Friday, September 8th, 2023

 "Dear families,
Welcome to our classroom blog!
This is the first post of our classroom adventures in learning. Every Friday (except for short weeks), I will be posting a few notes on what the students have been learning throughout the week, and about other activities and events happening in our school. Eventually, my students will be the ones posting! I really hope that this weekly newsletter serves you as a way of starting conversations about school with your child. 
What a fantastic beginning of the school year we've had. In just six days of school your children have already shown tremendous hard working skills and resilience. From the very beginning they have been engaged and collaborative, they have adapted quickly to the learning schedule, and have worked through hard conditions like the extreme heat we have experienced. They are fantastic listeners, and skillful collaborators. Here are some of the few things that we have learned this week:
In Math we kickstarted the week with a couple of activities to get our math muscles ready, and to understand that to learn math, our brains also work spatially and make connections. We have created a "community of learners" chart to talk about the things that we should see and hear in the classroom when we are working on math, with items like "students are encouraging each other with positive feedback", "students are using math vocabulary", "students help each other". We have also solved some multiplication story problems, using different strategies like repeated addition, skip counting on the number line, area models, and ratio tables. Students have shared the strategies with the whole class, and participation has been very high! Additionally, at arrival, students have been working independently on writing about math, using some problem strings and questions to guide their thinking.
For Language Arts, we have been launching our Reading Workshop routine called Daily 5, a model in which we gather at the assembly area, I teach a mini-lesson, we model and practice, and then students practice independently for a few minutes. After that, we gather again, check-in and start with another mini-lesson. This week, we have started with the first Daily 5 choice called "Read To Self", where students learn the behaviors that they have to show when they are reading by themselves. We have practiced transitioning to our reading spots, ways of reading a book, and checking for understanding. To make sure that they have a clear understanding of the expected behaviors, students also got a chance to play some charades, showing what not to do when reading independently, and then showing the right way again. We had a lot of fun with our little theater! The Daily 5 model, when developed fully, will allow me to work with small groups and individual students and that way get a more targeted instruction for each of my students. In the meantime, students that are working independently or with a partner, will be able to practice the skills that they have learned in the mini lesson or during group work. Your children were so amazing during their "read to self" independent practice, showing all the right behaviors and making perfect transitions, that during that time, I was able to confer with a few of my students to learn about their individual reading habits and likes.
During the 20 minutes that we have between specials and recess, we work on our "Thinking Journal". This writing activity is aimed at working with Social Emotional skills, with the purpose of helping your children appreciate and foster happy feelings throughout the week. We have a theme for each day, and I give them a prompt and model for them. This is like a personal journal where students are encouraged to write as little as one sentence, and more if they like. If they wish, students can share with the class what they wrote. These are the themes that we've been working on so far: Tickle Tuesday: write about a happy memory or something that made you feel happy lately; Wonder Wednesday: write about  what you wonder about; Thankful Thursday: write about something that you are thankful for and why (this week we wrote about an object that we were thankful for- it was so cute to have a few students share about their gratitude for their favorite blankie!), and today Friday the theme will be Freedom/Friendship Friday, where students will write about weekend plans or their friends. 
In the afternoon we have launched our Science block, were we are learning about the Human Machine, how the muscles control their bones to move their bodies. 
Students have also been working on ST Math at dismissal, and we have been trying to stay cool at the end of the day by going to the library or siting in the hall.
As you can see, your children have been really busy learning! 
Join us next Friday to read more about our learning adventures!
​Have a fantastic weekend!