9/28-10/2

Hello,

It was great to see families for our first ever virtual family night! I helped plan this event and would love feedback on how it went or ways we can make it better in the future. Feel free to email me your thoughts!

Upcoming Events:

9/30: Picture Day (There will be a retake day for those that miss it)

Short Term Virtual Learning:
There may come a time when your child has been in close contact with someone in your family who has COVID, causing them to be out of school for a period of time. If this is the case I will work with you to get material for your student to work on during the time they are home. I will send home a Chromebook and Charger, along with material for reading, writing, and math.

We have been working to build in many opportunities for your student to engage in learning or collaboration through their chromebooks, to allow them to become as familiar with them as possible. The idea behind this is that they will need less help if they need to be home.

Reading:
We will be finishing our first unit in reading this week. So much fun...getting to know the characters in our books, thinking about the lessons we can learn from the books, and even grouping books together that are similar. It was also fun to start some small groups with students and to get to know them as readers.

We are going into a shorter unit that supports learning that students learned in 1st grade. It will be a review of different word solving strategies readers use to solve tricky words. We want 2nd graders to be INDEPENDENT , efficient word solvers. If your child is reading with you at home and appeals to you for the word, you could say, “What can you try? What else could you try? Does that make sense?”

Writing:
We will also end the first unit in writing by the end of the week. We have been working hard writing series books: taking the same character on many adventures. Students will make a series box and put all their books in them. Just like you see at a bookstore!

We aren’t able to celebrate the end of the unit like we usually do. We love to have an audience and often invite other classrooms to share in our hard work. So, when your child comes home with their series box you could make a celebration of it!! Make a special treat, gather around, and let them read their books to you.

Math:
In math we are working on odd and even numbers, determining if an equation is equal or not equal, and solving word problems that have an unknown. The unknown can be at the start, the change, or the end. Last week we talked about No Solve Math Days...this is when we work to identify what the story problem is asking us, set it up, and then don’t solve it! The students thought it was a little silly. It is helpful to get them to focus on what is being asked in the problem and not racing to answer it.

A few photos from last week, trying to get outside to read:

9/21 to 9/24

 

• Play games with NDLC teachers and families!

• Look for a link that will be emailed through Infinite Campus the day of

• There will be a parent Q&A with Mrs. Frischmann from 5:45-6:00

• There will be 20 minute game sessions starting at 6, come for one or all

• All you need is paper, pencil, and a device

Upcoming Events:

9/24: Virtual Family Night

9/25: No School

9/30: Picture Day Can order online on our website, I can get a paper form too if you would like, just let me know, paper forms are need back by the 30th.

Reading

In reading this week we are going to focus on the lesson that the author wants us to learn in our stories. We will think about how our main characters solve their problems, what they learned, and what the author is trying to teach us. This is a great thing to practice at home with some of their favorite read alouds! Or with the books that they come home with this week. When they finish a story you can ask, “What was the lesson in the story? What did the author want to teach you?”

Writing

I hope the students enjoyed the fun writing bags last week! Encourage some writing at home so they continue to see that writing happens everywhere. 

This week we are continuing our realistic fiction writing and will start to revise and edit our favorite pieces and get them ready to publish.

Math

This week in math will be talking about how there are many different types of math story problems. And how a mathematician's first question they ask themselves is “What type of problem is this?” Then they work on solving it.

9/14-9/18

Upcoming Events:

9/14-9/18: Safety Week (practicing different safety drills this week)

9/25: No School

9/30: Picture Day Can order online on our website, I can get a paper form too if you would like, just let me know!

Take-A-Break Area and Classroom Rules:

We have introduced our class to the “Take-A-Break” Area.  This is an area in the classroom that will allow for students to refocus and return to participation in class activities.  The “Take-A-Break” Area gives students a chance to calm down and regain self-control, not to punish. Students may be asked to go to the “Take-A-Break” Area or they may choose to go there on their own.  Every one of us has a difficult time from time-to-time.  We might be sad, upset, tired, or confused. When we, as adults, feel this way we often have coping skills to help us.  We may: go for a run, read, listen to music, or sit in our room. The many emotions we feel on a day-to-day basis are real. We don’t want to ignore these many feelings for kids, we want to help them control them and develop skills to handle them.  The “Take-A-Break” Area is to be seen as a tool. After a child visits the area, a teacher may process with him/her about his/her feelings and a possible plan for how to cope with something similar in the future.  These conversations will be student led as we want students to independently develop coping skills that feel right for them.  At home you could also make a “Take-A-Break” Area.  In this area you might have calming tools or pictures, just like we will have here at school.

Reading:

In reading we continue our work in fiction.  We are learning about the characters, both the main character and the characters around them.  When we get to know the characters we understand the books we read better.  We will also do some work around reading fluency.  Reading fluency is how our voices sound.  We will use what we know about the characters to make our voice match the character. 

We are working through choosing a “just-right” book in our classroom.  Many students are eager to jump into chapter books...but aren’t ready YET.  Readers need to read lots and lots of just-right books to grow as a reader.  When a reader struggles with many words on a page, their comprehension breaks down.  When comprehension breaks down, students lose the love of reading.  I am sharing all this with you to know that your child might bring a book home that is too challenging for them, or even too easy.  If you see them struggling, please support them.  You can do this by reading it to them and stopping to talk about the book (building in the comprehension).  If it’s too easy, let them read it and feel confident about the reader they have become!

Writing:

In writing we started our realistic fiction unit last week.  Students created character(s) and started to write...taking their characters on adventures.  On an adventure a character might have trouble and get out of trouble (solution).  You can support this writing at home by suggesting ideas.  Most of our ideas come from things that happen in our real life.  With a twist of “fake” added to them. 

Additionally, I am sending home a fun writing bag.  In this bag are different writing supplies.  Find an area to keep these.  We want to encourage the love of writing and it’s real purpose at home this year!

Researchers Workshop:

You will hear the students and staff refer to Science/Social Studies as Researchers Workshop.  NDLC’s goal around this area is to create critical thinkers who learn how to dig into their own learning.  

Each unit created will start with the teacher sharing lots and lots of information around the topic.  The weeks following are developed to have the students guide their own learning by researching what they want to know more about, from the teacher topic shared the first week.  In this time students will learn conversation skills, learn how to transfer the work they have learned as readers and writers, and how they can share this information with an audience.  

I am so excited for the first “mini-unit.”  The students are picking their own topic of interest and we are going to dig into finding information.  Ask your students what they are going to research. 

Math:

I will be sending our first math practice home this week.  It will be a fun game to play for fact fluency!

A few photos from last week:

9/7-9/11

Happy Week Two!

I hope you had a safe and fun Labor Day weekend. We had a great first week as a class. My goal is to reach out to each of you this week with some highlights from the first few weeks :) and to make sure that you are receiving the emails about this blog. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions that arose from the first week: wittmannt@kaukaunasd.org

Here are a few reminders: 

• Return permission page for Seesaw (coming home Tuesday night)

Upcoming Events:

9/25: No School

9/30: Picture Day (can order online on our website)

SeeSaw:

I am sending home a link/QR Code for you to sign up for your child’s SeeSaw Account.  The district has purchased the FULL version of SeeSaw this year.  This allows parents to sign into their child’s account and follow them throughout each grade...you won’t need to worry when they get a new teacher next year. Not sure what SeeSaw? It is a website and app that we will use throughout the year to share our learning.

In addition I am sending home a permission slip, allowing your child to post and participate through our class SeeSaw.  Please sign and return as early as possible.  Only the students/families in our class will see what we post/share.  

iReady Assessment:

 I am excited to share that our District is implementing a program called i-Ready this school year.  

What is i-Ready? i-Ready is an online program that will help us determine your child’s strengths and areas for growth, personalize their learning, and monitor their progress throughout the school year.  i-Ready allows us to meet your child where they are and provides us with data to inform instruction.

The i-Ready diagnostic is an adaptive assessment that adjusts its questions to suit your child’s needs.  Each item a student receives is based on their answer to the previous question. The purpose of this is not to give your child a score or grade but to determine how to best support their learning. 

What can you do to help?

To help prepare your child for the i-Ready Diagnostic, encourage them to:

• Try their best on each question and try not to rush.
• Try not to worry about questions they do not know--remind them that it is expected they will only get about half of the questions correct.
• Be respectful of other students who take longer to finish.
• BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES!!!

I look forward to sharing i-Ready information with you throughout the year

A few photos from the first week of school: