It has been a busy week! I've really enjoyed having conferences with each of you and I appreciate everyone making accommodations for the two half days. Please remember that I'm happy to meet with you again before the end of the year report cards come out if you have any new questions or concerns.We got a "second grade style" desk that will stay in the room for the rest of the year. Everyone will get a chance to do some work there to see what it will feel like next year, and it will serve as a quiet place to work for anyone who is too distracted at their group table. I will also move everyone's seating assignments on the carpet and at the tables in a few weeks.
This week in math we introduced quarters and will continue to study them next week. Students will be working on comparing two groups of coins and making a sum of money with different combinations of coins. In the Everyday Math curriculum the coins are often represented by the first letter of the coin name in a circle. To reinforce the coin values, we have been drawing a dot for each group of five cents on these coin symbols; so a nickel gets one dot, a dime gets two dots, and a quarter gets 5 dots: 
This strategy can help students who struggle to count a group of these coin symbols, especially when they are not in order (pennies do not get any dots and are counted last in the group, which involves switching from counting by 5s to 1s). You can try drawing these dots this when you help your child with his/her math homework and any extra challenge problems you give him/her!
In reading this week we worked on predicting as a strategy to improve our reading comprehension. We started using a sticky note to mark where in the book we made a prediction (cover, beginning or middle of the story...) and then checked how accurate our prediction was. Next we will begin writing/drawing/recording our predictions and writing/drawing/recording what actually happened in the story, and then we will write/draw/record our predictions and our evidence on which our predictions are based. 
In reading we also practiced looking for letters that have more than 1 sound and trying both sounds to improve our accuracy when we have to sound out unknown words. We have displays in the room for Cc (/k/ like candy or /s/ like cereal), Gg (/g/ like gorilla or /j/ like giraffe) and the long/short vowel sounds. 
We had a good discussion about the importance of including everyone and making new friends. We discussed what it can look like when people are left out on the playground and in the classroom, and that's not OK to tell someone that they can't play with you or to have a club that certain people cannot join. We talked about how people felt when they were excluded, how to get help when it happens, and what we can do to prevent those situations from happening so no one feels sad. 
We came up with several ideas which we plan to develop into some short skits that we hope to perform for the Kindergarten classes to help teach them how to be a good friend to everyone. In addition to supporting students working/playing/sitting with new people in the classroom, I'm also going to encourage students to invite friends from the other first grade and Kindergarten classes to come eat lunch and have choice with us in our room (and vice versa) to help develop new friendships. Please discuss these important lessons with your child and ask them who they are trying to befriend.
On Monday we will meet our buddies from Northeast Elementary School when we go to the Museum of the Earth! We will share a bus with our buddies and will work on some conversation skills to help make the bus ride fun for everyone. We will complete a scavenger hunt, a hands-on fossil activity, and eat lunch at the museum with our buddies. I will email those of you who volunteered to chaperone with more details. After the field trip we will do several activities on dinosaurs and other extinct animals, then we will study endangered animals.I want to let you know that you will see some substitutes once a week for the next six weeks as I will be attending all-day teacher workshops on the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching. This program aims to create a strong and safe school community that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth. I have already studied this program's literature and am eager to learn more. While I don't like to be out of the classroom, I really believe in the value and importance of this program and I appreciate that our district does, too (it's required of all teachers new to ICSD).
Next week's sight words will be: ask, many, new, once, wrong.
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