Getting into the swing of things

We had another great week and we really started getting into normal life in room 17. We are doing official literacy centers and they proved to me that they are responsible enough to get their work done at their first center to "move down" to the choice center(s) below it! This is a big deal because a lot of literacy centers operate on rotations/stations, where ours give the kids voice and choice! However, it takes a lot of prep and time to coach them through expectations and how all the choices work! :)

With the kids doing so well independently, I was able to pull small reading/phonics groups every day starting Wednesday! WOO! They're really picking things up quickly and reading groups are hands-down my favorite part of our school day!

We learned our first math game that the kids can choose to play after finishing their must-do work/aren't at my table for direct instruction...and it's called "Race to Trace."

A couple of the girls grabbed the race to trace- addition game on accident and they went and got another dice to roll and add! I was so impressed at their problem solving and challenging themselves that they both got paw cards! :) I love the Shari Sloane math games because once we learn how to play them, the kids are completely independent and can pick games that are based on skills on their level. The best part is that they don't even realize they're practicing math skills!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic/Phonological Awareness: beginning sounds, rhyming (see last week's examples)

-Phonics: Bb, Ff, Nn, Mm - What do we say for Bb? (b, bat, /b/) Ff? (f, fun, /f/), Nn? (n, nut, /n/) Mm? (m, man, /m/)

-Reading: Concepts of print & matching pictures to text- How do the pictures help us figure out what the words say? After we look at the picture, what helps us next? (the first letter/sound)

-Writing: How do you rainbow write your sight words? (write the word in red, then go over with orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet) --- We started writing groups on Friday & wow, I forgot what writing is like in August! Exhausting! Stay tuned for some helpful hints next week :)

-Math: Patterns & sorting by color, size, shape, Graphing our birthdays (most vs. least, equal), and Race to trace- Can you give me an example of a pattern? How else could you make a pattern?

-Zones of Regulation: We introduced the Zones of Regulation which is an emotional and behavioral program that helps kids recognize and control their emotions. -What zone do we want to be in at school? (the green zone) What zone are we in when we're sad? (blue zone) Mad? (red zone) Silly? (yellow zone) ***This really oversimplifies it and doesn't do it justice; I will send home more information as we get deeper into it!

Reminders/FYI:

-Tomorrow (Monday 8/28): The kids will have a substitute. They are aware and we talked about expectations, but please remind your child in the morning! I will be in the building all day for our team leaders meeting and I promise you I do not take sub days hardly ever... especially not in August, but this is out of my control! Fingers crossed they do great! :)

-Fun Run fundraising kicks off on Tuesday!

-Please make sure your child is bringing TWO snacks each day... I am already running low on the snacks I bought as extras!

-Your child's character calendar should stay IN his/her blue folder please!

-Homework folders went home on Friday! Please let me know if you have any questions. The folders come back on Friday with the log completed and sight word punch card so I can assess!

**Thank you so very much to the wonderful volunteers who completely tackled my to do list this week! You guys are amazing and SO appreciated.

***Still no pictures of kids because I'm waiting on a couple of permission slips still! I took the cutest class pic on picture day, so hopefully next week!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham