Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Parent Conferences, Literacy Planning, and Work Coming Home

Conferences, Literacy Planning, and More!

Hey folks,

First, I want to wish you all a happy autumn! It is truly a magical time in our state and I hope you all have gotten a chance to get out and enjoy it- hiking, chopping and stacking wood, staring at the trees...

Online conference signups are online and ready to go. Follow this link to sign up. Please let me know if you need a different time and date. Please note: 7:45 times are 7:45am.

Fall Parent Conferences

I hope you have gotten a chance to look over some of the writing work that has been going home weekly. Your children are working hard on improving their skills! You will also be seeing their sheet that helps remind them what they are working on coming home next Monday.

You will also see a Literacy Plan sheet come home as well. Take a look at the choices your child made this week and discuss what they are all about and how they feel about their progress. The purpose of making the plan is to build a level of independence and to foster their growing executive functioning. Some kids need more guidance when making their plans, other kids less. Some kids want to make their plan for the whole week!


Things are really clicking along in our room. If you'd ever like to stop in, let me know. It would be great to have you witness our great work.

I look forward to seeing you all at conferences and touching base about your children. It is such a magical time for them, and for me, too.

See you soon,

~B

Friday, October 9, 2015

Pre-Columbus Day Week!

We had a great week in our class. We worked hard and are ready for a nice 3 day weekend. I think we are all looking forward to a small break and catching up on some rest.

In literacy this week, we have continued to work on making good choices to make the most of our time in class. The kids are working on reading their sight words, writing the sight words they know well, picking "good fit" books, and writing lots of words. We've had to restrict the use of colored pencils and crayons for this time due to the amount of coloring vs. writing. Most kids have taken the news well, recognizing that coloring can happen at lots of different parts of our day, just not during literacy. We'll be introducing some menus for kids to use next week to help guide their time and use it in the most efficient way possible. I am looking forward to seeing if a new tool helps kids use their time more efficiently.

In Writer's Workshop, we have been practicing lower case letter formation, starting with the letters c,o, and s. When they finish, they then get out a picture and practice writing some sentences about the picture. I am checking to make sure they are really focusing on the letters we are working on, and depending on the child, also talking to them about other writing conventions (spaces between words, periods, capital letters at the beginning of sentences, etc.). The kids are going to make some great progress!

Next week will mark the start our unit on matter. I was posed the question by a friend recently, "If all things are made of matter, and matter has 3 states (Solid, liquid, gas), then when does wood turn into a liquid?" Good one, right? Check up on it and see what you think about the answer. I'll say this: carbon needs some very special circumstances to go into a state of liquid...

We had a great discussion at our last staff meeting about how we are doing instilling the idea of "grit" and perseverance when solving problems with our students. We have come to notice that with some of our students, they don't fully engage in a problem because of the fear of failure. They don't fully embrace the "growth mindset" that helps us all become our personal best in all areas, not just the ones we like or are naturally good at. This ties in well with our attitude of being brave in math class and Excellence, when referencing Rumney CARES. In class yesterday we were talking about Excellence, and what that means. The kids all agreed that Excellence is not being the best, it is being your best. I loved this distinction. I encourage you to talk more with your child about this.

Enjoy your long(ish) break, folks! Enjoy the foliage!

~B


Friday, October 2, 2015

Hey everyone,

It has been a busy couple of weeks in our 1/2 class. It was wonderful to see almost all of you for Open House. It is always a great pleasure to see you all. As always, please know that you are always welcome in our room. If you'd ever like to talk more about concerns, celebrations, or anything else, please be in touch.

We had a great day on Thursday collecting and weighing Rumney squash on Thursday. Thank you to all of the volunteers who make our beautiful garden possible. We all get to benefit from all of this healthy food. The kids are not only benefiting from the nutrition, but also an opportunity to learn something new about weight and scales!

We have finally finished up all of our beginning of the year assessments. It is amazing how missing the first two weeks can really set you (and by you, I mean me) back. Next week I'll begin meeting with individual students and small groups in reading. Also, some of the kids in class's writing time will be looking a bit different, We have some kids in class that are great artsists, no doubt. The problems is that literacy time should not be the time when we are working on our drawing skills. Since I am the only adult in the room during this time and I can't oversee everything everyone is doing at the same time, I am going to be changing how writing looks for some students. Instead of doing writing during literacy time, they will be working on word work, reading to themselves, partner reading, and listening to reading. These students will then be getting more explicit writing instruction during writer's workshop (12:30-1:00) daily. This will involve handwriting practice as well as writing using picture prompts. As their work habits and skills improve, they'll graduate to be able to do more independent writing during literacy again.

In Writer's Workshop, we are continuing our great work on our narratives, both fiction and non fiction. You can look at the writing tab on the blog to see how their writing gets scored. The scores are used by me to help guide my future instruction in writing. I'll be sending home scored sheets as well as a copy of their writing piece. They are making great progress!

In first grade math, we are continuing our work on the number 5, adding 1, using a number line, and writing our numbers. The kids are all working so hard and doing great work. Please take a look at the math section of the blog to get a better idea of what math looks like in first grade.

Thanks, everyone, and see/talk to you soon!

~B