Week 3

The Butterflies emerged from their chrysalises early this week.

We completed our first full week of school on Friday and we are all still smiling!  We are off to a great start!  This week we reviewed Good Choices /Poor Choices and used these to develop our school rules.  We used the good choices and sorted them into four categories which became our rules..  They are:  

• Be Safe, 
• Be Kind, 
• Be respectful, 
• Be responsible ...to yourself, to others, and the school. 

On Wednesday, the children worked in small groups to make posters for each of the rules.  These will hang in our classroom throughout the year.  Our rules will help guide our behavior through the year and we can reference them when unwanted behaviors arise.  

Students also made "All About Me" owl posters this week.  This is a way for us to celebrate our individuality.  

We continue to build our daily routines.  This week we added spelling practice and phonemic awareness drills.  Each week students will have a new list of spelling words.  These words will be directly linked to phonics lessons (spelling rules) they are learning about at school.  Students will have time during the week to practice spelling their words while at school.  They are not required to practice them at home, however in the past many students found that extra practice at home was helpful, so students will have the option to take their lists home to practice them at home. 

We are building on our math routines as well.  We begin math each day with a whole class warm-up (or launch).  This involves time for students to have individual think time to respond to a question, image, or concept.  then they will share their ideas with a partner.  Finally some students will share with the whole group.  This routine invites students into the math each day.  After the warm up, I meet with grade levels while other children are working on their math menus.  Math Menus provide opportunities for students to work independently and with partners or small groups and include "must do's" and "Can do"(choices) . Currently first graders are working on adding and subtracting within 10.   Second graders are adding and subtracting within 20, and third graders are interpreting at and creating scaled picture and bar graphs based on a data.  

On Friday we had a mini lesson about apples.  Students learned why/how there are so many varieties of apples.  Then they participated in an engineering task where they had to design an apple trapper/grabber.  In this task they had to use only paper and tape to create a devise that could allow them to reach "apples" , trap/grab them, and then pass them to their partner.  Students developed some very creative apple trappers!

We had our first family hot lunch on Friday!  Students enjoyed dino chicken nuggets, spring rolls, fresh berries with whipped cream, cucumbers and tomatoes, maple lemonade, and  Italian cookies for dessert!  Thank you so much to Dan Peterson for providing our first Hot Lunch!

Next week hot lunch (TBD) will be brought to us by the Tartaglia / Smejkal family!

You can still sign up to bring a hot lunch by going to the mealtrian (click the link).  There are still several openings.  

Please email your school lunch orders for the week.

Next week students will begin having reading homework each night (Monday - Thursday).  They will have a reading log they are responsible for filling out (parents may help first graders with this).  Reading logs should be returned each day in their folder.  Please see the letter that will be in students' homework folders, which will explain more about reading homework.  

We are in need of spare clothes for students to borrow when the need arises.  Please consider donating outgrown clothes/shoes you may have.  We could use: pants, underwear, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and sneakers.  Thank you!

Please let me know if you are interested in helping to organize a fund raiser to purchase some additional equipment/options for recess.

Announcements

• Library is Monday - remember your books!
• Please send a pair of indoor shoes or slippers students can keep at school
• Students need sneakers for PE on Wednesday AND Thursday  this week.
• School Photos - Tuesday, September 19th @ 8:00 am - Please return all orders by Monday 
• No School- Monday September 25th (Yom Kippur)
• Open House - Thursday September 28th  @ 6:00 - 7:00 pm
• No School - Monday, October 9th (Indigenous People's Day)