Science, Leave Update, and Conferences, oh my!

Hey everyone,

I hope this letter finds you enjoying some amazing late fall weather! Things are really clicking along in our room and I hope your children are telling you all about the goings-on. I have really enjoyed getting to talk to all of you during conference times. If you haven't signed up yet and still want to, please sign up BUT PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU LET ME KNOW. I have not made a habit of continuing to check my times, so if you sign up, let me know so I can be sure to be here at the time you choose.

In science, we have continued our work on states of matter, which has gone from looking at evaporation (the gas state of water) to the water cycle, a natural progression. We set up an experiment about evaporation, which you can see below. The kids made hypotheses on which vessel (an interesting word, they thought!) they thought would evaporate the most water and then we made measurements to see which vessel did what. We also talked about the idea of variables and what they are. What a great juicy science word! The next question to ask after you get results is to ask "why?" and to think about how to test that next question. Was it the size of the opening? Was it the material of the vessel the difference maker? The kids are going to set up their own investigation next.

In literacy, the kids have continued their great work in class and working on making their schedules for their work times. I encourage you to have rich conversations about the work they are doing and how they are feeling about it. The kids will be getting work sent home next Monday, since I kept the work at their chairs for the purpose of conferences.

We are going to be doing lots of reading about grit, determination, and never giving up. These learning dispositions are ones that are some of the biggest indicators of academic success and happiness. Ask your child about the work we are doing around these words. We recently read "The Little Engine That Could" and discussed how the internal thought of "I think I can" is a powerful one. When you start out with the thought I can't (like the rusty old train), it's hard to do anything!

I will either be starting my leave next Friday or after the following Tuesday until the end of the holiday break. The kids will be in the more than capable hands of Scottie Brower again, a Rumney teaching icon. As you may remember, Scottie handled the first part of my leave in the fall. Please be sure to have conversations with your child about this in preparation for the upcoming transition.

Thanks a lot for your support and your caring so much about your children's learning.

Be in touch,

~B

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

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

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

All School Hike and Other Highlights

Hey all!

It was a busy week in our first and second grade class! It has been a real joy getting to know your children better and better each day. We are also getting more and more settled into our days and routines. We had a wonderful day for our All School Hike as well, it was great to see the kids in such bright spirits. It was a wonderful way to end the week. Look at these two hikers enjoying the day:

We have introduced a new part of our literacy time, Word Work. We use the Fountas and Pinnell (See my literacy page for details about this program) word lists for our first and second graders. There is a 25 word list, a 50 word list, 100 word list and a 200 word list. These are all sight words, meaning these are words that we need children to know by rote memory, without having to work on the sounds in the words. Roughly speaking, we expect first grade students to know the 25, 50 and 100 word lists by the end of the year, and for second graders to know all of those plus the 200 word list by the end of their year. Children can work together and quiz one another on reading the words, they can practice writing the words on chalk slates or whiteboards, or they can get quizzed by a teacher.

I also started our beginning of the year reading assessments and I got through about half of the kids. These reading assessments are used to help me develop beginning of the year teaching points (reading strategies, letter sounds, etc.) within small reading groups. We will be starting these groups in the first week of October, when I have the class results.

We talked about Rumney CARES this week as well and we'll be working our way through the rest of the letters next week while developing our class rules. We also are going to be working on some Hopes and Dreams for our year as well. The kids will be making some posters that talk about this that we can hang up in the room.

Over the next few weeks we'll also be starting our first science unit on matter. I'll be working on also introducing our studio time, which is a critical part of Project Based Learning (see the page on Project Based learning to read more).

As always, please be in touch if you have questions about our class or if you'd like to just check in and chat about your child's start to the year. I'm always happy to meet up.

Enjoy the weekend!

~B

Highlights Of My First Week Back

It has been a wonderful first week back at school, thanks to your wonderful children. It has been a long time coming and I have really appreciated all of your support and well-wishes. I know it has been a struggle for some of the kids to have this transition at the beginning of the year, but it feels like we are bouncing back nicely and finding our rhythm.

We have continued our work at literacy and practicing our read-to-self and writing choices. We have been working up our stamina in both areas. We will be introducing word-work next week. This is a time when kids get to work on their sight words, which consist of the first 25, the next 50, the following 100, and the final 200 for first and second grade. The kids work through them all at their own pace, getting quizzed by friends and adults.

In first grade math we are working on the number line, learning our cuisenaire rods, math games, dot cluster cards, and addition facts. The kids are all working so hard! Ask your child about some of the motor challenges we do to help build our right and left brain connection. It has been a real treat getting to know your children as math learners. We started making our math journals as well. This is going to be where we do some of our work and where kids get to record their math thinking. I look forward to you seeing this and noticing what great thinking they are doing.

In Writer's Workshop we have begin to work on our first writing piece, titled "My favorite...". The kids all chose which favorite to write about (favorite vacation, food, sport, etc.). We talked about the writing process in general, in that while writing you should think about your handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and as writing as many words as possible. We'll be working on these skills as we go through the coming weeks and months.

We've also been talking about Rumney CARES and will be discussing it more next year and connecting these to our class norms. The kids have done a wonderful job talking and working on these. It takes time to gel, but these kids are doing a great job thus far.

Again, it has been a great start tot he year and I look forward to many more great days to come!

All the best,

Ben

Class Update

Highlights of the Week in Room 1-2B

It has been so much fun to be in Ben’s class these last seven days! The students really miss,Ben, but have been so helpful and co-operative. We began a project that has been a great way to introduce classroom materials like markers, scissors, and glue, and to think and write about our ideas and expectations for the beginning of the year. Look for your child’s flip book,  First Day of First Grade or First Day of Second Grade. 

            We have read aloud many books, including non-fiction books about wolves, whales and bees, as well as several of Laura Numeroff’s series “If You Give a ----- a ----.  We look for details in the pictures that help tell the story, and talk about the circular pattern in all of the books.

            We began talking about Rumney CARES and how we want to treat each other in this class. Math has begun full force, with the first graders staying in this room and the second graders going to Ms. T’s room. We build staircases with the rods, play the “what’s missing” game, make tens with rods, play Which is Greater? With number cards, and Number Line Squeeze.

             I look forward to returning to Ben’s class later in the year.

Scottie Brower