Monday, August 27, 2012

Good afternoon,

We're off to a great start! I would like to use this blog as a vehicle to communicate about what's going on in the classroom. You are my audience. So, I need to know what's valuable to you. What do you need or want to know about your child's day? Please send me an email and give me some feedback on this blog. I want it to be useful and purposeful to you. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. 

Typically, I'll begin these posts with important information you need to know. So, here's what you need to know this week.

*This week's IA is Art. Next week will be Music. 

*Library books will be due every Tuesday, starting tomorrow.

*Anyone from Renaissance that goes to Smart Cow on Tuesday, a portion of those proceeds will come to back Renaissance. So, go enjoy some yummy yogurt and help support our school! 

*The Kiss and Go is only for those dropping off or picking up kids. If you need to get out of the car, or wait for any reason, please park your car.

After important information, I will give you a glimpse into our classroom. 

To begin Reader's Workshop this year, I asked the students two questions that I think are important: Why do we read? and What does it mean to be a wise reader? I was so impressed with the responses we got. Take a look! (And I was so pleased that no one answered, "Because you tell us to.")

Dessert Before Dinner? 

You may have heard your child talk about "dessert" reading and "healthy" reading. These are two terms we use in our classroom to classify our book choices. Each day, students get 10 minutes of "dessert" reading time. This is a chance for them to choose any book they want to read. Even if the book is too hard or too easy, they can interact with the text. Letting students have some independence over their reading choices improves motivation. I also have students read around the room and lie on their stomachs, propped up on their elbows. There is a method to my madness. I ask students to read in this position because it helps strengthen their upper bodies and helps improve small motor and handwriting. 

"Healthy" reading is time for us to read books that are "just right" for us. They feed our brains and make us stronger readers, just like healthy foods make our bodies stronger. "Healthy" reading is done back in our seats at our desks. This is a time when I confer with, or talk to readers, about their books and the reading strategies we are working on. We also record our thinking about our reading in our response logs. This is an important component of writing. It helps us learn how to support our thinking with examples from the text.  

For Expedition, we have been furthering our understanding of what it means to "Fill a Bucket," by learning more about our five character traits. Here are some pictures of our kiddos using beneficence, empathy, and integrity on our Voyage. 

We showed beneficence by helping each other build shelters out on the trail. We were being kind to each other. 

A mom shows empathy by helping a student write in his reflection log. 

More parents show empathy by helping us on the zip line.

Ms. Hanni shows empathy by understanding that some students felt scared to try the zip line, so she showed how to overcome her fear and just go for it. Sometimes empathy can be really fun! :)

We had a chance to show integrity while playing tag. We knew we had to do the right thing and admit that we had been tagged, even though no one was looking. 

We also had to show integrity while working as a group to cross a path in the correct order. 

Monday, August 20th, 2012

Good evening!

Homework starts tonight. Yikes! Please send the following items in with your child tomorrow:

*1 small Ziplock baggie with 20 pennies, 5 nickels, 10 dimes, and 4 quarters. The students will be using these coins on a regular basis.

*1 old, clean sock to use as an eraser for their white boards. 

Last week, we had a wonderful Fall Voyage to Camp Elim. I want to thank all of our fabulous chaperones! Cari, Lisa, Angel, Marcie, Steve, John, Sjef, Rob, and Keith, we could NOT have done it without you. Our voyage was so great, in huge part due to you. My deepest gratitude for your help!

Please enjoy a quick glimpse into our time together last week. I will post more pictures from the voyage  in the coming weeks, as we explore our character traits deeper.

We got to celebrate a birthday on Wednesday. Camp Elim sure knows how to recognize a birthday. A banner and a frosting covered, huge chocolate chip cookie! 

Before we got to explore Camp Elim, we set our norms for the next couple of days.

Finally, we got to explore and enjoy singing, stories, and jokes around the campfire. 

My favorite photos are those of 2nd graders being reflective. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. The "solo" practice in the classroom was a great prelude to being in the field. 

Camp was a nice balance of reflective time and team building. During our initiatives, we learned how to listen to each other, find our role in a group, and communicate (and possibly disagree) respectfully. These experiences will transfer to our group work in the classroom. 

Monday, August 13, 2012

Whew! What a whirlwind week. I had such a fantastic time getting to know your children last week. They are all so sweet! We are going to have such a wonderful year.

We do leave on our Voyage in two days. Yikes! Can it be here already? Here are some things to know:

1. Students should bring their gear to school tomorrow, Tuesday, 8/14. They can bring their daypacks on Wednesday morning. Please make sure they have a sack lunch in their daypacks on Wednesday.

2. Please have your students here at the regular time on Wednesday. We will return to school on Thursday afternoon, in time for normal dismissal at 4:00. Friday is our day of rest.

3. Don't forget to write a note for your child to read Wednesday night. They love finding these in their gear before bed.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Our first week together was great! Here are some pictures of how we spent our time.

You may have heard your child talking about his or her "bucket." We have been reading the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? By: Carol McCloud. This book teaches us how we all have an invisible bucket that can be filled or emptied each day, depending on how we treat others and how others treat us. This is our Crew Bucket. We can fill this bucket by making good choices in the classroom. It's a great reminder that we all want to be bucket fillers! 

 As a Crew, we developed our Crew Norms. We all agreed that we want a safe, caring classroom environment. 

After we wrote our thinking about classroom norms on sticky notes, we posted them around the classroom and did a gallery walk to see everyone's thinking. 

We practiced "solo" time by writing our feelings, hopes, and dreams in our Adventure Education Journals. We'll continue to add to these journals all year.  

 In order to ease some nerves about the Voyage, we spent some time getting to know each other better. We conducted interviews to find out what we have in common with each other. 

 During the Voyage, we'll be working in small groups called "patrols." We got into our patrols to create patrol names and cheers. This was a way for us to learn how to work together, which can be difficult, we found out.