Week of September 5, 2012

Dear Parents:

It was so good to see all of you at Back-to-School-Night! I know some of you needed to be in the classrooms of your older children but I so appreciate that you all came in for as much time as you could. If you have any questions, please email me and I will do my best to answer them!

This morning we had our first Town Meeting of the year with the lower school. It was so good to see our community all together for the first time this year. We greeted each class to let everyone know that they are special and matter!The children were so well behaved and participated beautifully in the greeting and opening routines. 

Today we also made our first visit to the computer lab. The children were reintroduced to the iPad, helped to come up with "Our iPad Rules", and had a great time working on them. They had two apps that they were allowed to use today. Ask your child about them!

In class we continue to work on short vowel /a/ words, particularly those in the _am, _ad, _ap, and _at word families. Words in these families will be included on Friday's spelling test. The children enjoyed the "practice" test last Friday. This Friday will be the real deal! The word rings came home again today with a note to explain them. These words will again be included in the test on Friday. Beginning next Monday, there will be new words added to the word ring each week.

In Math today, we played a game called "Dice-Roll and Tally" to investigate equally likely outcomes. As the week continues we will work with weather and temperature routines, explore with pattern blocks, base-10 blocks, and geoboards, and practice doing some graphing together. Ask your child how to play the game "Top-it". Don't forget that the Math Family Letters that come home will also provide directions for many of the math games that we play so that you can play them at home.

In handwriting, we have completed capital letters and are beginning to work with the lowercase letters. Please send in a small, clean sock for your child to use as an eraser when working with the chalkboard for handwriting practice. 

The first homework calendar that we went over at Back-to-School Night came home today. I explained it to the children. The reading log should be completed each evening and then turned in on Monday. All homework should be done in pencil - no ink please. Please remember to note the reminders on the right-hand side of the calendar.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

Our first library check-out day is tomorrow! Sharon Cannella and Kim Gross will be coming to escort the children to the library and assist them in checking out books. Please remember to return library books each week so that your child can check out more the next week.

Volunteer schedules begin this week! Thank you to all of you for volunteering! I will list the volunteers signed up at the bottom of each weeks blog.

I have also set up our class Shutterfly site and have posted pictures to it. I will send each of you an email invitation so that you can sign up to access it. Please feel free to post pictures that you take of our class when you are at school.

Things to Remember: 

Next Tuesday, September 11, is picture day.

If you have not signed up for a conference with me, please contact me as soon as possible. I will not be here on conference day so I have alternative dates/times available. 

Word card rings are to be returned on Thursday!

Calling for Summer Vacation photos! The yearbook staff is collecting photos of student summer vacation experiences both in and out of the country. If you have a photo that you would like to share for the yearbook, please send or e-mail your photos to Tony Napodano at nap@shorecrest.org.

Volunteers this week: 

Wednesday - Library check-out (2:10):  Sharon Cannella and Kim Gross

Thursday - Math game (10:30): David Richardson

Friday - Art helper (9:15): Mary Hind

Friday - Parent Reader (2:20): Charlene Hosseini

Have a great week!

Susan