It's me again, Mrs. Weckstein!! The last 10 weeks have been pretty incredible for me. It has been wonderful to watch Mara Lempert transform into a solid teacher and form bonds with our kids that won't soon be forgotten. Thank you to everyone who helped send in food and paper products for our party as well as books and book pages. Mara's book turned out pretty special and she left with a huge basket of books to start her classroom library from our classroom.
I will say though, it sure is nice to be back in the saddle again and not just in the background!! Ms. Lempert has arrived safely in Florida and today was her first official day in her new placement in Immokolee (hope I'm spelling this right) somewhere near Ft. Meyers.
Last week was a bit of a transition, which was to be expected, after the kids had adjusted so nicely to Mara's teaching style and away from mine! We revisited expectations for listening in the reading corner, stamina during Reader's Workshop, jobs in the classroom, etc. By the end of the week, we were back up and operating again with Mrs. Weckstein's routines and expectations in place.
St. Patrick's Day
Not to mention, but you may have heard we also had some sneaky visitors last week!! St. Patrick's Day at Dublin ranks up with the Polar Express in my love for fun things to do with the kids in Kindergarten. It was incredible to watch on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon how the kids came together and worked for hours, uninterrupted on their traps without a tattle, argument, kid off task or any problems! Supplies were shared and between all the kids brought in on top of all I have accumulated in my craft tub, we constructed some pretty well thought out traps! The kids worked collaboratively in groups and others worked solo, while sharing ideas with one another to help improve each other's traps! While it would be wonderful to say we caught a leprechaun, sadly, all we got were chocolate rollos (gold), gold and green shamrock coins, green beaded necklaces, the books all dumped in the reading corner and one of us had her knees turn green for drinking from her water bottle which had also magically turned green! It was a WONDERFUL day to be a Weckie!
Reader's Workshop
Reader's Workshop has tied in nicely this month with March is Reading Month! We have had 1, 2 and even some days with 3 mystery readers. We have met first graders, fifth graders, WLCSD administrators, a local book author, and soon, many of our parents! It's not too late if you are interested in coming to read - we can make it work, trust me! We have been learning about different genres of books people like to read, learning about some new favorite picture books that have been shared, places people find comfy to read as well as what books many of the adults loved reading as
children.
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| Children's Author and WLCSD Community Education Director: Sandy Richards George |
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| Grayson's older brother Gabe and 5th Grade Buddy Logan |
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| Lunch Lady Mrs. Schmitt |
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| Principal Mr. Drewno |
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| Former fourth grader of mine, Sean MacLaren, who comes EVERY single year on his favorite holiday, St. Patrick's Day! |
In Workshop this past week we took a look back at Reading Strategies first introduced in the beginning of the year. It is my BIG goal to get our readers' armed with a load of strategies that they can use to tackle tricky words. Many of our readers are able to read pattern books but struggle when new words are introduced. Using these strategies, I am hoping to see great growth these last few months in reading. We will carry the strategies during mini-lessons, Independent Reading, Partner Reading and Reading Groups. Two forms of the strategies will be coming home in your child's folder this week. We have already sent home the bookmarks for "Eagle Eye" and today/tomorrow the bookmarks for "Lips the Fish" will be in your child's book bag. Check your child's folder for a massive sheet that will show you all of the strategies as well as a laminated bookmark with all of the strategies. Please hang on to this, please use this, this will help your reader- guaranteed!
Reading Groups have also resumed in high gear! We have 10+ weeks to get these kids reading and to get many of them to grade level. Please check your child's report card for their latest placement, but please do not panic if they are below or approaching grade level. There are a lot of great things in place and for some extra support where needed. Consistently reading the books that come home each night and hanging onto the bag until it is due back is very helpful. Keep the schedule handy so you can stay on top of the reading. Most nights there will be 1-2 familiar books and 1 new book. Please spend time with these books, not only reading, but rereading for fluency (so that it sounds smooth and not choppy) as well as retelling the events of the book, noting when strategies were used for tricky words, connections the kids can make to the events of the story, and asking your child to point out different words on the pages. Please make sure to sign the form so that I know the book(s) have been read at home. I will do my best to see all reading groups on every given day on the schedule and many days this is do-able! Referring back to the Reading Strategies can be VERY helpful for building that toolbox of strategies for your child.
Word Wall Cards also came home this week in collaboration with our push to really pump up our reading and writing in these last ten weeks. One thing reflective on the report cards was how strong our class is with mathematics skills. Our area of focus now is reading and writing! Those Language Arts components that are key to a lower elementary classroom need some extra work and I'm ready for the challenge, are you? Please use these cards at home. We spent a great deal of time making them and the kids are learning games for sight words where being able to recall the spelling fast would be helpful! Use magnetic letters at home, shaving cream on a table, magna-doodles, paper and markers, whatever it takes, we can master these words!
Writer's Workshop
We are in the midst of a very fun unit in Workshop! Our next unit is our informational How-To unit. Students are working on composing how-to's for things they consider themselves experts. Topics like: how to brush your teeth, how to crack an egg, how to draw a smiley face, how to make your bed and more have been explored these past two weeks. It has been fun to act out how-to's as well, like how to wash your hands. You'd be surprised how many steps are involved in such a thing! It has been great.
Unit 3 on Pattern Books wrapped up right at the end of Ms. Lempert's student teaching. She did a great deal of work daily with the kids on writing pattern books. These packets will come home this week with a rubric sheet on the front showcasing the goals we wanted each child to accomplish in this unit. While you may see many are checked off, look through your kiddoes work and you may see they have accomplished more. The goals checked off were demonstrated solely during conferences. Be sure to celebrate all the work your child did on their pattern books. They were engaged in these books for quite some time!
Science
This new science unit has been SO much fun! We are learning all about push and pull as forces of motion. We have explored items in our classroom that use push and pull as well as a large tub of Liam's toys (my little guy) who has many toys with push buttons and pull strings! It has been fun to notice that some objects use both push and pull to make motion. We explored the Dublin playground and found examples out there too of push and pull all around us. We plan to wrap this unit up in the next week or so and then a Journal of Push and Pull will come home with your child so you can see all that they have explored and learned in our unit.
Student Council Sock Hop
Wednesday night is our Student Council Sponsored Sock Hop - while I know many of you are new to Dublin, I have to give this event a plug as I'm practically in charge of the whole thing and feel like I'm throwing a wedding later this week for 600 people, like in 48 hours!! If you haven't come before, you SHOULD! You can still buy tickets at the door, $2 per person, and that gets you your choice of three of the following options: water bottle, fresh hot popcorn, rice krispie treat and root beer floats! Everyone comes dressed in their best fifties gear - poodle skirts, capri pants, white shirts on the guys, hair slicked back etc. In addition, all of your donations have helped create a pretty phenomenal Silent Auction Lego basket for us to auction off! All of the funds raised will be going right back to our classroom teachers this spring for classroom spending as well as a few projects around the school. There will also be a teacher auction there where the kids can purchase tickets to WIN time with ME! That's right, one boy and one girl from each K class (and every other grade too) can win a special date with their teacher. The K winners will get to stay after school one day with the K Team Teachers, have ice cream sundaes and play the most intensely fun game of Hide and Seek throughout the entire school - it's seriously SO much fun! If you haven't purchased tickets yet, I strongly suggest you still come up at 6pm on Wednesday night to the event with your family and buy tickets at the door. It's the best night at Dublin! Just to give you an idea - as of today, when I closed ticket pre-sales, we had 401confirmed people in attendance and many years we go over 600!
