Dear Parents,
We are excited to kickoff the new school year with our bimonthly newsletter. In it, we hope you will find all of the information for the upcoming months. If you should have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at the school or at our email addresses, which will be distributed within the next month.
As always, please remember to check your child’s folder for notices and we urge you to read them and return them promptly.
Sincerely,
Ms. Corso, Ms. Doktor, Ms. Herschberg, Ms. Kolbo, Ms. Tropea
We will be working from Everyday Math and McGraw Hill Math Programs.
In Chapter 1, we have been working on spatial concepts. Our lessons focused on top, middle, and bottom, left and right, inside and outside, and above and below. Our first test took place on September 23rd.
In Chapter 2, we learn all about the numbers 0 to 5. We practice counting, identifying, comparing, ordering, and writing these numbers. Please follow up with your child’s math homework.
Please try to continue to reinforce these concepts at home during everyday activities and homework time. (Especially left and right!)
Important Dates:
Columbus Day-No School No School 10/12
Election Day– No School 11/3
Veteran’s Day– No School 11/11
Thanksgiving Recess– No School 11/26-11/29
Some Reminders:
☺ Keep checking your child’s homework folder each night for important handouts and notes from us!
☺ We encourage you to read every night with your child.
☺ Please ask your child about their day.
☺ Please return lunch forms and blue contact papers.
Reading Workshop
Our first reading unit is entitled “Launching the Reading Workshop”. The unit begins with a thorough run through of the format of our lesson, which includes a mini lesson, active engagement, independent reading, partner reading and a share. The mini lesson is a teacher directed lesson where a new concept is introduced. The students have a chance to practice with the class as the teacher models and then have an opportunity to try it out independently. At the end of the lesson 1-2 students are asked to share with the class.
We are learning the three types of ways to sit with our partners during reading workshop: knee to knee (also known as turn and talk), side-to-side and back-to-back. Each way is designed to achieve a certain task.
In the next few weeks, we will be focusing on different “tools” that we have in our toolbox to read properly, to figure out tricky words and to retell stories that we have read.
Some of the tools we will discuss include using pictures to guide our storytelling and the word “then”. We will be introducing the use of post-its to mark important parts and we will learn to point under words when reading our books.
We are starting to “read” independently our “Star Books”, which are books we have read over and over and know well enough to tell the story on the pages.
Fundations
Fundations is a phonics program. It utilizes phonics and emphasizes visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles. Students are introduced to an owl that we call, Echo, which is used to reinforce letters and sounds. You will also notice your children tapping out sounds to make words later in the year. The program helps students separate sounds and put them together using this format. We will also learn stories about Echo and baby Echo. These stories help us work on comprehension.
Thank you for continuing to practice our sight word cards at home each night for homework. Please keep an eye out for new cards in your child’s folder at the start of each week.
Writing Workshop
Our first writing workshop unit was entitled “Launching the Writing Workshop”. We are discussing how writers generate their ideas, what type of environment writer’s need to do their best writing, some strategies that we can use to make our writing better, and how to share our writing and work with partners.
At the end of the month we will be publishing our first books! During this unit we are focusing on putting our stories down on paper to share with others. Once we have enough stories to choose from we pick a story to publish into our first books. After the books are finished we have a Publishing Celebration where we read each story to the class! Our next unit will continue to focus on small moments in hopes to create some wonderful personal narratives.