the presenter, Amy Kelly, and it was phenomenal! I am planning to put on my mom-hat and attend one of these workshops myself just to see what it is all about!  

Water bottles: Please send your child with a full water bottle with a sport cap each day (such as this water bottle or this water bottle.) I ask that you do not send in open top bottles if at all possible because they tend to spill and can ruin paper-based school materials. Water bottles will be kept in the classroom for your child to stay hydrated throughout the day. 

Pick-up: For dismissal, please stand on the RIGHT side of door 19 as you are looking at the school so that your child will be able to see you through the front windows nearest the corner of the school. As there are 2 classrooms dismissing from the same door at the same time, we have decided that our class will exit through the right door and Ms. Patteson's class will dismiss from the left door. I will have children who see their pick-up person line up, say goodbye to me and then they will be dismissed. If they do not see you, they will stay in the art room until they see you through the window. This will help to ensure everyone's safety. If someone other than those reading this are going to pick up your child, please share this with those individuals as well. Thanks!

CURRICULUM UPDATE:

In reading we: 

• Read The School Mouse by Dick King Smith.
• Are reading and reading and reading independently.
• Used sticky notes to show our thinking while reading.
• Continued summarizing stories with somebody...wanted...but...so...then. Please continue to work with this framework at home to help your child summarize books that s/he is reading. 

In Fundations (Word Study) we: 

• Reviewed reviewed rules for the /k/ sound 
• Use k before e, i or y (e.g. kite, kit, or key)
• Use ck at the end of words immediately following a short vowel (e.g. sock or back)
• Began practicing our handwriting in our handwriting books

Please refer to the orientation and unit 1 family letters to learn how you can support our word study work at home. Also, look though the fundations-word study section on my website. There, you will find all of the first and second grade trick words. If your child need practice with these words, please practice through activities such as playing bingo, memory or through reviewing them on flashcards. 

In writing we: 

• Continued our work on writing small moment stories.
• Began learning from the masters - Jane Yolen and Angela Johnson. Our mentor texts for this unit are Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson. These books are both stand-outs in children's literature and will help to teach us about great small moment stories. 
• Are learning that authors often get their ideas from events that occur in their lives. To help us remember meaningful moments in our lives, we each received a tiny topic notebook. These notebooks will go to and from school in your child's folder and are a place for your child to jot down meaningful moments that s/he may want to turn into a Small Moment story for writing. If you notice a meaningful moment, please note it with your child. You could say something like, "That was such a meaningful moment. That would make a great Small Moment story." and suggest that s/he jot it on the tiny topic notebook.

In math we:

• Played Snap-It and Build a Floor to work on number combinations.

In Science we:

• Began germinating our seeds to observe how they grow.

Mindfulness:

Our school social worker, Ms. Mazur, has been coming in weekly to provide mindfulness lessons to the class. We have learned:

• Mindful bodies - when your body is ready to listen and learn. Mindful bodies are still and have eyes looking at the speaker, a straight trunk or core, listening ears and a brain that is attending to the information presented. 
• Mindful listening - with a mindful body, close your eyes, breathe, and listen to the sounds around you.
• Mindful breathing - when you pick an anchor spot in your body where you can feel you breath and focus on that area for a period of time while breathing. This anchor spot can be anywhere, such as your chest, belly, nose, etc. Ms. Mazur explained that your brain is always moving, so by paying attention to your anchor spot, you can help your thoughts be still, just like an anchor helps the boat be still. We have been taking "a minute of mindful anchor breathing" at various points throughout the day. When we check in about the effects, your children are saying things like: 

• I felt very calm.
• My brain felt calm.
• I felt like my brain was growing.
• My whole body felt super-duper calm.
• My anchor spot was calm and it made my brain nice and calm.
• I feel calm and curious.
• It made me forget where I am.