Happy first Monday of our school year! I hope your student is enjoying the start of the school as much as I am. We are continuing to work on our classroom management routines and systems, completing assessments to get a snapshot of students' current knowledge at the start of the year, and beginning to dive into our content!
Try this out: Ask your child about our "Attention Getters" and what we do after we hear them!
Paperwork and Supply Money: Thank you for returning the First Day packet and $50 supply money to our classroom promptly! I'll be collecting these documents all week and sending out a reminder to you before next week if anything is missing. If the supply fee is not feasible for your family at the moment-no worries! Send me a quick email and and I'll not bug you with reminder emails about a fee at this time.
Homework: As mentioned in my first day Welcome Letter, there was no homework the first three days of school! However, there are now two items on the agenda.
- Writer's Notebook Decorating Assignment: This is a one time special project assigned Friday. Students are to decorate their Writer's Notebook covers to develop a sense of ownership and pride. I saw many great covers coming in today! Students may continue to decorate tonight and we will wrap the covers with contact paper to seal their designs for the year. Some ideas for decorating can include hand drawings, magazine/newspaper clippings, internet images, stickers, etc.!
-Reading Logs: This will be a permanent and year-long assignment! I encourage you to start immediately and create a sense of urgency and importance at home around this assignment. Begin the routine with heavy guidance, and gradually release responsibility (according to your child's needs and independence level) as the year goes on. Each night students are expected to read for a minimum of 20 minutes, and to fill in that day's log box. Reading Logs are due on Friday, filled out, and signed by both student and parent. I will give them a fresh log each Friday! The first box on the form is titled "Weekend Choice." As fresh logs will be given Friday, I ask that kids choose one day to read and record; either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. There are then boxes to fill in for the rest of the school week! The first part of the box asks for basic information about the book and time spent reading. The bottom portion has 5 lines which ask for a reading response. To get started today, we all wrote the sentence starter "The most interesting part was...." Students are asked to give a brief response to answer the prompting question. Tomorrow, I will send home a form called "Reading Response Prompts." This form will give ideas and sentence starters for kids to begin writing their responses. It also helps to avoid boredom by giving them a variety of response types to write each day. Asking students to write briefly about their reading and to use a variety of prompts is very beneficial in building their literacy skills! Please work with your student to monitor their reading and recording in their log. This routine is very important to nail down at the beginning of the year and with proper guidance, will help to promote strong literacy skills from home! To avoid losing logs and the frustration that ensues, keep that reading log permanently at home in the Orange Folder!! Thank you for your work from home to support students with their reading life this year. Our current reading unit is called "Building a Reading Life," and a positive and supportive reading-at-home experience is critical to successful year. Don't worry if your child seems to be reading a book that may not be "just right." We are still assessing and teaching kids about how to find that "just right" book!
Communication: I will be emailing you all to remind you to check our Monday Blog today! I will also blog throughout the week on a need-to-know basis. I hope to have the RSS Feed up soon so that you will have any blogs sent directly into your email account. In the meantime, please bookmark our website as one of your favorites and check it DAILY!
*I really encourage you to respond to blogs with comments or questions that may pertain to the whole class. This is a great way for us to build community and makes our communication very efficient. Remember, however, to email me privately with any questions or comments that involve student privacy-Blog comments are posted for ALL TO SEE!
Try this out: Ask your child about our "Attention Getters" and what we do after we hear them!
Paperwork and Supply Money: Thank you for returning the First Day packet and $50 supply money to our classroom promptly! I'll be collecting these documents all week and sending out a reminder to you before next week if anything is missing. If the supply fee is not feasible for your family at the moment-no worries! Send me a quick email and and I'll not bug you with reminder emails about a fee at this time.
Homework: As mentioned in my first day Welcome Letter, there was no homework the first three days of school! However, there are now two items on the agenda.
- Writer's Notebook Decorating Assignment: This is a one time special project assigned Friday. Students are to decorate their Writer's Notebook covers to develop a sense of ownership and pride. I saw many great covers coming in today! Students may continue to decorate tonight and we will wrap the covers with contact paper to seal their designs for the year. Some ideas for decorating can include hand drawings, magazine/newspaper clippings, internet images, stickers, etc.!
-Reading Logs: This will be a permanent and year-long assignment! I encourage you to start immediately and create a sense of urgency and importance at home around this assignment. Begin the routine with heavy guidance, and gradually release responsibility (according to your child's needs and independence level) as the year goes on. Each night students are expected to read for a minimum of 20 minutes, and to fill in that day's log box. Reading Logs are due on Friday, filled out, and signed by both student and parent. I will give them a fresh log each Friday! The first box on the form is titled "Weekend Choice." As fresh logs will be given Friday, I ask that kids choose one day to read and record; either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. There are then boxes to fill in for the rest of the school week! The first part of the box asks for basic information about the book and time spent reading. The bottom portion has 5 lines which ask for a reading response. To get started today, we all wrote the sentence starter "The most interesting part was...." Students are asked to give a brief response to answer the prompting question. Tomorrow, I will send home a form called "Reading Response Prompts." This form will give ideas and sentence starters for kids to begin writing their responses. It also helps to avoid boredom by giving them a variety of response types to write each day. Asking students to write briefly about their reading and to use a variety of prompts is very beneficial in building their literacy skills! Please work with your student to monitor their reading and recording in their log. This routine is very important to nail down at the beginning of the year and with proper guidance, will help to promote strong literacy skills from home! To avoid losing logs and the frustration that ensues, keep that reading log permanently at home in the Orange Folder!! Thank you for your work from home to support students with their reading life this year. Our current reading unit is called "Building a Reading Life," and a positive and supportive reading-at-home experience is critical to successful year. Don't worry if your child seems to be reading a book that may not be "just right." We are still assessing and teaching kids about how to find that "just right" book!
Communication: I will be emailing you all to remind you to check our Monday Blog today! I will also blog throughout the week on a need-to-know basis. I hope to have the RSS Feed up soon so that you will have any blogs sent directly into your email account. In the meantime, please bookmark our website as one of your favorites and check it DAILY!
*I really encourage you to respond to blogs with comments or questions that may pertain to the whole class. This is a great way for us to build community and makes our communication very efficient. Remember, however, to email me privately with any questions or comments that involve student privacy-Blog comments are posted for ALL TO SEE!
Megan Klope