Dear Parents:
Our celebration last Wednesday of International Peace Day was beautiful. For those of you unable to join us at our special Town Meeting that morning, the children joined the rest of the lower school in putting peace symbols that they made in art in the center courtyard to fill in diagrams of both a peace symbol and a heart. We also sang "If I Had a Hammer" together with the entire lower school. First graders, in correlation with studying the senses during our human body unit last week, read the book What Does Peace Feel Like? by Vladimir Radinsky. Check out our "peace people" in the windows of the first grade hall. We used our five senses to think of what peace "feels" like, "sounds" like, "smells" like, "tastes" like, and "looks" like. If the rest of the world could think like our children, the world would be a better place.
This is going to be a very exciting week at school! We will be having lots of visitors. First, the accreditation team is here evaluating our school. The head of the team just happens to have been MY very own favorite English teacher from high school! Obviously, she was a very young teacher when I had her! It's so nice to see her again after all these years.
We will also have three more special visitors this week to help us learn more about our human body in science. Mrs. Peck will return on Wednesday to dissect sheep brains with us as we learn about our amazing brains! On Thursday, Dr. Burke, Ainsley's dad, will help us learn more about the bones of our skeleton. I also heard that he has a special surprise for the children... shhhh. Then on Friday, Dr. Carmack, Chelsea's dad from Mrs. Densa's class, will make a special presentation about our eyes. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful resources to help us learn. Thank you to our fantastic parents and Mrs. Peck!
In Social Studies, we will begin working on map skills which will continue throughout the year.
In Math, we will work on both addition and subtraction number models and making up and solving number stories. Last week we began exchanging pennies for nickels and this week we will learn to play a game called Penny Nickel Exchange. We plan to complete Unit 2 this week and take our second math assessment next Monday.
In Reading Workshop, we will continue to talk about and practice the strategies for figuring out "tricky" words. We will also talk about and practice reading with a smooth storyteller voice by implementing the strategies of going back and rereading as well as noticing and using punctuation to help us read more smoothly. Reading with a smooth storyteller voice will help us to better understand what we read.
This week our word work will focus on words with variant vowel /o/a as in "all". This week's wall words (sight words) are: how, make, of, some, and town. This week's robust vocabulary words are locate, search, symbol, overflowing, commotion, and muffle. We will continue to learn about contractions and homophones as well.
Today in Writing Workshop, we read a book written by some of our very own Shorecrest high school student authors, Jack and Hannah S. What a great mentor text for my young writers to hear the "small moments" of Jack and Hannah's lives written and published! This week as we continue our personal narrative writing on the small moments of our lives, we will establish partnerships for writing (as we already have for reading). Also, as we have been learning to stretch words for reading, we will practice stretching words to help us write them. The children are seeing that the strategies we use to help us as readers, we can also use to help us as writers.
In handwriting, we will continue to work on lowercase letters. I will share more about the handwriting program at our conference.
Tomorrow I will be sending home flyers from Highlights, a magazine for children. If you are interested in ordering, they are offering it at a great price! I know my children always loved Highlights. Even if you are not interested, please sign and return the yellow flyer to school. Our class will receive a free gift just for returning all 15 flyers - whether orders are placed or not!
Things to Remember:
Conference Day - Thursday, October 6th - No school for students
The Adventures of Stuart Little in JR Theater - Friday, October 7th - You are welcome to join us.
Professional Development Day - Friday, October 14th - No school for students
Picture Retake Day -Tuesday, October 18th
Fall Festival - Friday, October 28th
Field Trip to the SPCA - Thursday, November 3 - Parents welcome!
Poetry in the Park - Friday, November 11th - Mark your calendars now!
Volunteers this week:
Tuesday - Art - 12:05 - Debbie Boensch
Wednesday - Math Game - 1:00 - Natalie Ames
Thursday - Library Check-out - 12:00 - Kim Burke and Susannah or Brian Malison
Friday - Parent Reader - cancelled due to Dr. Carmack's visit with first grade
It's going to be a wonderful week!
Hope your week is too!
Susan
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