February 19th - 23rd

Happy Friday! 😊 We had a wonderful and busy week in the classroom!  We started many new things this week such as guided reading groups and sight word rings that I will talk about more in depth below.  The students are doing wonderful with all of our new activities in the classroom.  Please look at the upcoming dates below and be sure to mark them on your calendar.

Important Dates:

Wednesday, February 28th 6:30-7:30 PM Parent/Student Math Night: We would love to have every family in attendance at this event!  This is an event that you bring your child with you to.  We will have our math workshop stations set up and your child teaches you how to play each game! This is a great way for you to see how we run math workshop and what we are learning currently.  Can't wait to see you there! This is a drop-in event.  Come and leave whenever you need to! 😁
March 15th and 16th: Makeup snow days

Love and Logic Parenting Classes: These classes are led by Marianne Coale, one of the principals at CSD, and are AMAZING! I recommend this beneficial course to all parents.  Below is a tidbit of information about the class.  There are morning sessions and night sessions to accommodate all parents.  Below are also the link to the Sign Up Geniuses for them. They begin next week so sign up now!
Morning: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f49a4ac2a1-parenting6
Evening: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f49a4ac2a1-parenting5

The Love and Logic approach is fun!  This parenting curriculum will provide you with skills so you can feel more relaxed, hopeful and positive about raising your children. We will discover that parenting really can be enjoyable while also teaching personal responsibility and respect.

Parents will learn how to:

• Avoid un-winnable power-struggles and arguments

• Stay calm when their kids do incredibly upsetting things

• Set enforceable limits

• Avoid enabling and begin empowering

• Help their kids learn from mistakes rather than repeating them

• Raise kids who are family members rather than dictators

• And much more!

There are a total of 6 sessions.  Please only sign-up if you can attend all 6 session dates. There is a $10 workbook that we will use during these sessions.  We will have them available at our first class.

Math:

The students are doing an AMAZING job with range cards!  Those of you who conferenced with me got to either see an example of these or hear an explanation of what they are and what skills they work on.  When you come to parent math night, you will get to see these in action and watch your child complete them!  Range cards are an awesome math activity that work on many different skills and concepts.  The main purpose of range cards is for the student to learn their math facts.  Other concepts that they work on are subitizing, addition, subtraction, number writing, and equation writing.  We will continue to do these during math workshop and will occasionally do our normal math tubs.  We are using beans right now for range cards but I will introduce how to use cubes for these next week!

Literacy:

In literacy this week we started two new activities that include guided reading groups and sight word rings.  All of the students did wonderful in their first week of guided reading groups!  Students are grouped in a reading group based on their reading level.  We take a picture walk of the book, talk about any sight words they see, decode unknown words, practice reading strategies they could use, read the book, and I ask comprehension questions at the end.  These books will come home on Tuesday and need to be returned every Friday morning.  Please read this book with your child every night that it is home to practice all of these skills and to develop fluency and confidence.  Students also received their sight word rings this week and a list of fun activities that they can do to practice the sight words.  This is not mandatory at all (because we believe in the value of playing outside and spending time with family after school) but this would really benefit your child and their ability to read.  The point is to make it fun so they enjoy practicing and learning their sight words!

Thematic:

Since we finished our Artist in Me unit last week, we began our Author in Me unit this week!  We had the students help us prep different things to get ready for our Eric Care stations next week.  The four authors we will study are Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Leo Lionni, and Mom Fox.  We will study the author, read the books the wrote, compare the different styles of books, and talk about the similarities/differences of all of the books.  We will begin with Eric Carle!

Have a wonderful weekend!  See you all next Wednesday for parent math night! 😊
Love,
Mrs. James