week 4

This week we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See, By Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carl. The repetitive, sing songy, familiar text lends nicely to students following along.  On Wednesday, students received a paper take home book in which they followed the text by pointing on the dots under the words.  This helps students understand how they point to words when they read.   Students are coloring the book to show the animal colors (brown bear, red bird, green frog...).  On Thursday, we made pages for a class book this our pictures in it.  The text mimics the text in Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  ("Brown bear Brown bear, what do you see?  I see child's name looking at me.").  This book will become part of our class library.  On Friday we acted out Yoga poses to all the animals in the book.

Our phonics lessons focused on the letters m and n.  Students learned the letter, keyword, and sound (m, man, /m/ and n, nut, /n/) and the letter formation for each letter.  We also review our previous letters each day.  (t,f,b)

Students wrote "all about me" pages or books during writers workshop and we practiced "reading to self" in readers workshop.

In math we learned the number formation for 5 and worked on recognizing the quantity with finger patters and dot cards.  Lessons also focused on matching symbolic numbers to the correct quantity and ordering them.

We earned our first class reward with out Lobo Loops!  On Friday students were invited to bring a stuffy (stuffed animal) with them to school.  This was a last minute thing on Thursday and not all students brought a stuffy with them Friday.  Students who did not bring one had the option to borrow a stuffy for the day.  We will have several more rewards /celebrations throughout the year!

On Friday MES celebrated Peace Day.  We met in the gym to make a peace pledge and we all sang a song (learned in music and practiced in our classroom) called Light a Candle.   Each child made a pin wheel in art which they planted in front of the school to form a large peace sign.  Unfortunately it began raining before this happened, so the plan is to get a school picture by the peace sign sometime next week.

Tuesday (and some Friday) students took the PNOA (Primary Numbers and Operations Assessment).  This is an interview style assessment in which students demonstrate various math skills such as counting forward and backward, reading and writing numbers, recognizing and showing quantities (with fingers and five and ten frames), numbers operations (how many more do you need to make___ questions), comparing quantities and estimations.  The assessment us used in K and 1st grade to help teachers gage where students are in the mathematical thinking and to help us see what skills each students needs to work on.  We will be using this information to help us form intervention groups so that all students get what they need to continue to make growth in math.  We will do this assessment again in January and May.

Announcements: 
Correction from last weeks blog!  OPEN HOUSE IS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4 FROM 5:30 - 6:30 PM.

ECO:  our first ECO session will be next Friday, September 28th.  Our first lesson will take place just beyond the playground in the field behind the school.  This will be our introductory lesson and we will be outside from 9:00 - 10:30.  Please make sure your child has appropriate clothing to be outside.  There is always a chance that it will be cool and wet.  Students should wear closed toed shoes and should bring clothes they can layer.  A rain coat and rain boots are always a good option to have.

We will be going out in all types of weather this year (unless it is thundering) or raining really hard.  We do have some rain pants students can borrow, however we do not have enough for all students.  If you have or are able to purchase rain pants for your child, it will be a purchase well made.  Rain pants will help assure your child comfort while we are out on wet / muddy days.  Rain pants can be purchased from LLBean, Lands End, REI, and Amazon.com.  .(https://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Trail-Rain-Pants-Black/dp/B01ACMM6TI/ref=sr_1_3_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1537616347&sr=8-3-spons&keywords=rain+pants+for+kids&psc=1)

Our first full ECO will be Friday, October 5th from 9:00 - 12:00  Please let me know if you would like to volunteer as a parent helper.  If you plan to volunteer you must have completed a background check and be cleared by the Supervisory Union prior to volunteering.

We have a tentative field trip planned to visit the Morrisville Fire Department on Thursday, October 4th.  This will be a walking field trip and will including a stop at the Graded Building playground.  This field trip takes place as part of Fire Safety Week.  During the week at school we will also be learning about fire safety.  I will be looking for a couple of parent chaperones for this event.  Look for permission slips to come home during the week.