Everything that comes in the homework is a review of the past week. I would like to work together with you to make your child's learning experience better. Parents can help by looking over the homework their child has completed and signing the homework letter and the conduct card. I have been pleased with students bringing their folders daily to class. Thank-you for all who have made sure their child brings them to school every day. I also had a good response to the work that was sent home to complete. I am very grateful to parents.
Please keep in mind that homework is not done until the list of words provided on the homework letter have been practiced every day, the phonics readers have been read every day, high frequency words have been practiced every day, and your child has practiced counting every day or until your child is able to complete those tasks with proficiency. It is not normally possible for your child to have completed the homework on Monday. These tasks should be repeated daily. The results can be amazing: on this coming week's newsletter I have listed all the students who were able to read all six high frequency words for this week. Congratulations!
Coming home soon are notices to schedule a parent conference for those who did not sign up during the presentation. If you would like to sign up for the Site Council or the English Language Learners Advisory Council, please check with the office.
Now for the tour. Thanks to all parents who turned in the permission slip to post the lovely work we do in class as well as photos of students (to come at a later date). I was happy to receive them.
At the front of the room are our class rules. On the first day of school, we read a section in our social studies curriculum that taught us about building community and making rules. The first rule in our class became the golden rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. It really covers everything.
To practice treating others with respect, we used a bulletin board set on manners. In the garden of manners flowers grow displaying words "thank-you", "please", "you're welcome", "I'm sorry", "excuse me," and "may I." Pretty little bugs are attracted to the garden when these words are used. The students had fun naming the words and placing the bugs in the garden. After a week, I moved the garden to a wall. We will review it often to remind ourselves how we all want to be treated.
The other rules in our class were discussed and agreed upon. We decided that treating others the way we want to be treated, raising our hand, being quiet, following directions, and using our manners are things we need to do in order to have a classroom where learning can take place.
When these rules are not followed, behaviors are noted on the conduct card. Each Monday, I will place the conduct card in the homework folder. Parents, please sign and return these so I know you were made aware. If the problem is more serious, a call will be made to speak directly with you.
Here's a view from the back of the room. It's very full with thirty-two students! On the desks are a couple of resources for parents. One is a booklet provided by the math curriculum with key vocabulary and concepts highlighted. The other is a tool I put together including tips for math, writing, reading, and reading comprehension. As we move toward the newly adopted core standards, it is even more critical that we help your child comprehend what is being read. There are some very good questioning strategies included in this packet for you.
From this picture you can see we have been working hard on beginning, middle, and ending sounds. I use a caterpillar or worm that the children draw the first week of school. When doing these exercises I point to the section of the worm we are focusing on. On the board the first section is colored since we were identifying beginning sounds. You will also note the math concepts of one more and one less shown on the board. The next day, ten more and ten less were added to the diagram. At the end of the week, I move these math vocabulary words to the focus wall to aid in review:
On the cupboards you will notice a project used to think about cause and effect. We read the story of Charles Tiger in the reading curriculum:
http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Tiger-Siobhan-Dodds/dp/0316188174
It is a story about a little tiger who woke up without his roar. He searches in different places until he finds something that scares him and causes him to roar. We took that idea and talked about what kinds of things would cause us to be afraid and scream. We practiced sharing our ideas by using the sentence frame:
I saw a _________________, so I screamed.
The favorite situation was being frightened by a ghost, but we also were scared by sharks, dinosaurs, dark monsters, and tigers.
I would like to see every student printing more legibly, so we practice penmanship. I walk around the class trying to check that a capital is used at the beginning of a sentence and all other letters are lowercase. Parents can help at home by having students write and making sure only lowercase letters are used in the middle of a sentence unless it is a name or the word "I."
For writing, we are starting out with thinking about the content of what we are sharing. In this exercise, students thought about where they were and what they did. In this beginning stage we draw where and what and label it:
The final project I would like to show you is a math study. We used vocabulary for beginning addition and colored ways to make five. Making a number this way demonstrates that we can put together different parts to make a whole. It laid the foundation for the chapter we will be covering this coming week. I love this activity. It opens students to a completely different way of looking at numbers:
That is the end of our tour. I will look forward to meeting more parents during conference week. See you soon.
