We have a monarch caterpillar in our room! Caelan Mulley and his mother managed to find one for us, with what looks like NO TIME to spare. He (or she) is rather large already, and may be in his (or her) "J" form (or already in a chrysalis) by the time we return to school on Monday. I am so excited that we have a friend to watch go through the butterfly life cycle this year. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, Monarch butterflies are struggling to stay off the endangered species list. We hadn't been able to find them the last few years. We would love to have friends for our caterpillar (we have to think of a name for it!), so if you are out walking near milkweed plants, please take a look. From the sample caterpillar we have, they will probably all be "making the change" this week or next.
This year, our district is encouraging teachers to use the workshop format for Reading, Writing, and Math. This format involves a quick review of something previously taught (a "warm-up"); a "focus" lesson which is either a skill, a procedure, or a strategy; a "follow-up" activity for the children to do, and then practice time on skills while the teacher meets with ever-changing groups that need additional instruction on particular skills. Much of what I have always done as a teacher fits into this method of teaching, but some of it is new to me. Rest assured that I will be doing my very best to help your child reach his or her learning target goals this year.
Last week, we relearned all of the short vowel sounds, and did sorting activities to help us hear those different sounds within words. This week, we will begin to work with "Word Families". They have also been called "C-V-C" words, since they are made from a consonant-vowel-consonant. Our "target representations" for the various short vowel sounds are: a--apple or ax; e--elephant or egg; i--igloo or "itchy"; o--octopus or sock; u--umbrella or "ugly". When helping your child decode (read) or encode (spell) words, please keep these target representations in mind. Most consonants are easy to recognize and retrieve; it's the vowels that tend to be the sticklers.
For homework this week, your child will be bringing home sight word cards to practice--how many there are depends on his or her reading group. He or she should practice identifying these words at least once every day. A child must actively associate a word to its image 21 times before it goes into "long term storage". We emphasize the learning of sight words because recognition "on sight" eliminates the struggle to "sound out" words. It makes reading more fluid, which makes it more enjoyable. I will be assessing your child's knowledge of his or her sight words at the end of each week. New this year--Fluency Sentences! Our new district assessments require each child to be "fluent" at a reading level, AND be able to retell a story with little or no prompting, before advancing to the next level. In the past, a child could "sound out" any words he or she did not know, and still be able to pass the reading test, as long as he or she could adequately retell the story. Now, because of the fluency requirement, he or she only has time to "sound out" the occasional unfamiliar word. Anything more eats up time, and the child usually does not pass due to a lack of fluency. This surprised many of us last year. In an effort to counter this effect, we are going to try these fluency pages each week. Yes, your child will be reading the same sentences over and over from one night to the next until he or she can demonstrate fluency on that group of sentences for me at school. Please understand that the sentence order will be varied to make the focus learning the words in the sentences, NOT having great auditory recall. This sentence fluency sheet is yours. Your child will receive a new one when he or she "passess" the old one for me. Please only practice the ten sentences once or twice a night. . . I don't want your child hating this work. Make a game out of it, if you can. Our "readers" are still fairy tales for this week. We finish them next week, then your child will be bringing books home nightly to read to you. I would appreciate receiving them back in their bag in your child's folder each morning.
In Math, we are working on learning parts of the calendar; recognizing, labeling, and creating patterns; and working on what numbers 0 - 9 mean--how to represent them as objects, tally marks, by numerals, and by subitizing (knowing by looking quickly at an orientation of objects and knowing what number they represent without having to count each one). We are starting to talk about "number bonds" and about how various numbers can be represented by bond pairs. An example would be 7=3+4, but also can be represented as 1+6 or 2+5 or 7+0 or 0+7 or 5+2 or 6+1 or 4+3. Establishing these concepts firmly in your child's mind does for math what sight words do for reading. Number bonding takes us right into addition, which a short time later will be followed by subtraction. Both addition and subtraction will make more sense if number bonding makes sense to your child.
IMPORTANT DATES: There is an "Open House" this Tuesday evening from 6 - 7pm. It is a time for YOUR CHILD to show you around school. Please leave your child a message of encouragement on the big paper apple at the front of the room. We will hang it out in the hallway near our classroom for the next few weeks. I will be at the Open House to take family pictures and to say "Hello". Since I would like to meet and greet all of my families, Open House is not a good time for us to talk about how your child is doing in school. I am at school until 6pm most Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, if you should wish to talk before the Parent-Teacher conference in November.
There is a "Workshop Day" for teachers on October 9th, so your child does not have school that day. The following Monday (October 12th) is a holiday, so your child has a VERY long weekend then. School Photo day is October 13. Grandparents' or "Special Visitors" Day is October 16th from 8:30 - 10:30. On October 27th, there will be a special performance purchased by the Mahoosuc Arts Council called "Tinpanic Steel Band". I will let you know the situation with Halloween activities as soon as I hear about them from the office.
That's all for this week. Speak to you again next weekend.
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