Week of February 25, 2013

Dear Parents: 

Time Sensitive Alert! Don't forget that our class will be leading Town Meeting at 8:05 tomorrow (Monday). Please be sure that your child is on time to school! I hope that you will be able to join us at Town Meeting! 

Class Picture Day will be tomorrow, February 26. Picture order forms are available online on our website under Community-Parents Page and in E-bytes. 

The Relay for Life Cookout will be this Thursday, February 28. Children may wear purple shirts with uniform bottoms on Thursday in honor of Relay for Life.  Hotdogs and tofu dogs will be served. Please plan to have lunch with your child if you can. All proceeds will be donated to Relay for Life. There will be no Sage lunch offered Thursday! 

Please always be sure to read the all of the Important Reminders at the end of the blog. Information may have changed or been added. Obviously,  a lot is going on this week! 

Reading Workshop: As we discussed at our recent conferences, the children are reading with more accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. The characters in many of the books the children are reading are now more developed than just simply being an illustration on a page, and they offer an authentic way for children to invest in the story. In our new unit on characters, we'll be learning to get to know the characters in many ways by visualizing, inferring, predicting, making connections, and comparing and contrasting. In Reading Workshop this week, we will learn how we as readers learn more about the characters in our books by visualizing what they look like, using the narration, or words the author uses to tell about the story, and focusing on what the character says and doesn't say. When your child reads at home, talk with your child about the character(s) in the story...  character traits, and what they learn about the character when they read, and "how" they learn about the character. As you read with your child over the next couple of weeks,  you can begin to talk with your child about the character they may want to choose to dress as for character day on March 18! Remember, it should be a character from a favorite book so that your child can really get to know the character. The children will not only be dressing as the character on March 18, but will be sharing all they know about the character as they share the book. 

Word Work: We'll focus on r-controlled vowels this week, as in car and corn.

Ben enjoys word work activities!

Daven and Phoebe quiz each other on spelling high frequency words.

Ryan, Matthew, Avery, and Natalie enjoy making words with Mrs. Rauman!

Writing Workshop: We continue to work on writing for readers and will begin to learn about some revision techniques. I must say I am so pleased with the progress our writers are making!

Math: We will begin learning about telling time to the five minute interval and digital clocks this week. We'll also be introduced to our Math Reference Book that the children will continue to use in second grade as well. Our goal is to complete unit 6 this week and take the progress check (assessment) on Friday. So, look for it to come home early next week along with the unit 7 family letter.

Carson, Cyrus, Leni, and Kaja play Gator Attack with Carson's mom, a game that uses relation symbols (<, >, =) to compare two digit numbers.

Science: The children will finish presenting and teaching us about the planets this week. Their projects are displayed in our hallway. Take a look!

Keith, Sydney, and Kate practice identifying the planets of the solar system.

Social Studies: Our unit on America continues as we learn about our flag, take a virtual tour of the White House, and learn about Mount Rushmore.

Important Reminders: 

March 7 is Field Day.  Field Day will take place from 9:00 - 11:00. The PE coaches are assigning children to teams and will soon send home a note indicating the team your child is on. The teams are named for colors... green team, blue team, etc. The children are to wear that color shirt to school for Field Day.

March 8 will be a Professional Development Day for teachers. Spring Break for students begins Friday, March 8. School resumes for students on Monday, March 18.

Heads-up: March 18, the day the students return from Spring Break, will be Character Day during Reading Week in the Lower School! Your child will be asked to choose a character from a favorite book and come to school dressed as that character and prepared to talk about their character/book. Therefore, they should have read the book and know the character and book well.

Reading Week will be the week of March 18 - 22. The entire week will be dedicated to Mrs. Weinman. The schedule is as follows:

• Monday - Character Day! All children in the Lower School will be dressed as their favorite book character and bring their book with them to Town Meeting!
• Tuesday - "Drop Everything and Read" Day - Your child will need to bring a beach towel to sit on and several books to read as the Lower School will read together outside from 8:15 - 8:50.
• Wednesday - We will view the Bookshelf Project with Mrs. Smay.
• Thursday - Mystery Reader and Buddy Reading
• Friday - Oldie Goldie Book Sale

On Monday, March 25, we will dedicate the new playground to Mrs. Weinman and the children are asked to bring a flowering plant for the garden in memory of her. We will be planting them that day. The memorial will begin at 8:05a.m. Parents are welcome to join us. 

Volunteers this week: 

• Wednesday - Library Checkout - 2:10 - David Nguyen and Kim Gross
• Thursday - Math Game - 10:30 - David Richardson
• Friday - Art - 9:15 - Kristen Danielson
• Friday - Parent Reader - 2:15 - Kim Gross

Have a great week!

Susan