Friday Flyer

Dear Families,

       Thank you for attending conferences this week.  We have enjoyed having the opportunity to share with you regarding how your child has acclimated to school, as well as ways you can further support learning and behaviors from home.   

During Readers Workshop, I introduced the strategy “back up and reread” sentences when a lot of the text was difficult and had to be stretched. Children need to reread the sentence to “smooth” it out.  This helps support good comprehension and retellings.   We also continue to work on retelling our stories using the words first, then, next, and last after reading a book.   

       Next week, during Writer’s Workshop we will celebrate the end of our first unit with a “splash” of soda (Sprite) as we “toast” to what great writers we have become.  We will toast to several different concepts that we have learned and are now able to do.  Our next unit is “Authors as Mentors”.  We will continue with narrative writing as we take a close look at different authors and study their craft.  The kids LOVE Writer’s Workshop!!

       During math workshop we have been focusing on word problems (stories that are written with numbers involved that students solve).  Students have learned that the most important part of solving these problems is explaining and showing evidence of their thinking!  We can now write equations (ex. 5+2=7) that show how we solved the word problem, draw pictures to help solve, use math tools (unifix cubes, number grid, etc.), and even write a sentence to explain what we did.  We also started our unit on geometry this week!  Students are enjoying our study of shapes and can build shapes using different shapes.  Our math workshop is helping us to explore and teach each other how mathematicians think and share their ideas with others!

              Don’t forget, our Halloween party is next week Friday, October 28th. We start dressing at 1:45, our parade starts at 2:00, and the party is at 2:15!

Have a great weekend with your family,

              Jennifer Mason and Kelly Putnam

* Reminder:

- No school on Friday (Oct. 21)

"Growth Mindset"

Dear Families,

We are so pleased that your child is a part of our classroom community for the 2016-2017 school year. As we  learn and play together we will also be building critical skills for a lifetime of curiosity and growth. We will be teaching some important ways of thinking about ourselves and the world this year that has grown out of the incredible work of Carol Dweck.

Carol Dweck is a researcher, currently at Stanford University, who has pioneered a great deal of work around the idea of growth mindset. A growth mindset is the belief that we can learn anything with support, hard work, and thoughtful strategic instruction. Children with a growth mindset outperform children who do not think of themselves and their learning this way.

The way we support this work in our classroom is by intentionally teaching ways of thinking about ourselves and our learning. This year, we will be teaching your children the concepts of:

OPTIMISM: The belief that no matter the obstacle, we have the power and possibility to overcome it.

RESILIENCE: The ability to bounce back from setbacks and frustrations and learn from them when they happen.

PERSISTENCE: The habit of trying something more than once, or sticking with something through the hard parts.

FLEXIBILITY: The knowledge that there are multiple ways to solve any problem, and the skills to strategically solve it.

EMPATHY: The ability to understand feelings and other people’s points of view. A fundamental aspect of a healthy child and a healthy community.

As we learn more about these big ideas, we will think about ways to use self-talk, self stories, goal setting, and reflection to reinforce and support these positive habits of mind.

As in all things, you are our greatest partners, and so we invite you on this journey with us! We’ve introduced these concepts slowly over the first 5 weeks of school. Here are some ways you can support and connect with your child over these big ideas:

●        Share your own stories. Talk with your child about times you showed empathy or were flexible.

●        Listen in on your own self talk and refine it. Be mindful of saying things like “I can’t” as in “I can’t put together this IKEA furniture!” instead try, “This feels hard, but I am going to take a break and try it a different way to see if that helps!”

●        Read with your child and talk about the ways characters are acting in regards to these habits of mind.

We look forward to talking with you more as the year unfolds. As always, feel free to contact us with questions, comments, and concerns. It is with great pleasure that we have begun this journey together.

Warmly,

Kelly & Jennifer

 

For More Information:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/09/23/carol-dweck-revisits-the-growth-mindset.html

http://www.upworthy.com/researchers-studied-kindergarteners-behavior-and-followed-up-19-years-later-here-are-the-findings

https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/reading-harry-potter-books-can-make-kids-more-tolerant-93438785457.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/why-parents-need-to-let-their-children-fail/272603/

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Dear Parents,

We can’t believe it is October already and we are quickly approaching conferences and Halloween. 

Halloween Parties

Our Halloween party will be on Friday, October 28^th. Please send your child’s costume to school in an extra bag marked with their name.  We have an all school recess from 1:30-1:45 (this is when we will set up the classroom for our party).  The students will start dressing at 1:45 and will then parade around the building starting at 2:00 with the party following the parade from 2:15-3:00.  If part of your child’s costume is something like a black turtleneck or sweatpants, they may wear them to school and add the rest of their costume later.  Just a reminder, no toy guns, swords, or knives are allowed.

Morning Snack

Please remember to send your child to school everyday with a healthy snack (even when having hot lunch).  This is important to their learning!  Thank You.

Language Arts

        During Spelling through Phonics we have added more consonants to our learning as spellers. The children are anxiously waiting for their first vowel to be given in this program.   This is because we have discussed that you have to have a vowel in EVERY word in order to spell words correctly.  What could be more exciting!!  Early next week, I will introduce the short a vowel sound when it is found in the medial position.  Then we will finally be able to spell the entire word during Spelling!  J

  During Readers Workshop, our comprehension strategy for the next month or so will be learning how to identify the beginning, middle, and ending stories. This organization of text is important to understand because it supports our comprehension.  The reading strategies that your children have been taught are, when we get stuck on a word…1. look at the picture and think of what word would make sense and 2. Back up and reread the sentence while getting our mouth ready for the first sound in the unknown word and 3. Stretching and blending the sounds we hear in the unknown words.   Next week, we will work on backing up and rereading, knowing sight words in a snap, and bringing up our schema about the information in the book before we start reading. 

During writer’s workshop, we continued to work on stretching our words to hear more sounds, using spaces between our words and adding details about a personal experience. Next week, I will introduce quotation marks and suggest they try to add dialogue to their writing pieces. I am so impressed with how much writing the children are producing!  Many are stretching their stories across 4-5 pages. We are also working hard on making our sentences a 5 star sentence.  (Start with a capital letter, spaces, neat, make sense and punctuation)

                 Math

        We wrapped up our initial introduction to addition with lots of story problem practice and addition math games.  I’ve heard that many of you are enjoying playing “Double Compare” at home!  Our focus during math workshop now is on subtraction.  We are sharing many strategies with one another on how to solve subtraction story problems and are applying these skills to math practice games as well, I am very happy with the progress being made!

       

Science

In science, we have been taking full advantage of the beautiful weather we’ve been experiencing!  We will be studying weather and the seasons all year long and last week we wrapped up our summer portion of the unit as it is officially fall now!  We went outside to observe the weather using our senses and we made wind and temperature observations- ask your first grader for more details!

Social Studies

We are continuing our study of National Symbols.  In a couple of weeks we will play National Symbols Jeopardy at the completion of our learning about the American Flag, The White House, Mount Rushmore, The Liberty Bell, and The Statue of Liberty.

Computer Lab

During our computer lab time each week we have learned the names of the parts of the computer, we’ve learned about computer lab expectations, and we are even able to use two word processing programs (Microsoft Word and Power Point)!  Your child now knows how to capitalize letters, change the font and size, and insert a picture into their document.

***Thank you so much for your at home help and support.  First grade is fast paced; your child would not be having a successful experience without the team effort of home and school.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, we look forward to meeting with you soon at conferences!

       

Have a great weekend!                             

       

Sincerely,

Jennifer Mason and Kelly Putnam

Upcoming Dates:

-        Friday, Oct. 7^th-

Howard Christensen Nature Center

Field Trip- DRESS FOR OUTDOOR WEATHER and remember you SACK LUNCH J

-        Wednesday, Oct. 12^th- Walk/Ride your bike to school day

-        Friday, Oct. 14^th- ½ day, 11:25 dismissal, also Walk-a-

thon, 9:30-10:15

-        Week of Oct. 17-21: Book Fair

-         

-        Oct. 17 & 20^th: Conferences

-         

-        Oct. 20^th: spirit Day- Hat Day (also, last day for mileage

club)

-        Friday, Oct. 21^st: NO SCHOOL

-        Tuesday, Oct. 25^th: PTC Meeting, 7pm

-        Friday, Oct. 28^th: Halloween Parties (see above)