Dear Families of 106,
Happy October! I can not believe September is over. I am also so HAPPY we made it through the HOT weather! THANK YOU again for all the provisions you helped us with last week. We are SO truly grateful for your help! We may be ok with our two fans now, so if you miss your fans and coolers at home we may be able to part with them this week 🙂 As we head into October, here is what you can expect for this week in our K/1 world:
*Reminders:
*Tuesday is library checkout! Please make sure to place books into your child’s backpack Monday night! Thank you for your help in becoming responsible with DuVall materials! I hope you and your child enjoyed reading together this week! Remember those library books count towards the 10-15 minutes you read every night!
Kinder families your child does NOT have school this Friday (Mrs. Ross has her second kindergarten PD with the district. First graders, you will report as usual and be with Ms. Kerby the first grade teacher next door!
*Spelling:
–First Grade: Week 4: ug and un family (slug, sun, run, bun, bug, fun, mug, plug, can, see) Please visit spelling city at least twice this week to help you learn your word family words along with the green list sight words
-KDG: introducing: can, see (kinders are welcome to play Spelling city at their leisure to learn their sight words 🙂
*Language Arts: Please log onto Raz-Kids to read at night! Remember as your child receives a reading pack (first graders already have) these books count for the 10-15 minutes a night of reading total! If you’d like to read 20-30 go for it!
-Trade Books: Main: “A Tree for All Seasons” and “Tap the Magic Tree”
–POEM: All Leaves are Falling Down
*Mini Lessons: Poetry, rhyming words/providing rhyme, how many words are in the oral sentence I provide? Beginning sound and ending sound in a word I provide orally
*Writing Workshop: Continue Writing through Illustrations Unit 1. This week our lessons will add to writing and sharing our picture story to adding labels in the pictures to stand for beginning sounds of the illustrations, introducing the “pencil” as a tool in addition to crayons and markers, and labeling for “detail”. I can’t wait until you see the progression of this first unit when they bring these home at the end of the unit! Last week we also introduced the concept of “goal setting” which is so essential to writer’s workshop and Daily 5. Our goals will vary in the future, however we are all starting with the goals of detailed pictures.
*Social Studies: This week we will further our discussions of “what is a good citizen” by working on the topics “Good and Bad Choices” and “Being a Good friend”.
*Science: This week we will continue working on our 5 Senses Unit. We will continue learning and experimenting with a new sense every day this week (Hearing, Sight, Smell, Touch). Let us know if you’d like to come in and help during one of these experiments! We had a blast on Friday experimenting with color! We mixed food together in clear cups of water and predicted what we thought would happen and what color it would make! We discuss how scientists: Ask questions, Make predictions or hypothesis’s, observe and measure, write observations down and talk about their findings! Ask your little scientist to share what they learned and remembered with you!
*Math: This week we will finish Unit 1 working with number 0-5 and 0-10. We have been working so hard to understand number recognition, number order, comparing numbers 0-5, writing numbers, counting and cardinality (counting objects one at a time and saying one number for each object while doing so), and subitizing. This week we will finish with lessons that include: ordering numbers 0-5, understanding quantities 0-5 and read and write 0-5. This week I will also do another assessment one on one to recheck the basic skills I asked your child to perform during the first week of school! You can help them prepare by playing the games we send home every week (I suggest putting them in sheet protectors and clipping them into a 3 ring binder at home so your child will have a large resource to use! Sheet protectors are also great for using with the dry erase markers because the markers wipe off SO easily!)
*Skills to be reassessed this week: counting by 1s (how far can I go?), writing my numbers from 0-5, reading my numbers from 0-5, counting objects 1:1 up to five objects
PBIS: This week your child will take our “behavior program” a step further and help communicate further each day from school to home about our wonderful manners and if we have any challenges we need to work on during the day 🙂 We have spent the month of September learning expectations, however by NO MEANS are we perfect! If your child comes home with a color other than green, PLEASE do not be too upset with them! It takes the young child a very long time to learn social graces. At this point they are still in the “egocentric” stages of life and their personal needs are very important and often do not see the “group” they are in. I have VERY high expectations for my students as far as learners and contributors to our classroom environment. HOWEVER, as a mother and an educator with my masters in early childhood I know the time and patience it takes to become “ready to learn”. I want you to know that I love ALL your children and although I must use the PBIS system, I look at it in a positive way. We can communicate daily about behavior and I ask you to look at it and “discuss” how the day went with your child. If your child is on a color other than blue please ask them “how do you think the day went today? Is there anything you think you could work on as a “goal” tomorrow? I usually do not like to discuss colors at the end of the day in front of other families (as a mother I feel this is very personal and private and I would NOT like it if my son’s teacher was discussing his manners outside in front of others!) however, I am always available after people leave, by email or personal meeting 🙂 Having said all that, I assure you there is no real mystery to a blue lol and I have seen it all 🙂 Remember they are 5 and not perfect! I do not move students down quickly, so if your child is on blue know that if was after several redirecting lessons and over the period of the day. I tend to choose the color based on the “whole day” rather than an event or two 🙂 The behavior sheet I send home this month for October will live in the BACK of the red Homework folder! This is perfect so that it doesn’t get lost and I have also written all the late start, vacation days etc. on the calendars. Simply look and discuss your child’s behavior at night and praise/discuss a game plan for the next day 🙂 Kindly initial it once a week so we can partner together in their success! THANK YOU in advance for your help! Every month your child will receive a new one. remember: Every week they spend all 5 days on green they will be able to pick from the treasure box on Fridays! Every month if your child has enough greens they can attend the PBIS celebrations when they begin 🙂
*Students that are trying SO hard to correct behavior that may have been against classroom policies will have the opportunity to “clip back up” if they are showing the teacher effort yay! However, if a child is clipped down for verbal or physical violence this is NOT a behavior I clip back for. DuVall has a ZERO tolerance for bullying and physical/verbal aggression. In addition, if you child is exhibiting exemplary behavior as a student, friend, DuVall Upstander (and I do not mean just being “nice” or “quiet” they will be recognized for being a “proud penguin” and clipped up to the color pink! This is not given out often, so children should not expect it just for having a great day and being “ready to learn” that is green and what we should ALL strive for!
Have a WONDERFUL week and I will update you with any news I may have not included in this post!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ross and Class 🙂
