First Week Back!

Hello everyone! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and have had a great start to the new year. Things in the room are off to a fine start.

We have anew friend in our class, and I welcome you to welcome her when you some in and see a new face. The kids are such a welcoming and open bunch and are a great job opening up their hearts and room. It always is so telling when you see kids respond to changes in this sort of way.

In literacy, we had a good week of reviewing expectations for our times. We have made new table groups and we will be reviewing how best to use our time next week in a structured and sequential way. Kids who demonstrate that they can use their time well will be given more independence sooner. Some kids will need more practice, other kids a lot less. The goal is to give kids what they need, which is one of our Rumney sayings ("At Rumney you get what you need"). I've found that some kids need some more practice on how best to use their independent work time, and this will give them that opportunity.

We have started to read Moomintroll Midwinter for our read-aloud. It is full of great descriptive language and playful characters. The kids are enjoying the story, given that it takes place in the winter, too!

We will also begin writing our first persuasive writing pieces this week. The kids are all going to be working from a template to help organize their thoughts. We'll be writing one together as well as discussing the purpose of this kind of writing.

I will be conducting reading assessments on Monday as well as the following week. I am looking forward to seeing the summative data on how the kids are progressing in their reading and what that means for their instruction as we move toward the end of the year.

We started Winter Wellness Fridays last week and it was a big hit! The kids all did a great job in our skating group. If you have plans for your child that involves being picked up from our activities, please give Sorsha a big heads-up. It helps cut down on confusion and kids being worried. Thanks for the help on this!

Again, it's really good to be back and it has been great seeing all of your children's smiling faces. As always, be in touch if you need anything.

Best,

~B

Notes from Mrs. Brower

It has been a delight to stand in for Ben while he is on paternity leave. We have launched a study of holiday traditions in various cultures, and have read several books on that topic. Thanks to all you families for helping your child complete the holiday traditions interview form. Now that they are all returned to school, we can begin to use them as the basis for writing a report.

We have been talking about writing to inform, and are learning to use a tool called the Painted Essay. It is a way of learning the parts of a report (Introduction, Point One, Point Two, Conclusion) and to help us understand and remember those parts by associating each with a color. First we read about each part and colored the template with colored pencils. Today, we will actually paint another graphic organizer with watercolors. Next week, we will finalize our report topics and we’ll use planning sheets with those four colored blocks to write notes in each part.

The first graders have been practicing making ten with the rods, adding numbers plus one and numbers plus ten, and using number lines for addition. We gave a short quiz on the plus one and plus ten facts yesterday. I plan to send a practice page home with some of the first graders who need to practice adding ten to a number. The second grade math notes can be found by going to Theresa Fox’s blog: http://mstheresa-rumney.blogspot.com/p/math.html

Thanks, and see you all soon!

Hello fantastic families,

It with with big mixed feelings that I write you a fond see you soon letter. I am both excited for my time with my new daughter and sad and worried. I know the kids are in good hands with Scottie Brower for the month of December, and I'll be seeing them soon enough. I will be visiting on Thursdays for lunch with the kids to check in and keep things rolling smoothly. Scottie will either send home her own newsletter or send it to me to post. I again want to thank you all for your support

In literacy, the kids have been plugging along working on their individual work and skills while I have been working with small reading groups and other literacy based skills like reading strategies and handwriting. I have been really pleased with their hard work and progress thus far.

I hope you all got the letter home about family traditions, which will be the basis for our information writing this month in Writer's Workshop. We look forward to celebrating all of your amazing family traditions as a class. Please work with your child to fill them out and bring them back to school.

The kids did a great presentation for our last all-school meeting, which I have posted here. Please take a look at it. The video shows them practicing at Primary Sing. I encourage you to have your child lead a song during your Thanksgiving celebration. Enjoy it!

In science we are wrapping up our unit on matter and water. The kids have done a great job with learning all about the scientific process. If Scottie chooses to, she may have the kids make their own experiments about water as well.

Again, you all have my thanks for your continued support. Please be in touch with anything, anytime.

Warmly,

~B

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