Hello Weckie Family!
We did it!! What a great week in our virtual second grade classroom!! Thank you for ALL of your help in getting our kids onto our Google Classroom, Zoom and FAPEs links this week!! It has been so awesome to watch their personalities shine on camera and see how willing the kids have been to talk, share and participate in classroom discussions. While I know the learning is not idea for all, we will work our hardest to make these first 10 weeks awesome for everyone! Mrs. Weckstein is learning so many new things with technology it is mind boggling... I've always thought I was a techie, but this is a whole new level!!
By now your child should be getting used to our format for learning. Every morning the link will be posted at the top of our Google Classroom for our Zoom session. It may be helpful for your child to either set this as your home-screen on your browser or as a favorite/bookmark on your browser. It would also be helpful to practice, practice, practice with your child going from a Zoom back and forth to Google Classroom. We will frequent our Google Classroom page as an easy way to get links for FAPES, Epic Books, Literacy Footprints, and Connect Ed (our Everyday Math login for math games and instruction).
Routines
This week we went over routines for our new virtual classroom. We talked about virtual norms (raising our hands, muting/un-muting microphones, picking one spot for learning, etc), we reviewed our Dublin Promise, and we began our format for our daily Morning Meetings. In person we would hold a meeting every morning as a great way to start our school day, gathered in a circle in our reading corner. While this looks a little different than in the classroom, it is such a great way to gather everyone in the morning, talk about a common goal or message (growth mindset has been the theme this week... working our brains to grow them stronger) and explain the schedule for the day. This will be a consistent start for us online and in person.
Math Workshop
We have informally launched our Math Workshop this week with an introduction to our Everyday Math program. We spent two days exploring on Connect Ed, the online version of Everyday Math. On Tuesday we took a look at logging into Connect Ed (either from our Google Classroom page or from the Dublin "For Kids" tab on the Dublin web page). Kids spent time learning their passcodes and logging in to find the "EM Online Games". These are many of the great math games we will be using this year to build our skills around math concepts. On Wednesday we took a look at the "E-tools" section on Connect Ed. These tools are AMAZING! You can find anything you need here to help your child work on math skills - dice, number cards, 2-D and 3-D shapes, fact triangles and more! We will be spending a lot of time using E-tools this year. Additionally if you have picked up your supplies from Dublin, you have received your child's first math journal for the first half of the year. (And if you still need to pick up those supplies, please schedule this ASAP!)
Readers/Writers/Phonics
Next week we will begin launching all three of these workshops. Each one will have an instructional period of about 10-20 minutes with myself and a co-teacher we will watch recorded directly from our Units of Study company, Heinemann. Heinemann has made available awesome parent videos for you to watch to introduce the units as well as offer support to your young language arts learner as a parent.
Please click the link below to watch the Readers' Workshop Introduction Unit Parent Video:
Please click the link below to watch the Writers' Workshop Introduction Unit Parent Video:
Please click the link below to watch the Phonics Workshop Introduction Unit Parent Video:
Each of these videos provides a great look into our unit and how you can help your child at home! Thank you for watching these videos prior to our launch on Monday.
This is a great time as well to make sure your child has a great learning spot for our virtual learning. It may be helpful in addition to a table or desk for your child to work at, for them to have a comfy spot nearby to move to for reading. Again, if there are any supplies I can help provide, I am glad to do so, please just let me know. Along the way, we will be doing a second supply drop in a few weeks and plan to add in more writing paper in a folder as well as some of the charts for phonics. Stay tuned :-).
FAPEs (Fine Arts and Physical Education):
Every year we receive a FAPEs schedule that is unique to our classroom. This first week of school we followed a very simple schedule with everyone having a one hour (30 mins on Wednesday) FAPEs time where the kids "went" to: Music, Art, Physical Education and Media. This is our tentative FAPES schedule for the next 10 weeks:
Monday: P.E. 10:20-10:50am, Music 10:50-11:20am
Tuesday: Art 1:40-2:40pm
Wednesday: Music 12:40-1:10pm (3pm Dismissal)
Thursday: P.E. 10:20-10:50am, Media 10:50-11:20am
Friday: P.E. 12:40-1:10pm (3pm Dismissal)
Lunch daily will always be 12:00-12:40pm
Important Parent Links:
Attached to this newsletter are also our Parent Survey and Sign-Up Genius for our "Snack and Chat" time slots. The parent survey will help me to get to know your family and child better! The "Snack and Chat" is simply a fun time for me to meet with groups of 3-4 kids at a time and ask them some pressing questions (favorite foods, favorite desserts, etc.). We have had fun in these groups already and it's just a nice casual way to get to know your child. Additionally I have included links where you can read the latest Dublin Times' from our principal, Jeff Drewno. Often times many questions parents have can be found answered in this newsletter as well as a list of important upcoming dates can also be found in the newsletter. Last I have included a link to join our Dublin PTA! They are looking to do some fun socially distanced family activities this year as well as fundraisers and membership is one of those fundraisers. Thank you for considering joining! They give so much money back to our classrooms in return for all of our support!
Parent Survey (please complete as soon as possible):
Sign-Up Genius (just one visit per kid for now please):
Click here for the Snack and Chat Sign-Up
Dublin Times Newsletter
Click here for the Dublin Times Newsletter
Dublin PTA Sign-Up Online
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