Newsletter, August 27, 2015

Some of the kids thought I might look nice with a hair bow at recess.

Dear Families.

We are at Day #7 and we are beginning to get many of our routines and expectations defined, though not mastered. That will take some time. My wife is a teacher as well and we've been joking about how tired we are at the beginning of each year. It's a lot of work to help everyone settle in, pay attention, follow directions, and so on. But the beauty is that once we get these things established we will have everything in place for a highly productive two years together. Something you could do right now to help the kids is to check to see that they are doing their homework each night and bringing their Home folders in each and every day. I did a check today. 17 of the 20 had completed their written conversation while only 6 of the 20 had their reading logs with them and had completed both Tuesday and Wednesday's reading (having both read and logged their books). That's a pretty low success rate. Please, please, please check with them each night. They'll often be reading for twenty minutes, logging, and working about 10 minutes on an assignment that is due within the next week. If you ever have any questions let me know. I'm happy to help in any way I can!

Here are a few of the things we've been working on this week:

Each morning we gather for Morning Meeting. I"ve been introducing our Classroom Journals.
These are places where the kids can record their noticings and wonderings then share these
out with the class so we can discuss them together. I"ve been modeling this for the kids this
week. In the culture journal I wondered why we often buy new shoes or clothes for the first
day of school when we could do this any day of the year. It seems to be a cultural tradition
of sorts. The kids thought it was because it's a new year and people want to look nice
and start fresh. Good thinking!

We've talked about having healthy snacks to give us energy in the afternoons since
our lunch is so early in the day. Options are fruit, crackers, pretzels, veggie sticks,
yogurt, etc. If they have sugary treats in their lunches I ask them to eat those for
a desert at lunch and save something more substantial for the afternoon to
help keep them fueled up.

We've been presenting our All About Me squares to the class. This is a great way
to learn more about one another as well as practice speaking to an audience. It's
also a great opportunity to learn audience etiquette.

We've been writing each day. After a mini-lesson with me they have about 20 - 25 minutes to
write independently before sharing their stories and other pieces with a partner. Learning
to focus and write without talking and playing has been a challenge at times but we're working
toward achieving this. I usually ask them to write silently for a period of time before telling
them they can talk quietly during the last ten minutes or so.

The focus of our writing mini-lessons has been to identify the sorts of writing
they might do during their independent writing time. There will be times this
year when we are all writing within the same genre (poetry, informational text, etc)
and times when they are free to write any sort of piece they'd like. My goal is to
help them grow into stronger and stronger writers while also feeling passionate
about the work they are doing. To achieve this, I have to ensure that choice is a big
part of our writing workshop.

They are completing a job application in which they tell me about their home
responsibilities and identify which classroom jobs they would like to have
this year. We talked a lot about how people get jobs in our community (application
and interview process) and the need to demonstrate an ability to be responsible.

They will complete these applications today and class jobs will be revealed next week.

In math we are working on addition strategies. We began with grouping easy number sets
together to make larger problems easier. In this photograph we are making sets
of ten to simplify a long problem. 

These are some other strategies they told me they use when adding sets of numbers.

We used blocks to assist us in our computation work. I like for the kids to show
me how they solve problems using manipulatives, pictures, numbers, and words. This
pushes them to think about these problems in both concrete and conceptual ways and helps
me to assess their understanding.

Lastly, I wanted to thank Myles for remembering to bring in a non-sugary treat for his birthday. We all had a great time eating the sugar-free popsicles and enjoying one another's company. 

Have a great weekend!

Chris