Room K2's News Blog

Monday, September 19, 2011

By golly, I think I've got it!!

You should NOW be able to post comments here!! It'll look a little bit different, but commenting anonymously should work - just use your name in your post.

THANK YOU so much for your patience with this... I've never had a problem with comments before and tried to revert back to the look of the blog "last year's" style and that seems to have helped!

Mrs. Weckstein :-)

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Did you find the blog?

Greetings Weckie Families! Please comment here so that I know you made it to the blog! I apologize for any confusion that this post wasn't published earlier! Mrs. W.

Friday, September 2, 2011

What did Mrs. Weckstein do this summer?

What have YOU been up to this summer? Take a look at what I've been up to while school's been out!

Another slideshow by Smilebox

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Buzzing into a New Year!!

(Letter send home via "real" mail to all of my new Weckies)

I am thrilled to have you in my 2^nd grade class this year! Can you believe how fast this summer has flown by? Let me take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Mrs. Weckstein (formerly Phillips… I got a year ago!). I have spent the past seven years at Dublin where I spent two years in second grade, jumped to fourth grade for a year, and then spent two years in second grade before teaching Kindergarten last year. I am VERY excited about the opportunity to return to 2^nd grade this coming school year and cannot wait to meet everyone!

Let me tell you a little more about myself… I enjoy spending time with my husband Dan, my family and friends as well as with our little white dog, Nolan! I consider myself to be a pretty big Red Wings fan as well as a diehard Spartan. I love to scrapbook and read, both of which I have done a lot of this summer. We also did a lot of road-tripping this summer as we drove to Northern Wisconsin and spent time in a cute cabin on a gorgeous lake! We took Nolan on his first boat ride and he LOVED it! We also enjoy golfing and geocaching over the summer. What have you been doing this summer? Have you gone on any neat trips or been to fun places?

This year Dublin will be hosting an “Open House” on Thursday, September 8th for students and parents to meet the teachers of Dublin. Please stop by our classroom, 204 and visit! I can easily be reached in the classroom at (248) 956-3864 or by email at JenniferPhillips@wlcsd.org. Please make note that my email uses my maiden name. My sister-in-law is a teacher at Hickory Woods Elementary in the Walled Lake School District and her name also happens to be Jennifer Weckstein! She has promised to forward any emails that go to her account by accident.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact me at anytime. I look forward to an exciting year working with you and your child! I hope to see you on September 1st for the “Meet the Teachers” or on the first day of school, Tuesday, September 6^th!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Weckstein :-)

Friday, June 10, 2011

The end is drawing near...

What a week we have had in Weckie-land!! It has been an action packed week as we spent time on Monday and Tuesday preparing for our “Down on the Farm Day” Tuesday afternoon! It was wonderful to have such a large turnout of parents and relatives here to celebrate the hard work that our kids have done this year. Thank you to all who came to celebrate the writing of our kids! When I look back on samples of work from September and compare them to items we have done just this past week, I am truly amazed and in awe of their little minds! We ended our week today with a surprise pizza lunch in 301! The look on the kids’ faces was priceless after we walked to the lunch room today, turned around and promptly went back to the room. They had NO clue what was going on and then couldn’t figure out why many of their lunchboxes were empty!!

So let’s talk about all that is coming up in the next 1 ½ remaining days of school…

First, you may have noticed a BIG change in your child emotionally. The transition from the end of Kindergarten is major, more so than I’ve even seen in 4 years in second grade and 1 year in fourth grade! A lot is happening around them… we’re singing songs about moving to first grade, excitement is building for summer break and kids are crying when talk of leaving Kindergarten even comes up in our room. As one put it, “How will I live without Kindergarten?” Many of the kids have started calling me “Mommy” and are adding “Weckstein” to the end of their name. All of this is truly NORMAL!

Dublin is a very special place filled with dynamite teachers who truly “love” their kids. The kids have grown attached to our 301 family and to their very first school teacher! Let’s be honest, I think I’m just as attached! This being said, if your child is acting out at home… complaining of stomach aches … having some separation issues… it’s all NORMAL. You can talk to them about the change, explain that its’ okay to have “mixed” emotions and also help them to see that before we all know it, we’ll be back at Dublin. You may have even heard that I’ll be moving rooms once more (and hopefully not again for a long time) as I return to second grade. There is now lots of buzz around the, “I hope I have Mrs. Weckstein in 2^nd grade” topic too! All of this being said, Tuesday will be a BIG day in their little lives and in ours as well! I’ll be honest, my eyes well-up at the thought of sending these lil… I should say Big Weckies on to first grade!!

Tuesday is a ½ day of school with students being dismissed at 12:18pm. At 8am at Dublin there will be 5^th grade graduation. This means that the parking lot when you arrive (if you drive to school) will be PACKED. Please plan accordingly (if you can walk, that’s a better option). In the morning we will do our last “Smartboard” calendar routine, have snack and then just have some time alone as a class. I’m asking for this time so we can be together as a unit one last time without the distraction of parents/siblings, etc. Then we will head to an assembly that will begin in the gym promptly at 10:30am. The assembly is an all school Sing-Along that all of the kids will get to sing and reminisce about the year at, and parents/grandparents are invited to join us. This will also be a BUSY event, so if you want to come for the 10:30 sing along, plan accordingly as well for parking. The assembly is lots of fun, but also tends to bring on A LOT of tears!!

I do believe we will also have a short recess after the assembly and then it’ll be time to do some wrap-up activities, pack up the kids one last time and send them out for Summer Break (you are welcome to stay from the assembly until the end of the day). Any child that will be picked up on Tuesday will need to be picked up before 12:18 as I will need to take the bus kids out to the bus this one last time. After all of the bus kids are on the bus it is customary for the teachers to do an “All Staff Wave” as the kids depart one last time. Following this process, we then have a staff meeting to go right into, so I will not be around for awhile.

Shortly after you do depart, please remember that there is a swimming party happening between the Meloche and Michalko families in our class that EVERYONE is invited to!! Even Mrs. Weckstein will make an appearance later on in the afternoon for some food, fun and maybe, just maybe, a dip in the water!

Have a fantastic last weekend… make sure your child gets lots of rest and is ready for a fun-filled last two days at school!! :-) Mrs. Weckstein

P.S. Please continue to send your child with their folder and back pack on Monday and Tuesday as there will be LOTS coming home with them in the next few days.

Summer Work!

Yes, there is work your child can do this summer to help better prepare them for first grade! Here is a link to the district web site filled with things your child can work on this summer!

http://www.wlcsd.org/webpages/cyberss/

Below you will find a list of links to short videos on YouTube (supervision is a must) that will help your child to review Math Concepts this year with songs and raps they’ve come to love!

Counting by 2s and 5s and 10s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTYxfltyPgg

The next info is a document our Speech and Language teacher, Chris Franke, shared with all teachers so that we could pass the ideas onto you!

SIX SUMMER SUGGESTIONS TO PROMOTE CHILDREN'S SCHOOL SUCCESS

By Jim Baetz, LMSW
Counseling Associates

Summer is a time for children to have fun and form memories they can cherish and build upon while maintaining learning experiences.

Children like projects! Here are a few ideas for keeping their minds fresh while outside of the traditional school year.

1. Summer Events Journal: Capturing summer events is a great creative project. Children can use their imaginations and artistic talents, while also honing their organization and writing skills. (I want to give credit to a Learning Center teacher for this suggestion.)

2. Board Games: Children learn socialization skills and gain self-confidence through playing board games. Taking turns, thinking through their actions and being patient are all traits kids can pick up on during such play. Other games teach kids important life lessons, such as interacting appropriately with others, winning and losing and planning ahead.

3. Summer Learning: Plan for continued educational experiences by discussing and agreeing upon a summer school class and/or tutoring. Research indicates continued learning in the summer helps memory retention of material learned during the regular school year. It may be challenging to go against the tradition of taking the summer off, but parental creative thinking and appropriate persuasiveness can nudge children toward having an advantage when school starts in the fall.

4. Summer Reading: Summer is a good time for browsing the library, looking for books and magazines to read. Taking turns reading to each other is an excellent way of enriching a child's language skills, which can lead to positive associations with reading.

5. Special Interests: Children's play is a window into their interests and personality. Letting kids play how they want respects and encourages their individuality. Children's interests unfolding according to their inner direction is a wonderful sight to behold. The more children find, enjoy and recognize their special interests and abilities, the more they master new skills-and increase their self-esteem.

6. Social Skill Development: Summer provides an ideal opportunity to arrange get-togethers with friends, such as sleepovers, picnics and trips to the beach. They also allow parents to watch how their children function in social settings.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Friday, May 20th!

Happy Field Day!!

Room 301 had a fun-filled day out on the fields of Dublin today! We traveled to 12 different stations and tested our abilities to jump in potato sacks, kick soccer balls, throw frisbees, run through tires and more! A special thanks to everyone who came out to watch us shine.

This past week was a week filled with end of the year testing. At the beginning of the year we do pretty thorough assessments of many different language arts based skills (segmenting, blending, rhyming, reading fluency, comprehension, reflection, etc.) and once more at the end of the year we do the same assessments. It has been incredible to document the growth our kids have made this year and to show them the work they did in the beginning of the year compared to work that they did this past week! I will be providing you with results on your child's end of the year report card! As a result, we had Mrs. Jones in our room a couple of days and the kids were THRILLED!

Reader's Workshop
In Workshop this week we learned that there are two types of books we commonly read. We discussed the differences between fiction (pretend text) and non-fiction (informational text - real world). We brainstormed a list of characteristics of non-fiction text and learned to tell the difference between these two types of texts. In partnerships the kid spent time sorting the books in their book drawer and explaining how they knew if it was a fiction or non-fiction text.

Writer's Workshop
In Workshop this week our animal experts began writing their reports with the help of our fourth grade learning buddies! The kids were very eager to put down all of the facts that they have learned into words in their non-fiction books that they are writing. We worked on our dedicated page as well as the page about how our animal looks.

We will be having our "Down on the Farm" Writing Celebration on Tuesday, June 7th at 3pm in our classroom. It is important that every child have at least one person there to celebrate their work (if a parent can't come, perhaps an Aunt or Grandma are available)! We will be sharing all of the writing work we've done, a few songs/poems, have a treat and then watch a special surprise DVD to end the afternoon. An RSVP form will be coming home with your child to give me an approximate idea for the number of people we will be having on that Tuesday.

Math
We continued working on number patterns this week! We have become very familiar with our number grid and have been looking at counting 2's, 5's and 10's on the grid. We also learned a new math game this week using two dice and counters. This game reinforced the concept of counting up when adding two numbers (i.e. if you rolled a 5 and a 2, you'd start at 5 and count up 2 to 7).

Important Info:
Friday, May 27th at 3pm is Dublin's Annual Patriotic Parade!! All families are invited to come sit outside and watch the kids parade around the fields/black top in their red, white and blue. There are a few things we'll need your help with on the 27th! Please make sure your child is wearing red, white and blue to school - feel free to deck them out in their best patriotic gear! Secondly, Kindergarten classes each pull a small float on their wagons. We need donations of red/white/blue tinsel, stars, streamers, etc. Anything you can find to help us decorate would be greatly appreciated! Please send it in ASAP!

Snack Leaders: Monday: Nick; Tuesday: Carly; Wednesday: Ava; Thursday: Thomas; Friday: Lily

Friday, May 13, 2011

Friday, May 13th

Happy Friday 301 Families!

It has been a fantastically busy week in Room 301! Thank you to everyone who sent in donations for our "Movie-PJ-Cupcake Decorating Party" today - it has been a BLAST!

Reader's Workshop

This week in Reader's Workshop reading groups met only at the beginning of the week. If you can believe it, it is already time for me to start doing "End of the Year Assessments" and I have spent time with the kids individually working on these assessments (letter ID, writing sight words, reading high frequency words, etc.) Meanwhile we have had Reader's Workshop every day this week and we have been working on finding words with the beginning sounds of either "sh", "qu" or "ch". We brainstormed giant lists of possible words after reading mentor texts that featured each of these spelling patterns. To remind ourselves of the "ch" sound we even had home-made chocolate chip cookies! Students also spent time in partnerships working on finding these words within their books.

Writer's Workshop
Thank you to everyone who has sent in farm animal facts for our reports! We spent time this week first creating a t-chart where the kids worked in their animal groups to generate a list of things they already know about their animal and a list of things they wonder about their animals. We want to activate their prior knowledge first so that we can add onto this knowledge easier with new information. Next week we will be taking all of our findings and putting them into words for our non-fiction books about the animals. Info will be coming out next week about a "Down on the Farm" day in 301 coming early in June where we will be celebrating all of our written work.

Math
Numbers, numbers and more numbers! This week we spent a great deal of time working with the hundreds chart. We made a hundreds chart as a whole group and individually with the expectation of NO backwards numbers.... and everyone could actually do it!! :-) We spent time working with a hundreds chart on the Smartboard that can also show us patterns in counting. This week we worked on counting by 5s and counting by 2s. Both of these concepts are still tricky for many of our kids. Look for a packet coming home next week that will give you ways to practice and play with the number grids at home now and over the summer!

Important News:
Snack Leader: Monday: Geneva; Tuesday: Gabby; Wednesday: Emma; Thursday: Hannah; Friday: Robby

News from the WL Administration:

Town Hall Meeting on School Funding

It is a jointly sponsored event through the parent legislative action groups from Farmington, Northville, Novi, Plymouth-Canton, West Bloomfield, and Walled Lake

Monday, May 16, 2011

7 to 9 PM

Walnut Creek Middle School

The parents have invited 12 Michigan House Representatives and Senators to their event. The following agenda has been published -

Michigan General Fund and School Aid Fun Overview
Proposed K-12 Budget and Reform Legislation
Legislator Positions on Passed and Pending Bills
Public Questions
Public Comment

A perfect opportunity, close to home, to speak to the people who are making decisions regarding YOUR FUTURE!!!!

Attention: Neither Mike Kowall nor Eileen Kowall have agreed to attend the Forum! Write or call them and tell them to attend!