Friday, October 6th

Hello Weckie Families!

Second Grade is AWESOME and definitely the place to BE! We have been so busy lately learning and having fun along the way. It's amazing what this group is already capable of doing only a month into school. This past week we had our first indoor recess. As a teacher, you worry what the classroom will look like after 20 minutes of playtime without me present... game pieces all over, construction paper scraps cut up on the floor, Lego's under tables, etc. In the staff lounge we even talked as a team wondering what we might come back to find. I can't speak for the other classrooms, but I can speak to ours. What did I come back to? The classroom was silent. The toys were picked up. The room looked like no one had been there except for there being 23 kids at their tables with smiles on their faces. Wow.  I was floored and so proud. This group is pretty fabulous in my book!

Reader's Workshop:
The past two weeks we have been zooming in on strategies that make us great readers! We spent time learning to use a bookmark so that as a reader we can stop in one place and then return to that place the next day to continue our reading. Sticky notes work wonderful for this neat trick. Then we talked about learning about reading from other people and shared our Reading Interviews! If you haven't had a chance to check out the post on the blog before this one, please do. The feedback we got on the interviews has all been compiled by us and shared with our families. Lots of great advice and favorite book titles. I loved hearing the kids share what it was like for their special person to learn to read and being able to connect my own journey to their journey! I struggled with hearing problems in Kindergarten and struggled to learn to read in first and second grade. Now? I love reading and would consider myself a strong reader. Lots of eyes bugged when they heard that - it just takes practice and the understanding that we all learn at a different pace. Earlier this week we set goals for our reading and used things we learned about in the interviews and from our own experiences. We will keep these reading goals for the first trimester. Be sure to ask your child what their reading goal is! Lastly we started recording these reading strategies into our Response Logs' in our Personal CAFE Menu (C- Comprehension, A - Accuracy, F - Fluency, E - Extended Vocabulary). Under the Comprehension category we added: Read the title of a new book and take a picture walk through the text before reading, Reread a book a second time to help hold tight to the meaning of the story. Both strategies are great ways to improve our understanding of a book.

This past week we also took the iReady Reading Assessment. Without getting into too much detail here, the state of Michigan has now created a 3rd Grade Reading Retention Bill. The first graders at Dublin will be a part of this new legislature but we are being required to use the data tracking now and it's going to be awesome! In the next week or so I will be sending home information on your child's progress on this assessment tool. It's important to remember this is only one of several tools we will use to diagnose and instruct in reading this year. The info coming home will present you with information on your child's strengths and weaknesses while also making suggestions for what you can do at home to further help your child. Like I said, more to come!

Language Workshop
In Language Workshop we are learning about the author Kevin Henkes. He is our Author Mentor for our upcoming Unit 2 in Writer's Workshop and what better way than to read all of his books now to familiarize ourselves with his style. We have spent the week digging deeper with his book: Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse. This book has so many lessons the kids can learn from as well as awesome vocabulary. We spent time doing a Visible Thinking Routine where you step inside a person and analyze the story from their side. While the story is told from Lily's perspective, we analyzed the story from Mr. Slinger's perspective, her teacher. It was cool to step into his shoes and connect this story to events and expectations in our own classroom. Be sure to ask your child more about this! This week we added two more words to our picture dictionaries: jaunty and unique.


Writers' Workshop
In Writer's Workshop our work on Poetry has continued nicely! Mini-Lessons have focused on:

• I can attempt line breaks with one of my finished poems.
• I can use white space in selected areas of my poem.
• I can use beautiful language in my poetry.
• I can show instead of tell in my poetry.
• I can use repetition in my poetry.

During Writers' Workshop I spend my time circulating around the tables working with individual students on this launching unit. It has been fun to see the unique writing styles in our classroom and to see some who are truly passionate writers amongst the bunch! We spend the last ten minutes of Writers' Workshop sharing out 2-4 poems of students who have spent time in conferences with me. It's great to see them excited to show their friends all that they have worked so hard for during writing time.

Math Workshop

We are just wrapping up our first unit of math in Second Grade :-). Concepts we have covered included:

• Equivalent names for numbers (ex: 10 can be: 1 dime, 10 tallies, 5 +5, etc.)
• Making 10 (games played included: Fishing for 100s, Turning Over 10, Penny Plate Addition
• Quarters and Introducing Math Boxes
• Even and Odd Numbers and Patterns
• Skip Counting Patterns 
• Comparing Numbers (<, > and =)
• Explorations (building with base ten blocks)

On Monday we will take our first Unit 1 Math Assessment. Students have been working hard with these reviewed concepts from First Grade. Be sure to look for math pages coming home in Friday packets. Many can stay home but some may ask you to fix something and then send them back to school corrected. Please make sure that an adult helps when a child is asked to re-do something from school. Thank You :-).

Social Studies

We have also launched our first Social Studies Unit this week... Our Community. We read the book On the Town  and talked about what makes up a community and all of the places in our community. These kids were super knowledgeable with places around our community and even helped us develop a definition for what makes up a community! More to come with this fun unit...

Important Dates/Reminders:

Sidebar from Mrs. W. This week there has been LOTS of discussion about the PTA Boo Bash and our plans for Halloween at Dublin. Our PTA along with Mr. Drewno have been working incredibly hard to plan a new event, The Boo Bash, on Friday, October 27th at Clifford Smart Middle School. As much as we love holding functions at Dublin, our school is not equipped to handle 600 kids and their families - it's not practical in an elementary school built like ours (Did you come to the Sock Hop last year? It was CROWDED). That being said, CHS is a great location for the first year of the event because it has a large cafeteria and open space for a HUGE turnout! The Weckstein's will be in attendance in costume and hope we will see all of you there too. We know it's a busy weekend for many of you (our guy turns 4 on Halloween and we'll have family in town that weekend, two birthday parties, soccer and a Halloween 5k), but we are excited to come out and support the PTA. Additionally the PTA needs help from each grade level. Please check out the Sign-Up Genius below to see how you might be able to help out with the event. 

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080f4aa8ad2e5-2ndgrade

Additionally, now we will proceed with our Classroom Party Planning. I will be in touch on Monday with the five parents who have signed up to help with our party - THANK YOU!! :-) If you did not sign up at Curriculum Night but are interested, please email me ASAP at JenniferPhillips@wlcsd.org.   Our party will run on October 31 from 11am-12pm. We do ask that if you are attending the party, you are there to help the kids. We need parent support and help on this day - it's crowded, kids are in costumes and they are hyper! Please come to help work the party if you plan to be there :-).

Thank you so much for your support! Have a fabulous weekend... and don't forget to watch the big game! :-)

Spirit Day was in full effect ... feeling in the minority!!

Reading Interview Results

The results are in from our Reading Interview Challenge... here's what our: Moms, Dads, Grandparents, Siblings, Aunts, Neighbors and Friends had to say! Please be sure to talk about these with your kids. We had a great discussion today about this with each other - you can even ask them about Mrs. Weckstein's answers! 

Reading Interview Results

1. What kinds of things do you like to read?

High fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, things about sports, cookbooks, bibles, newspapers, novels, fiction, magazines, science books, Berenstain Bears, Going on a Bear Hunt, cards, fairy tales

2. Where do you like to read?

Couch, bed, bedroom, bathtub, outside in the sun in a comfy chair, in bed with a nightlight, long car drive, on the pontoon, on the floor by the fireplace, on the bus, peaceful places

3. When do you read in your life?

By the pool, everyday, every morning and before bed, at the middle of the night, in the evening, during the day, at lunch time, on vacation, at night, on the weekend, after school, all day long, at school, my whole entire life, at work, in the middle of the day, at free time

4. What is your favorite children’s book?

Little House on the Prairie, Captain Underpants, Dogman, Goodnight Moon, Go Dog Go, all of them, Charlotte’s Web, Where the Wild Things Are, I Love You Forever, The Poky Little Puppy, Marvelous Me, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Harry Potter, Pete the Cat

5. What was it like for you when you learned to read?

Didn’t love reading at first but truly loved it in high school, easy because I enjoyed it, challenging but fun, fun and exciting, I remember my Grandpa teaching me, easy because I practiced, easy, hard but fun, good for my imagination, boring, hard at first but got better after practice and loved reading, exciting, weird, a little different sometimes, it was fun to read fiction books

. What advice do you have for young readers?

The more you practice, the better you will get.

Read every day and like what you are reading.

Get good at reading because you are going to be doing it a long time.

Find a subject you are interested in and dive in!

Find a book series or author you like and try to read all their books.

Don’t give up!

Read books that you enjoy!

Practice makes perfect.

Read and find what you like.

Take your time and sound words out.

Keep trying and work hard!

Keep on reading!

Try to learn to love it.

Read as often as you can!

Read more books

Friday, September 22nd

Hello Weckie Families!
 Welcome to our Second Grade Blog! We have had an awesome first few weeks in 204 and there is SO much to tell you all about. Please make sure that you read the Blog with your child too - this will make for lots of great conversation about all of the learning we are doing each day. When your child comes home and says they learned "nothing" at school today, you can show them the Blog and talk about all they truly did learn about in school!

Curriculum Night:
Thank you to everyone who came out to Curriculum Night! It was so much fun getting to meet everyone and tell you all about our day and all about what we will be doing this year in 2nd grade. At Curriculum Night we had Sign-Up forms to help with classroom parties as well as volunteer in the room. If this is something you are interested in doing, please email me so we can get you signed up! We have not yet signed up for Parent-Teacher Conferences as this year they are aligned with our trimester schedule and will be held on December 14, 2017. We will send out information about signing up for these on Skyward in the coming weeks. 

During the year I will use email and the Blog as my primary modes of communication. We also use an App called Remind. It allows me to text a message right to you when reminders are needed or word needs to be spread quickly. If you have not done so already, please use the image below to set up your Remind connection. If you need any help with this, please let me know. I would like to have ALL classroom parents signed up by next Friday, September 29th.

Readers' Workshop:

We successfully have launched our Readers' Workshop in the last few weeks. We have had lessons covering all sorts of aspects of our reading lives including: 

• I can choose my favorite book.
• I can choose a comfy reading spot.
• I can look and tell what Readers' Workshop looks and sounds like.
• I can describe a "Wow" Reader.
• I can describe a "So-so" Reader.
• I can describe an "Oops" Reader.
• I can use the Five Finger Rule to help me choose just right books.

Each one of these learning targets has helped us to create an ideal reading environment in our classroom for Independent and Partner Reading.  We loved taking time to share our favorite books and talk about our "Comfy Reading Spots" at home. During Independent time we have really worked hard to be "Wow" Readers. We refer to this chart a lot as it helps explain how we do our best reading in 204. We have built up our Independent reading stamina to nearly 20 quiet, on task minutes of reading. This is awesome! Soon we will be completing our iReady Reading Assessment on the computer. This will help give me data on your child as a reader and set in motion a plan for guided reading groups and literature circles.

Language Workshop:

Language Workshop was also launched in the past two weeks! We will spend roughly a week at a time with a picture book doing all sorts of comprehension activities. Our first book was Wolf by Becky Bloom. Be sure to ask your child about this story! The hungry wolf quickly learned that the educated animals at the barn were not interested in our main character until he learned how to read! This was a fun book to launch Workshop with so that our readers' could see the importance of reading! We took time retelling the story with a beginning-middle-end chart, studied pictures from the story and did a "See-Think-Wonder" sheet as well as selected two vocabulary words from the text to add to our Picture Dictionaries (impressed and emerging). 

This week we got to know: Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians. Yes, you read that correctly! This is a book by Jackie Hopkins and is what we call a "Fractured Fairy Tale". We took the story and did many different activities. First, the story actually teaches us about picking "Just Right Books" which goes hand-in-hand with our Readers' Workshop. We put checklists for choosing "Just Right Books" from the story right into our Readers' Response Logs so we can use those to help us when we go book shopping in the classroom library! We spent time comparing and contrasting the story with the original Goldilocks and the Three Bears using a Venn Diagram chart. Lastly we selected our vocabulary words from the text to add to our Picture Dictionaries (position and temptation).

Writers' Workshop:

Launching Writer's Workshop, we begin the year with a Poetry Unit. We spent the first week simply talking about Poetry and emerging ourselves in great poetry. We looked through nearly 30 poetry books as a whole class and with partners to make a list of noticings about poetry! We also created a list of things to think about when studying a poem. This helped set the stage for our young writers' to then try this out on their own. We have had mini-lessons this week talking about how: poetry can be about anything, how poetry can be found in nature and how poetry can be found everywhere (including in our hearts). Each child was given a blank heart that was divided into several sections. There they drew pictures of things that were important to them. We laminated these and attached them to our writing folders so that we can use our Writers' Heart all year for inspiration and motivation in our writing. To write Nature Poems we took a mini field trip outside to observe nature! Of course we picked the one rainy day, but this allowed us to really find a lot happening in nature and we used the awning of the building in two different places to make our observations. This class can write! They are loving writing poetry!

Poets sharing their work at the end of Workshop!

Word Study/Phonics

Two to three times a week we will do a word study lesson. We have begun our Word Study lessons and have been exposing the kids to a variety of ways we complete word study activities. We have done activities with magnetic letters/letter tiles where we make words, mix them up, recreate them, say them, mix them up again, recreate, etc. to build familiarity. We have also done activities with word cards where students have been making words using an onset and rime. Our first two lessons focused on consonant clusters (how you put two consonants together to make one sound, i.e. /tr/ in "trip"). We did a make-say-check sheet as well as a list sheet with these new words. Next we moved on to patterns in words, such as: if you can spell/read map, you can spell/read snap. Lastly we looked a high frequency words, words we see often in texts and did a make-say-check sheet with these words. This list of words will be coming home each month and you can use these words to help build fluency with your child - spelling them and reading them!

Math Workshop:

We have been cruising right along in Math Workshop as well! We began the year talking a lot about ten. We played games to help us make ten as well as did some different pencil and paper activities where we reviewed making ten. Making ten sets the foundation for building numbers and decomposing numbers. Next we moved onto a review of number lines and number grids. Our students have a solid understanding of number lines and number scrolls, but number grids have proven to be tricky! We filled in a number scroll as a class all the way to 1600, that was easy! However number grid puzzles take a few boxes out of a number grid and ask kids to fill in the missing numbers. This was very tricky for many and a skill we will continue to be practicing whole group and individually. Many struggled on our Number Grid Open Response to explain how they knew what the missing number was and why that number should be there. Look for these to come home in our next round of Friday packets so you can reinforce these skills at home too. Students have also been working on math facts. We are working to build fluency and automaticity with our addition number facts currently. We have been playing games that use number facts like: Fishing for 10, Addition Top-It, Turning over 10 and math fact games on our iPads. Most Math Workshops are done in station format where there is a whole group mini-lesson and then the kids travel to four stations. M: Math facts, A: Activity/Game at Table, T: Teacher mini-lesson and math journal page, H: Hands on Activity (iPads currently).

Second Steps:

At Dublin we have been fortunate enough to receive a grant from WLCSD's Foundation for Excellence (FFE) for Second Steps Kits. This is a classroom kit that is meant to help children in each grade level do their best learning and be their best selves. We have spent time looking at the first two lessons as we get our school year underway. The first lesson was all about being a respectful learner. The second lesson was all about paying attention and focusing during a lesson. The lessons give us time to problem solve, talk through making good choices, look at a scenario where a student is faced with a dilemma and think how they might solve their problem and then it ends with some type of activity to reinforce the concepts being taught. We LOVE Second Steps!

Important Dates & Reminders:

• September 27th - 1/2 Day of school! Dismissal begins at 11:55-12:05pm.
• October 4th - Student Count Day - please be here on time this day!

Thanks for checking out our blog and our learning! Have a fantastic fall weekend (although I think it's going to feel more like a mid-July weekend in the Mitten State).

Jen Weckstein :-)

P.S. Here's a glimpse of our first Main Moose and some Shamrock Winners this week!  Way to go Weckies!

Welcome to Second Grade :-)

Hello and Welcome to Second Grade!!

Thank you for taking a moment to stop by and check out our classroom Blog Page! This will be an important part of our School-Home communication this year in 2nd Grade. I am so excited to get to know your Weckie and share in fun and learning this year. Please stop by again soon for more information on the post. On the right hand side of this page, you can sign up to "Follow" the blog and receive email updates. It's a great way to get new Blog Posts delivered to your email box.  

Cheers! Mrs. Weckstein :-)

Monday, April 24th

Hello Weckie Parents!

Boy have we been busy learning and having fun in Kindergarten!! A special thank you to everyone who has come out and supported Dublin the last two weeks - coming to get ice cream treats at Diary Queen and coming to Rollerskating at the Rolladium! It has been so much fun watching the kids light up at seeing Mrs. Weckstein "in public"!! I'm happy to report that we all survived the Rolladium with no broken bumps, only stories of epic falls and lots of laughter. 

Reader's Workshop
This is an exciting time of year for our young readers. Many are beginning to take all of the strategies that they have been learning (Eagle Eye, Stretchy Snake, Lips the Fish, Elephant Ears, Chunky Monkey) and apply them in their reading. The goal for Kindergarten is to get our young readers familiar with sight words and reading beyond pattern books, applying those strategies mentioned above. We will add a few more strategies as well before the end of the year.  As a whole group we have been practicing these strategies with our sight word books and poems daily. In reading groups we spend the most time trying out the new strategies and then choosing which one helps us most when coming upon tricky words.

Thank you for returning the guided reading books daily/nightly in a timely manner! This is helping our groups to read several books a week and continue to build stamina, fluency, sight words and use new word strategies! Please continue to check backpacks daily for books coming home. Some days are easier than others to get to every group, but everyone who brings books home should have a parent sign their reading form upon completion of reading the new book and familiar books in the bag at home. 

We have also been working this week on a new shared reading book: The Farm Concert by Joy Cowley. Doing a five day shared reading lesson has given us the chance to read this book many times through using various reading strategies (echo, choral, boys vs girls, etc.) as we build fluency and reading comprehension (favorite part, retelling the events, making connections, etc.)

Sight Words on the Word Wall include: and, a, be, can, four, five, go, have, is, it, I, like, look, me, no, not, one, of, on, see, six, the, to, two, there, we, yes.

Sight word cards have come home with every child. We spent a great deal of time making these cards. Please be sure to use them! Practice them in the car, at night time, during dinner, anytime you find suitable where you can quickly recite the words with your child is helpful and beneficial. There are so many great articles out right now online about the value of sight word recognition in emergent readers -- that's our kids!! 

Writer's Workshop:
There is a lot going on in Writer's Workshop too!! We just recently finished up our How-To Unit where our kids became experts and wrote how-to pieces teaching us to do things that they know well. How to swim, how to wash your hands, how to make an ice cream sundae, etc. the list goes on and on. This unit will be coming home soon with your child! 

The next mini-unit we moved onto was our Opinion Writing Unit. We have spent the past two weeks talking about our opinions! This has been super fun to hear voice in our writer's. Their favorites, their likes, dislikes, etc. We have compared things (apples vs. oranges) and explained in our own opinions why we would pick each thing. Please be sure to read through these with your child when they come home - you will learn all sorts of new things!

Close Reading:
 What is close reading? Close reading is where we take a certain text (i.e. Bear Snores On which came home last week) and spend time reading and re-reading the text over the course of several days. We not only build our reading fluency, but we gain valuable comprehension strategies along the way. We have now moved into a Non-Fiction Close Reading unit with two parts. The first part is a whole class Close Reading on the theme of "Under the Sea"with dolphins. As a class we are working with a dolphin text and learning to answer questions both orally and in written form about the text. We are picking out new vocabulary, finding examples in the text to answer questions and generating our own questions on the topic. Each child has selected an Ocean Animal for their Non-Fiction writing and we will launch these animal studies with a close reading on their animal topic. Each child is in a group with 5-6 kids and will meet with Mrs. Weckstein to read a new text about their animal and do a mini-close reading in their small group. This will help lay the foundation for our Non-Fiction Writing Unit on Ocean Animals in the next few weeks.

Math Workshop:
In Math Workshop we have been learning to play several new math games that help to teach and reinforce all we have been learning in mini-lessons. Math in Kindergarten is unique that we do not have a math journal, rather most of our skills are taught through games. Students have been playing games that focus on: numbers in the teens- both counting objects in groups in the teens and counting on number grids in the teens. They have been working on doing number stories for both addition and subtraction with games. They have been working on basic addition and subtraction with games as well. We have also spent time working on shapes and shape names - both two and three dimensional! Game titles we have covered in the past two weeks include: Disappearing And Growing Train, Hiding Bears, Frog Hop, Shape Match Up, Domino Match Up, Addition Top-It, Monster Squeeze and basic math skill games on the new mini iPads we received from our Foundation For Excellence Grant!

Science:
We have just begun our third science unit titled, "My Earth". We began by brainstorming a list of things we find outside made by nature and things made by human. This made for a great conversation about our interactions with our planet and the upcoming holiday (this past Saturday) of Earth Day. Students had time to brainstorm their own ideas of how they could help take care of our Earth and went outside with the iPads to collect pictures that show signs of spring. Please look for all of this great work on the boards outside our classroom. Thank you to everyone who sent in rocks. We will be using these for the next few weeks and then make sure the right person takes home the right rocks!

Have a fabulous Spring Week! :-) Mrs. Weckstein :-)

Monday, March 20th

Hello Weckie Parents,
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.

Children's Author and WLCSD Community Education Director: Sandy Richards George

Grayson's older brother Gabe and 5th Grade Buddy Logan

Lunch Lady Mrs. Schmitt

Principal Mr. Drewno

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!

Friday, March 3rd

Hello Kindergarten families! Happy March! As many of you know, March is reading month. We've kicked off our Mystery Readers this week and the children have really enjoyed it. It's very fun! We have a lot of awesome theme days coming up next week! Your kindergarteners have been super busy in school! I've loved learning so much about each and every one of them. It's been such a pleasure getting to work with all of your little ones! I will be so sad to leave them next Friday!

Readers' Workshop:
During reader’s workshop, kindergarteners have been working on how they can read words. They can: look at the pictures, use their knowledge of sight words to read some words fast, or look at the first letter (sounding out!). They've done a great job with this. I've seen a lot of great improvement during independent/partner reading time. Reading at home with your children is so beneficial for your child’s development in literacy :)

 

Writers' Workshop:
 In writer's workshop, we have been super busy! Kindergarteners are working on publishing their writing. They've worked on many different pattern books. Now, they're picking the one they're most proud of to share with our 3rd grade-reading buddies. It will be very fun to see everyone's finished products!


Math Workshop:
 Your children have been busy with math as well! We've done a lot! Last week and this week, we’ve worked with ten frames and did a little bit of work with double ten frames. We’ve worked on different ways to represent numbers and have played a number of games involving ten frames. Kindergarteners did well with these! We also did a fun activity with shapes. We talked about how shapes are all around us! Basically, everything is made of shapes. We went on a shape walk on the playground and found many different shapes outside! Everyone enjoyed that! Yesterday, we introduced the “equal” symbol and kindergarteners did a fun activity with popsicle sticks to practice showing equal numbers. Today, we introduced the addition symbol and everyone got to make their very own “Gus the Plus.” This was very fun! You will see them at home shortly!

Science:
 This week we jumped back into science! On Monday, we talked about things that move! As a class, we brainstormed a list of things that move. Then, we tested how different things move such as, a ball, a car, a plane, a snake, a paperclip, etc. We talked about what makes things move (pushing things (force), blowing on things, etc.) Everyone was very engaged during this! It was a very fun topic. Ask your children about it!

Have a great weekend! :-) Miss Lempert