Hello, and welcome to the 3rd and final trimester of the 2016- 2017 school year! While I am hoping all of the snow, freezing rain, and "yuck" is behind us now, the forecast for Monday through Wednesday (as of Saturday morning) is NOT inspiring! Let's hope the biggest complication that we get for the week is a "delay" if conditions are slippery. Thanks to the "extended hour" each day last week, I was able to finish the end of the trimester assessments AND hold reading groups each day.😄
The kids did "okay" with those hard spelling words. Most of them at least learned to READ them. Some of them could spell most of the eleven words. These words will show up again in smaller units as part of the children's regular sight words and spelling words packets, but they are part of the essential words kids are supposed to know how to read AND SPELL by the end of First Grade (some of them SPELLED by the end of Second Grade, I will admit). I was also able to get in a few of the many, many Math assessments that your child will have to do by the end of this school year. No one got a "1" on any of these assessments--Woohoo! If your child got a "2" on the money assessment, for example, he or she will have to try to bring that assessment up to a "3" by the end of this school year. The report on money that I sent home a week or so ago was to inform you about how your child was doing with identifying the names and values of each coin, and how he or she was doing with adding groups of coins (under 50⍧) when they were placed in front of him or her. However, the assessment they took yesterday went well beyond that, and everything was on paper--there were no "hands on" manipulatives (which makes it MUCH harder, for some kids). The results of these assessments, as always, will be on their report cards and shared with you at our next Parent-Teacher conference, which is happening the week before April vacation.
If you have not signed up for a parent-teacher conference yet, please do so as soon as possible. The times are on a "first come, first serve" basis, so I can't guarantee you the time you requested, but will get as close to that time as I can. Could you also come prepared to let me know if there is anyone in particular whom you would NOT like your child to be with next year. If you know about any child conflicts or intimate friendships that may distract your child from his or her learning next year, it would be helpful for you to share that at our upcoming conference. Perhaps there is a cousin in the next classroom who should not be with your child. You can't be sure I will know those details unless you share them with me. Although your second grader will be assigned to a particular classroom, he or she probably will work with ALL of the second grade teachers during some time of the year, as they group and regroup kids for various units within subjects throughout the year. I have also spoken to several of you about the possibility of retaining a child who is not showing me the level of independence or learning that I would like to see in first graders who are going into second grade the next year. Second grade is hard enough, as the children are supposed to work more independently and with less teacher support, but for a child who just is not ready academically, it can be a very long, very unhappy year. A "repeating" first grader does not HAVE to stay in the same classroom, (though I would be HAPPY to have any of my "little darlings" for another year), so you should be prepared to talk with me about what you hope for your child for next year. Starting just after April vacation, first grade teachers will meet several times to try to "place" kids for next year. We do take into consideration MANY, Many things--any comments parents have made, as well as dynamics we witness at school, work ethic, need for teacher support, academic abilities, personalities, etc. in our effect to develop three "balanced" classrooms--"balanced" for the kids AND balanced for the teachers. It is a time-consuming process, and needs to be completed before "Step Up" Day, which thankfully is now a day or two before school ends. (It used to be in late May or early June.) Everyone in my classroom (and Eliza, who is only with us once a week) needs to be placed on either a first or a second grade class list for next year. If you know your child will NOT be in this district (you are moving, or wanting them to be in a different school), please let the office know that. Something that simple can "unbalance" a class we've worked weeks to "balance". Thanks.
We are finally done maps!!! Everyone has finally passed their "Oceans and Continents" test, and we fit in the "Physical Features/ Human Features" work we were supposed to do when doing our mapping unit initially (but I somehow left out). We are a little better than half way through the systems of the human body. It is my hope that we will finish that before April vacation. We have been working on our "Then and Now" Social Studies unit, largely based on information we are acquiring and sharing while reading The Little House on the Prairie picture and chapter books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Last week, "partners" in our room put together posters showing and comparing elements of life today with those same elements during the time of Laura Ingalls (the Pioneer Days). The purpose of this unit of study in our classroom is to give children an appreciation for how many things have changed as we have advanced technologically and socially. I also want them to realize that while MANY things HAVE changed, there are things that are as important today as they were "back then", if not more important. Please come "check out" our bulletin board.
Your child may have told you that we have been having the math coach, Ms. Renee Charette, come into our classroom once a week for the last few weeks to work on problem solving without a focus on numbers. In this type of math problem solving, the kids are shown or given a short scenario or event. They have to determine what are some questions they would like answers to, and in so doing, find the KEY math question they would like answered. (To understand what I am talking about, ask your child to tell you about the "egg video" they watched with Ms. Charette.) Once they establish what the BIG or KEY math question is, they try to ask questions to get more information. Ms. Charette has the answer to some of those questions, and will supply their answer if she has it, but there are other questions she does not have the answers to. They need to use the math they know how to do, and the answers she IS able to give them to answer the KEY mathematical question, using any math process they understand. That means they can draw to help themselves, or come up with addition or subtraction equations, or "reason out" using drawings or manipulatives. HOW they solve the problem is up to them, but they have to be able to share their thought processes with the class. It is a different way of approaching problem solving with kids, but is supposed to help them realize there is often more than one "correct" answer in math, and more than one way to get to those answers. The most important aspects of doing math like this is the discussions the children have with one another about WHY they chose to do a particular something, HOW they accomplished it, and if it helped to answer the KEY question, and that the math is coming from THEM--they are not being told what they have to do. Ms. Charette is there as much to help me, as to show the kids math like this. This is TOTALLY a new way of thinking about math for me as a teacher, too. We did one last week that I tried to lead about "sharing M&Ms", and I didn't realize until Lucian pointed it out that the solution depended on HOW the M&Ms were shared, since there were an odd number of them. "Sharing" from my point of view meant "splitting into two equal parts", but sharing from his point of view meant he got the extra M&M because he was the older brother. "Sharing" from another student's point of view was different still, since there were three children involved in that family. Other kids included their parents, which changed the dynamics again! None of these answers were WRONG--they just represented different ways of thinking. As long as the way of thinking could be explained and supported the solution, ALL were right! I think that was amazing to the kids, and a very powerful lesson onto itself! Parents, I would love any feedback you get from your child after talking to him or her about this different way of solving math problems. Do they like it? How do they feel about sharing their ways of thinking with the class, and being able to use "any kind of math" that helps them solve the KEY question.
Well, that's it for this newsletter. I will be in touch again next weekend. Have a wonderful weekend!
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