Newsletter: Monday, August 27th

Dear Families,

We had a wonderful first three days of school! The kids were full of energy and so happy to reconnect with one another again. We spent these first few days establishing many of our classroom procedures and expectations as well as singing songs, reading books, writing stories, learning to play chess, and having a ball together at recess. We also had an opportunity to get to know our new student teacher, Ms. Crenshaw (I hope you had an opportunity to read her welcome letter on the blog).

As we transition into our first full week, we will be launching the daily structures that will constitute our curricular studies this year -morning meeting, reading workshop, writing workshop, math, and unit of study (science and social studies). Morning meeting will provide a daily opportunity for the kids to share their observations and questions with the rest of us as we learn to construct rich discussions around a wide variety of topics. In reading we will be focusing on building excitement for reading as well as learning to navigate the classroom library and all those baskets and shelves of books. In writing workshop we'll be exploring all the different sorts of writing the kids have available to them when deciding what they'd like to write each day. In math we will be taking a pre-assessment as well as beginning to solve addition problems with a focus on the wide variety of strategies mathematicians employ when computing a large series of numbers. And finally, in science we'll launch an inquiry into animals in which the kids work to make careful observations and sketches.

In other news, the kids are bringing home Scholastic book orders today. If you would like to order them some books to begin the year you can log on to the Scholastic website and complete your transaction electronically. The books you order earn our classroom points I can use to purchase books for our classroom library. If you're interested, be sure to check it out. I'll post directions below.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. And for the first of many times...I'd like to thank each of you for sharing your children with me. When I finished my PhD last year there were some assumptions made that I would begin looking to move on a university classroom. But that was not the case at all. I love spending my days learning and laughing alongside these kids. There's no better place to be. I sure hope they come home with stories over the coming weeks about great books, funny jokes, amazing research, catchy songs, and lots and lots of learning.

And now here is the Scholastic information (as copied from a post last year)...


If you'd like to participate, here's the introductory letter Scholastic provides me to send out to parents. It'll give you the info you need - even if it is a little cheesy sounding!

Please remember all online orders are due by Friday, August 31st.

Log on to... scholastic.com/readingclub
And use the Class Activation Code: GY8VG