Friday, January 28th

It has been a fantastic week in Room 301! It has really been noticeable this week how much our kids have grown into independent workers. In September we could write independently for about 5 minutes. Today, we can write for 15 minutes independently! In September we could read independently for 3-5 minutes. Today, we can read for nearly 10-15 minutes. In November we started stations and could handle four stations in a week. This week our kids traveled to ten stations over three days! It has literally been awesome for me to watch these kids grow, form friendships, come out of their shells, and work together as a team, as a school family.
Reader’s Workshop

Guided reading groups have met EVERY day this week! Please be sure that when your child brings home a book bag it is returned to school with a signed parent “comment” form! Many parents have been leaving great comments about how their child has been doing with the books at home. There have also been a few questions about books being sent home for a “re-read”. On almost all nights two books will come home with your child. One will be a new text. Please spend time going over this text with your child (looking at the pictures, saying the words, even spelling the words). The second text is called a “re-read”. This book comes home for a second trip for many reasons. When it comes home it comes home as a familiar text. Reading something familiar helps to build confidence in our readers so that when they read, they not only feed good about themselves, but they are imprinting sight words (high frequency words) into their minds. Secondly, we want our kids to sound as though they were talking when they read. We call this fluency. We want our readers to sound fluent.

Writer’s Workshop

This week the kids have been working on a “beginning”, “middle” and “ending” to a story. New terms of “Once upon a time” and “Last” have been introduced as a way to get a story started and finish off a story. It has really been neat to see the kids using strategies we practice over and over as a whole group independently. You can see them “stretching” out words like a piece of chewed bubble gum so that they can pick out the sounds within a word, and then transcribe the letters on their paper.

Math

In Math this week we have been continued our work with addition. We are using numbers that when combined add up to 10 or less. These mathematicians have been introduced to many of the tools we have to use in our room to help us count (counting bears, cubes, counting dinosuars, etc.). We have also been working with pan balances and comparing objects to find out which is heavier, which is lighter, and how we can make different objects equal (balanced). This was a VERY popular station this week during Work Stations!

Important News

Information came home this week regarding our Valentines’ Day Party on Monday, February 14th. Please make sure to send in your child’s cereal box ASAP for their card holders.

Additionally, I wanted to let you know about a unique opportunity being offered in the Walled Lake School District right now. Walled Lake’s Foundation For Excellence is sponsoring a 50-50 raffle called the “Tuition Expedition”. You can purchase a $100 raffle ticket for this event by calling Sandy Richards George at the ESC at (248) 956-2116. There will be 500 tickets sold across the district. The winner either receives $25,000 to be put towards college tuition for your child OR there is a $20,000 cash payout. You can get more info on this at www.foundation4excellence.com .

I bring this to your attention because it was the Walled Lake Foundation for Excellence that awarded me the grant money last year ($3,750) to purchase all of our Smartboard Equipment. We are so very fortunate in WL to have a foundation established with a dedicated staff wanting to help out our classroom teachers. Without this funding, YOUR child would not be having the experience they are having this year with this advanced technology in their classroom. We are the only classroom at Dublin to have this equipment and are one out of less than 5 elementary classrooms in the whole district (14 elementary schools) to have this technology. I was very fortunate to receive this funding and am hoping that you too are very appreciative of this learning tool. If you are able to do so and purchase a raffle ticket, you would be helping the Foundation to grow and give more to the students of Walled Lake. If you are unable to purchase a raffle ticket, please check the web site www.foundation4excellence.com for other exciting events they will be hosting this year and over the summer.


Snack Leader’s: Monday: Geneva; Tuesday: Gabby; Wednesday: Emma; Thursday: Hannah; Friday: Robby
Tuesday, February 1st – PTA Meeting in the Dublin Media Center (7:00pm)

Saturday, February 5th – Scrapbooking Crop Day in the Old Gym at Dublin (10am-8pm)

Friday, January 21st

Brrrrrr….!!! What a cold end to the week!!!



It has been a fabulous two weeks of color in Room 301! The kids have thoroughly enjoyed coming to school in a different color each day, and on top, getting to wear LOTS of colors on Rainbow Day today! Thank you for your support at home in helping to make sure our kids came to school each day in a certain color. I have to tell you, it made it very easy to find our class in the hallway, just look for the color of the day!


Reader’s Workshop: All reading assessments have been completed and I am very enthusiastic about the growth that our students have been making as a reader. Guided Reading Groups also met towards the end of this week and will meet every day next week and beyond! I have had several questions about the books coming home as the kids get good at “memorizing” the text. Here’s what you can do… You can write the words out on a paper or use magnetic letters if you have them, and practice with them looking at the letters and sounds to figure out the words. Additionally you can cover the illustration and ask them to read to you. It is important though, as our kids begin to learn to read, for them to be able to cross-check between the word, the picture and go back to read the word, as well as to do some memorization of our high frequency words (the, a, said, it, to, etc.). Next week we will be setting our first goals as readers! I’ll be sure to share those with you.


Writer’s Workshop: This week in Writer’s Workshop we have been focusing on a new strategy, “Buzz Groups”. Each child has a writing partner and they spent time “buzzing” with their partner, talking about their writing. They could ask each other questions about their writing, as well as help each other with tricky words. It is important that our students see how partners can help them to improve as a writer.


Math: This week in Math we worked on two different things. We practiced measuring different objects and people around the room with non-standard forms of measurement tools (chains, paperclips, unifix cubes, etc). We also did a fun rainbow activity on Friday where the kids were asked to sort 10 M & M’s by color, and then create a graph of their candy. They LOVED this food activity!! 


Important News: Our Valentine’s Day party will be on Monday, February 14th from 1:40-3:10pm in Room 301. Look for a list to come home with your child next week of everyone’s first names. Your child can bring in a Valentine’s Day card for each child (a great way for your kiddo to practice writing their name with an CAPITAL letter to start and lowercase letters for the rest) to pass out the week before Valentine’s Day.


Snack Leader’s Next Week: Monday: Mason; Tuesday: Evan; Wednesday: Alycia; Thursday: Nolan; Friday: Skylar


Have a wonderful weekend… Stay Warm!  Mrs. Weckstein

Friday, January 7th

Happy New Year and Welcome Back to School!

It has been a VERY productive week in Room 301 as we have gotten back into the routine of school! I hope that everyone enjoyed their two weeks off (or perhaps it was two weeks "on" with your kids at home). It has also been a VERY cold week outside at Dublin. Please make sure that your child has snow pants, boots, gloves and a hat to wear outside daily with their coat. Even when there is not snow on the ground, these warm clothes will help protect them against the wind. Many of the kids without warm clothes have been complaining this week about “freezing” outside.


Reader’s Workshop – This week in Reader’s Workshop we started a new mini-book that features the lyrics to the “Pledge of Allegiance”. This tied in perfectly with our Social Studies lessons this week as we have been learning about the American Flag! We also started working out of our Poetry folders this week, practicing poems we have been learning all year to help build fluency in our oral language. Over the course of this past week and next week I will be conducting Reading and Language Assessments with each child. Look for new reading groups to start after the MLK Jr. holiday break!


Writer’s Workshop – This week in Workshop the kids began keeping their very own Word Wall within their folders. We have been working on five new sight words this week: I, a, in, the and my. Each has been placed on the big Word Wall in our classroom and the small Word Wall in the kids’ folders. These are five words that the kids are now being held accountable for in their writing, reading and spelling. Next week look for a packet of writing to come home with your child. This is a collection of stories they have created in the first few months of Writer’s Workshop.


Math – This week in Math we have done a couple of different things. We have been working on writing our numbers in a Numbers Book as well as working on counting items using stickers within the Numbers Books.


Social Studies - In Social Studies this week we talked first about the flag. Be sure to ask your child how many stars are on the flag today and challenge them to see if they can remember how many stripes are on the flag (13). We also spent time talking about rules and why rules are important to us. The kids brainstormed a giant list of rules which will lead nicely into a class project we will be working on next week to help keep our classroom safe (as rules help us to do this)!


NEXT WEEK we will begin a unit on Colors! Please use the schedule below to help your child wear something in the color listed on each day.


Monday = Red


Tuesday = Yellow


Wednesday = Green


Thursday = Blue


No need to buy new clothes – just try to find something that your child can wear on each of the days!


Snack Leaders: Monday = Thomas, Tuesday = Lily, Wednesday = Benjamin, and Thursday = Kasey


**Remember there is NO school on Friday, January 15 (Teacher Records Day) and Monday, January 18 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Observance).


Have a wonderful weekend – Stay warm! :-) Mrs. W.