Announcements
Halloween! Kindergarteners are allowed to wear their costumes to school on Tuesday, Oct. 31st! A good question to ask yourself is "can my student sit comfortably in their costume?" If not, is there something they can take off for the morning part of the day and then put on just before the parade and party? Please also leave "weapon" accessories at home. Thanks! Our whole school Halloween parade will be at 1:00pm. Students will line up with their class and walk around the outside perimeter or our two buildings, showcasing their costumes and looking at other's costumes. You are welcome to come and join us! Classroom parties will happen right after. **We know kids are left with a lot of leftover candy after halloween, but please limit the amount of candy your student brings to school. One to two pieces, if any, in their lunch is nice amount. | Seesaw! If you have not signed up to follow your student's seesaw account, please do so! They are posting regularly about their learning and would love to have an authentic audience to share it with. Please e-mail your teacher if you need the link to sign up! |
Independent Work Habits
As a part of our new literacy curriculum, there is a large focus on working independently to strengthen our learning. We have been setting the foundation for this independent work time for several weeks now. We have been learning how to handle materials responsibly, use our time effectively, and make meaningful decisions on the activities that we choose to engage in. Everyday for 30-40 min, students are engaged in choosing activities that include reading, writing, and word work. During this time, students are finding a spot in the room where they can work privately and are moving through these three choices at their own pace. This is the start of students taking charge of their learning and
Wild Reading! | Wild Writing! | Word Work! |
As readers, we want students to be able to decode words, comprehend what they read, and LOVE BOOKS! When we are "wild readers" we are reading books of our own choice that are based on our interests. These books may not be books that we are able to read yet, but we are looking deeply at the pictures and using our own schema to help us make sense of the page. | As writers, we want to give students as many opportunities to write as possible. writing is an opportunity to share our own unique voice and tell our own stories. During wild writing, students may write about whatever they like! This could be a fantasy story about a dragon slayer or a journal that they write about their daily experiences. This is their time to get their thoughts out of their head and onto the paper. | Working and playing with letters is an essential part of understanding the alphabet and how letters are put together to make words. Within this category students are choosing things like name puzzles, practicing songs we have learned, writing the alphabet, hunting for letters in poems, etc. This category is vast and changing as we are learning new skills. |
Establishing this independent work time is so important because this is the time where teachers are able to work with students in small group literacy learning. These small groups are fluid and change based on students' academic needs. Some groups may be working on letter names, rhyming, decoding cvc words, or reading an at-level text and answering comprehension questions. This is the time where students receive intentional instruction in the area that they need.
A school-wide awareness campaign
Every year our school's climate committee helps set goals around out school culture and climate. We launched a school slogan last year of 'I am aware, I am safe, we are connected." This is the QAE mantra and what we think student should be living and breathing everyday. Looking at data gathered from teachers this year, our climate committee concluded that our students know what it means to be safe and they know what it means to be connected to others. We are struggling on making the "aware" piece come alive. So, we launched an awareness campaign throughout the school. This campaign focuses on these key points to awareness.
I am aware of myself Being aware of yourself is the first stage in the awareness campaign! To help guide kids though this step we are taking several moments to pause throughout the day and ask ourselves these three questions, 1. Where am I? - Am I in the hallway? learning on the carpet in class? In the lunchroom? 2. What is the expectation here? - It is so important that kids can articulate this step! Do they really know what is expected of them at various points in the day? If not, we need to teach them. - what is my noise level supposed to be here? How am I helping my learning and others learning here? Is my body to myself? 3. Am I doing it? - It is not enough to just know the expectation. We have to ask ourselves am I actually doing what is expected in that moment? If the answer is no, what can I do to fix it? | Coming soon! I am aware of others The second stage of this campaign is bringing our awareness wider than ourselves. This awareness can be broader than the people right next to me. It can extend to being aware of others in my school, my community, and around the world. I am aware of how others perceive me This final stage takes some deeper level of metacognition. The decisions we make everyday are informing other's perceptions of us. What we say and what we do has an impact on that perception. Understanding this and being able to shift the perception if necessary is deep life skill we want to teach our kids. |