Friday, March 19th

 HELLLOOOOOO Weckie Parents!!

Wow, the inn is FULL!! We have grown this week by four students and our room is full and my heart is so happy!! We were able to get ALL of our virtual "our path" learners back from the beginning of the year and it has been like a dream come true!! There has been A LOT of excitement and energy this week as our four friends returned to the classroom after a year of virtual learning. Of the original 25 students we had on Zoom, I have 24 back with me. I feel like my little ducklings have all come back! 

We have also had to slow down this week and really focus in on our safety protocols and hygienic routines! Please make sure that you are sending your child to school daily with minimally 3-4 masks. We are going through masks right now at record pace and many kids are saying they only have one mask with them. With the warmer temperatures outside, we are coming in with soaked masks from recess and most kids change them after recess as well as any time they sneeze into their mask. I know, gross, but it happens. I do have some paper masks here, but with 24 kids, we can go through those in a day or two. We have also been talking a lot about our masks and how to wear them properly. A few too many noses have been sighted lately. Please make sure that your child's mask have a good snug fit. Last, reminders about keeping our hands to ourselves and distancing are always helpful too. 

With my own first grader at Keith Elementary, I have seen firsthand this last week just how fast a school can close down due to an outbreak of Covid... and it's scary and quick! We got one email Tuesday night of a positive case, an email in the morning about a staff member who was exposed and then a third email about three more positive cases. It was quick and now they are on Zoom over there until after Spring Break. We REALLY want to try to prevent this at Dublin Thank you for your help and understanding. While I am fully vaccinated, I want to make sure we keep these kids as healthy as possible. I greatly appreciate parents keeping kids home as well to err on the side of caution when they are feeling under the weather. I realize 100% this gets tricky with spring colds and allergies!

Math Workshop

In Math we have been wrapping up our work in Unit 5. This last unit has focused a lot on: coin value, counting coins, using coins to pay for items and making change with coins when subtracting from a dollar. We have also spent time working on number story problems and have used different diagrams (change to more, part-part-total and open number lines) to help organize our data and our thinking about the solution. A unit 6 Home Link packet has come home with your child to remain at home for the remainder of the unit. When pacing out the lessons, we will do:

    Lesson 6.1 - Tuesday, March 23

    Lesson 6.2 - Wednesday, March 24

    Lesson 6.3 - Thursday, March 25

    Lesson 6.4 - Tuesday, April 6

    Lesson 6.5 - Wednesday, April 7

    Lesson 6.6 - Thursday, April 8

Please make sure to look over these with your child as we get into the more complex math work of our year these last few months! At the end of the unit, please send the Home Link packet back with your child.

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop I have NEARLY heard all of my original students read and have been adjusting their just-right reading levels in the classroom with our classroom library as well as the books that have come home in the book bags. New books were sent home this past Friday. Please keep them the remainder of this week and if needed, over Spring Break. Returning them on Monday, April 5th will help to quarantine them for the week and send out new books on the 9th!

I will continue working with students on reading assessments as well as taking time to listen to our new students read and get some books out to them as well, I just cannot guarantee this will all get done before spring break. It takes a lot of one on one time with each reader and is important to go slow.

In Workshop we have been digging deeper with series books. We have been noticing patterns in how a character acts throughout the series and within each book. We have noticed similarities in the problems that arise and the solutions that are used. We have looked at author's craft and noticed patterns in this throughout a series. We have also been looking at the details our authors use to tell a story so that we can picture what we are reading!

Writers' Workshop

In Writers' Workshop we continue to dig deeper with our work around writing about our reading. We are learning to pull evidence from the books we read to use in our writing to support our opinion. So if your child found a book to be funny, they are learning to pull out details from the story that made them laugh and how to add those details into their written letters. Learning to write about your opinion is hard but also such a great life skill to have and be able to do effectively!

Science

We are wrapping up our Science unit on Air and Weather this coming week! The last few weeks we have been exploring with air! We blew bubbles safely spread apart outside and watched as the soap caught air. We used cups and tubs of water to see how we could trap air in water. We created pinwheels and snake spinners to take outside and catch air. It was hilarious to see how well they worked last Thursday when the temperatures were cold and the wind was blowing hard! The kids were frozen but loving watching their pinwheels take flight!

Important Reminders/Notes

1. Sunday, March 21st is World Down Syndrome Day. As a way to raise awareness and educate people about the day is by wearing brightly colored socks. We are going to talk about this on Monday and I would love to see your kids in their best and brightest of socks on Monday, March 22! Feel free to even just wear mismatching socks! A good friend of mine has a young son with Down Syndrome and I would love to send Briggy a picture of all of "my kids" honoring him and his importance while also educating our kids a little more about kids like Briggy!

2. Devices - Please make sure your child's device is in working order. As the year goes on we are having a lot of trouble with working devices. Remember, you can take your WL Chromebook back to the ESC to swap for a new device if it is not working. The Dublin office only has a limited number of spare computers and most often they are gone before we can get kids down who need them. We use them daily to work on iReady Math and Reading lessons. A charged device is also helpful!

3. Friday, March 26th is a school wide Read-In Day at Dublin! Please send your Weckie to school on Friday in their pajamas. They can also bring in favorite books from home (please make sure these are labeled) as well as a small blanket and stuffed animal friend. Each child will have their own space around the room to read and will not be allowed to share books, stuffed friends or blankets. Nothing needs to come in early as there will be NO sharing. Please remind your children of this as I will too! They will have access to the classroom library, but it will work as it always does, once you take a book, it's yours for the week and cannot be returned! 

Thank you, thank you for your continued support this year! I know it has been the most strange of school years, but I am grateful and thankful for our supportive parent community! We have been LOVING seeing parents on Zoom this month as we miss having you all in the room and in the building. We are striving really hard to keep things as normal as possible and the enthusiasm in the kids shows each day as they truly are excited to be at school! :-) Jen W.

Friday, February 25, 2021

 Happy Friday Weckie Families!

It's hard to believe we have completed the entire month of February THIS QUICKLY! We have been busy here in Second Grade doing all sorts of things and learning lots. It appears that maybe we have survived the coldest of this winter's weather and are really enjoying the milder temperatures we have had at recess this week! That being said, please remember to still send ALL winter gear as there is still snow on the playground AND it is SUPER muddy and wet out there! I have also suggested to our kids that they keep a spare set of clothes in their backpacks - extra pants and socks would be great as they come in soaked!

Word Study

In Word Study we have been "tackling long words part by part"! We have been practicing breaking up new words starting at the beginning and figuring out how to break them apart to figure out what they say. Words like: against, before, begin, either, excited, favorite, several and usually, have been added to our word wall as words we can break a part into smaller parts to read them bit by bit. This is a great strategy to review with our readers!

 

We also spent time this week reviewing the words on our Word Wall and trying to use these words in our Writers' Workshop work!

Readers' Workshop

In Workshop the week before break we wrapped up our unit about growing as readers! We finished up lessons on stamina and focus while reading. We also dug deeper into books and the main character in the story - we looked at their character traits, how they solved problems and if we saw any patterns between the same character in a different book. The characters we studied included Otis the Tractor from Loren Long's "Otis" series and Alexander, from the "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" series by Judith Viorst. Both characters taught us lessons and gave us many laughs along the way. 

Our new unit was launched this week and is all about series book reading. This week we spent time:

• collecting information about the main character
• paying attention to how characters respond to problems
• noticing the things that are the SAME across the series

Thank you to ALL who returned book bags the Friday before break. ALL of those books have been quarantined, sorted and returned to our literacy library. New books will come home either today or Monday! Please be sure to spend the week with the books reading WITH your child, talking about their reading, and helping them along the way with tricky words or to retell you the events of the story. These books are at their just-right levels which are adjusting slowly as I work through reading assessments with the kids in the coming weeks!

Writers' Workshop

Our new writing unit is ALL about writing friendly letters! Students learned the features of a letter on Monday including: the date, the greeting, what goes in the body of the letter, how to add a closing and where to sign their names. The rest of the week was spent writing letters about favorite books we have read this year! There was lots of enthusiasm about writing about our reading! We will share these letters in the room with each other as we make book recommendations to our classmates!

Math Workshop

In Math Workshop we have been working our way through the beginning of Unit 5. We have covered lessons 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 so far. In the Homelink packets, this would b be a great place to work up to over the weekend and coming days. Next week we will work through lessons 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8. It would be a great idea to try to time these lessons in the next week so that you can review and practice these skills with your children!

The first few lessons about counting coins and making change were tedious but also really good! The kids have a had a lot of practice showing coins for different values but we will continue working on this in the coming weeks too. Try having your mathematician count coins for you the next time you need to buy something; the more we practice working with money, the better!

Science

We have launched our Air and Weather Unit and boy are these scientists excited! Coming home today you will see a baggie for some science at home. Please make sure to do these activities this weekend so we can talk about them in Science on Monday. These were all things that required breathing air through and obviously not safe in our current set-up. In school we have explored the past two days with parachutes! We learned about air resistance and how we can essentially trap air in a parachute, know that it is there, without actually being able to see the air. Next week we will explore with plungers, air and water!

March is READING month!

The month of March is always a busy one at Dublin as we celebrate March is Reading Month! We will have a couple of Spirit Wear Fridays as well as some special activities going on at Dublin, like Battle of the Books. In past years we have had a PTA sponsored Family Literacy Night, and this will return again this year, except it will be virtual! More info will come home in the coming weeks about how to access the webpage which will be filled with literacy activities and videos from the Dublin Staff.

Friday, March 5th - Hat Day 

Friday, March 19th - Dublin Spirit Wear (or Green) Day

Friday, March 26th - Pajama Day and school-wide "Read In" (more details to come)

Additionally... March is like my MOST favorite month to get parents into our classroom and this whole pandemic has really crimped my style! Typically I would aim to have one or even some days two, Mystery Readers, who would come and surprise their child and read to our class. In the past I have used: student relatives, former students - both current Dublin kids and kids who are much, much older, my district employee friends and my own family. This year looks so different as we cannot even bring parents in on a normal basis to volunteer or even help with copying. What I am thinking, is we could use the power of technology.

IF you are interested in being a Mystery Reader for March, for this year, I'd like to just keep it to parents of our children. I will also create a Sign-Up Genius and email that out later today with a Zoom link (I'll email the link out prior to your time), so you can "virtually" visit with us and share a story. Another teacher has also mentioned if you are tech saavvy, you could even record a book and send the video file or link to me to share with our class. Please know either way works, and anyone who does volunteer, is greatly appreciated.

Friday, January 29th

 Good Friday Afternoon Weckie Parents!!

What a fantastic week we have had in Second Grade! This week we have been super busy doing all sorts of learning while sprinkling in some fun along the way too. It was fantastic to speak with everyone yesterday at Parent-Teacher Conferences and I look forward to finishing up with a few more today and on Monday. It was fun to still hold these meetings and share out all of the great work and learning our kids are doing. It was also wonderful to hear the same continual theme of happy kids because they are back in school. The feeling is SO mutual! 

Readers' Workshop:

The past two weeks in Readers' Workshop we have been up to a lot! Our mini-lessons have been on topics like:

• how to figure out the meaning of a new word
• how to check yourself as a reader to make sure what you are reading makes sense
• the intent of authors and what their lesson/message might be in a story
• writing craft moves that authors make that we can also use in our writing
• how the parts of a story go together to make a whole book click

With the completion of our latest iReady Diagnostic in reading, I will also soon be switching up reading partners. Books will be coming home for your children as well with information on what to do with them, how long to keep them and when to return them! Keep an eye out for the colored cloth book baggies in the next week :-).

Writers' Workshop: Work continues in WW on our Expert books! Many of you got to take a glimpse into your child's expert writing at conferences. The kids are working on writing a book all about a topic they consider themselves an expert! Several students are on to their second and third books already! They are very eager to teach us about things they already know. Mini-lesson topics have included:

• how to help readers' "picture" your writing
• writers' aim to "hook" an audience's interest
• how to do more than one thing at once in your writing
• how to clear up any confusion in your writing by answering the: who, what and why questions
• how to set goals to make your writing even better using a checklist

I will be eager to see which expert book each child selects to take to publishing to share with our class in the coming weeks!

Phonics:

In Phonics we spent a ton of time working with tricky homophones. We spent time with:

• there, their and they're
• your and you're
• to, two and too

We practiced writing these words and then took our new found words back to our own writing to improve our pieces. It was great to see so many students erasing their original writing to fix something up in one of their books using these tricky homophones!

This week in phonics we spent time looking at patterns in rhyming words to help us solve for other words. We were able to find that if we knew how to read a word like "light", we could also read: sight, night, fight, tight, might, etc.

Math Workshop:

Ones, tens, hundreds... oh my! We have really zoomed in on place value in Math! We have been working with base ten blocks and using them to show numbers in the ones, tens and hundreds values. We have also started using base ten blocks to add and subtract, showing how we can borrow or exchange a long (worth ten) for ten cubes (each worth one). Remember, a home link packet came home to launch the unit and you can follow along with the home-links to match our lessons.  

This coming week we will do math lessons: 4.9 The "Inch", 4.10 The "Centimeter", 4.11 Unit 4 Explorations.

Completed packets can be returned to school for a special surprise! :-)

Important Dates/Info

We are headed into a SUPER busy time of year...

Here are the dates to keep in mind:

• Monday, February 1st - 10:15-10:25am PICTURE DAY
• Tuesday, February 2nd - HALF DAY OF SCHOOL - Dismissal begins around 12 noon with the Shamrock Pick Up line
• Wednesday, February 3rd - Global Day of Play - all toys were due in TODAY for this activity. If your child forgot, they can always play with the loads of classroom toys that we have (which are also quarantining in anticipation).
• Friday, February 5th - 100th Day of School - Also known as: Dress like you are 100 Years Old Day / Valentine Cards and Boxes can begin coming in to school
• Monday, February 8th - ALL Valentine Cards completed and designed boxes are DUE in to school (We cannot take anything late and REALLY need your help turning these in on time).
• Friday, February 12th - Valentines Pizza Luncheon and Craft 

Friday, January 15th

 

Happy 2021 Weckie Families!

We are off to an awesome start in our classroom for the new year! We actually spent the first few days back talking all about our goals for the new year and things we hope to accomplish in the second half of Second Grade! Yes, you read that right, we are at the half way point! We created projects with our New Years' Resolutions and Goals. It was fun to hear what the kids want to work on (and then we can all check back in down the road and see how they are doing - Are they really cleaning up more at home? Are they really helping with the dishes, or doing 50 pushups a day?) To be continued...

Phonics:

In Phonics we have been learning all about homophones! Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled different and have different meanings (for example: see and sea, meet and meat, pair and pear). We spent time looking for homophones in our books, we spent time writing silly riddles and jokes using homophones and then we wrote sentences using pictures that were showing homophones. We also spent time in Phonics working on ending punctuation and the purpose behind these different symbols. We did some group editing where we fixed up a writing passage that was missing things like: periods, question marks, exclamation marks, commas and apostrophes. We took what we learned in the Phonics mini-lesson and applied this to our expert non-fiction writing in Writers' Workshop as well.

Readers' Workshop:

In Readers' Workshop we are still working to establish routines for independent and partner reading time in our classroom. We are really working hard to build our reading stamina so that we are focused and on task during independent reading time. We are working on our partnership skills as well as we learn to navigate partner time with sharing of the responsibilities when reading with a partner. Our mini lessons have focused on: keeping tabs on comprehension, using post-it notes to mark important spots in our reading, skills for tackling tricky words, using more than one strategy at a time to figure out tricky words, using familiar beginnings and endings to help us figure out new words, and then how to figure out the middle part of an unfamiliar word.

We also worked on the iReady Reading diagnostic this week and are about 75% with this! The goal is to wrap this up next week and then move into the math diagnostic. I will have the data from both diagnostic available for parents for Parent Teacher Conferences on January 28th.

Writers' Workshop:

In Writers' Workshop we have launched a new unit on Expert Writing! What does this mean? Well our writers are writing a book about ANYTHING that they are an expert about! We have books about: dogs, sharks, snakes, dresses, Christmas, King Kong, soccer, baked goods and more. During this unit our writers are working on building their stamina for writing more and more about a topic, so that they are really educating their audience about this topic. Be sure to ask your writer what topics they are experts on and what they have been writing about in workshop!

Math Workshop:

This last week we finished up Unit 3 in math. We took the Unit 3 Assessment as well as completed the Unit 3 Challenge Activity and Open Response. The kids really did well as a whole with the Unit 3 topics considering some of the unit was taught virtually, some of the unit was taught in person and we had a 10 day break in between. These assessments were not scored but instead I have been leaving lots of feedback. These will come home next week with your child. Please know that the challenge and open response are meant to be difficult but also to push your child to think at a higher level about the basics of the math skills we are teaching.

This week we started Unit 4. I have sent the Unit 4 Home Links home so that you can do these at home along with us. We have just launched the unit and covered Lesson 4.1 and Lesson 4.2 , all about telling time with clocks! Next week, if you want to stay in line with us, we will be doing Lesson 4.3 on Tuesday, Lesson 4.4 on Wednesday and Lesson 4.5 on Thursday. Please remember, Home Links are optional in second grade however, this year more than ever, our kids REALLY need practice with Math and these are a great way to reinforce the concepts we are doing at school at home. If there is something on a Home Link that you are unclear of, please know I'm always here to help answer questions about the math skills we are learning.

Second Step:

At Dublin we use the Second Step program for our Social Emotional Learning (SEL). This happens to be near and dear to my heart as I am our Dublin building SEL Team Chairperson. This past week our classroom led the building wide Monday Morning Meeting on Zoom for all of Dublin to watch at 9:15am live from Room 204. This was a passion project of Mr. Drewno's to encompass our SEL themes across the building and give a common message to all students. With his retiring I have inherited this giant task but have to brag and say that our kids were AMAZING last Monday with this!! They were in the room of course at 9:15am when we went live in all of the Dublin classrooms and were super quiet while I was teaching, but also super helpful! They all came up to the computer and helped to lead the Dublin Promise (it was so cute). We had Mrs. Lenze do the Star Spangled Banner (our new Music teacher is AWESOME) and it was a great first Monday Meeting! We will be leading again on Tuesday next week... and most likely for many, many more weeks.

This week in our own SEL learning we have been talking all about feelings. In a matter of about 15 minutes we generated a list of 61 feelings we can have in our bodies and funny enough, we only stopped because we were getting tired of sitting on the floor in a giant circle. Later in the week when we had an issue arise as a class in PE, we were able to circle back up, identify our feelings, and do a Restorative Circle where we talked through the problem with the four students who were in trouble from PE, we brainstormed ways they could have prevented or changed their actions and had the BEST discussion. It was a true Restorative Circle!

Important Info:

Please make sure to jump on Skyward to sign up for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held on Zoom on January 28th. We will have a very short day of school, I believe dismissal begins for the Shamrock Pick-Up close to 10:45am. And then conferences will begin on Zoom at 12:15pm. I will send out our classroom Zoom link once more, much closer to January 28th with a list confirming times, but you can also always find the Zoom link on our Google Classroom page.

Thank you to everyone who already answered the call of sending in cleaning wipes! We average 60-80 a day depending on our day (more on Tuesday when we eat lunch in the room) but have really done a nice job keeping the place clean and each other safe!

Valentines' Parties - These will still be happening at Dublin but the details have not yet been worked out. Please hold off on buying ANYTHING until we hear more. The traditional sending in of Valentines and goodies will most likely look different this year, but we will still do something! I am looking for 3-4 parents who would be willing to help from the outside to organize some fun for the afternoon of February 12th.

Last but not least... Covid Vaccines. Info will be coming out in various WL publications about teachers receiving the vaccines and what happens if it happens that our appointments are on week days. If a teacher is scheduled on a week day, their class will be notified ahead of time and will have ASYNCHRONOUS learning that day (independent tasks posted on Google). Keeping my fingers crossed, my two vaccines are scheduled for Sunday, January 24th and Sunday, February 14th. If these remain in place, we will NOT participate in this random asynchronous learning day as I'll be doing these on weekends. So please, no need to panic if you are worried about your child being home from our class on a random day. I do know that many teachers are working hard to secure night time and weekend slots, but having also seen what the Oakland County Health Dept. page looked like on the night it launched, 80% of the slots were weekdays during the day. I was fortunate to get those Sunday slots. You may have other children at Dublin who will need to be home on a random day, but minimally 7 days notice is supposed to be provided. 

Alright - that's all I have!! Get on with your weeekend!! ;-) Jen

Friday, December 18th

 Happy Friday Weckie Parents!

We have had a fantastic week of face to face learning here in Second Grade! All of the new protocols and procedures are beginning to sink in and we are getting into a pretty great routine. We are being careful and we are being safe. Every now and then I see a few eye rolls, but we all can agree that no one wants to get sick! 😄

Next week we have TWO days of in-person learning. Monday will be our "Holiday PJ Party" Day. Info came out this week about our afternoon of fun. Please remember to send your child to school on Monday in warm jammies. We will still have recess outside! They will also still need good shoes for PE class. In the afternoon on Monday we will be watching a movie and doing a special craft. The kids will also need a special afternoon snack that you can send in from home. Please keep it simple - a cookie, bag of chips, fruit snacks, etc. but it can be special too. Also please keep in mind we do have a few students with allergies and need the snacks coming into our room to remain peanut and tree nut free. Please no stuffed animals or blankets. We are trying to minimize things coming into the classrooms from home...

I moved our Holiday Party to Monday afternoon due to our FAPES schedule on Tuesday afternoon with PE and Art. Unfortunately due to the pandemic restrictions, we are unable to have visitors for our party on Monday. We will miss having you all here!! 

Readers' Workshop

In Reader's Workshop we have moved into a new reading unit that is all about growing our reading muscles! We have been working on building our reading stamina and learning new strategies to do so! These include: reading more and more books, focusing our attention when there are distractions around us, scooping up snap words and reading them faster and choosing how to read a book! Daily we have tried to do some quick partner reading as well, for just about 10 minutes.

Writers' Workshop

In Writers' Workshop we are wrapping up our Realistic Fiction Unit! The kids have been working hard to create their own series characters and books about their characters. We have spent time this week adding details, editing for spelling, punctuation and capital letters and we have created covers with illustrated title pages. We also spent time on a Meet the Author page. Look for these books to come home with your writer next week after our publishing celebration on Monday morning.

Phonics

In Phonics this week we have been continuing our work with spelling patterns in words (think: ee, ea, ai, oa...) and we have been looking for words with these patterns in our own writing and reading. We have practiced adding "r" onto some of these patterns as well as the r can change the sound the vowel team makes. 

Math Workshop

In Math we have been digging deeper with subtraction and all of the strategies we can use when solving subtraction problems. It has been great to hear the kids explain their thinking behind their strategies and see which strategies are more common! Strategies have included: counting up, counting back, counting back through friendly 10s, subtracting 0 and 1, and using number lines for any or all! Remember, the Home Links for Unit 3 came home awhile back when we took our pause with in-person learning the first time. You can use these at home any time to review lessons from Unit 3. We are through Lesson 3.9 right now. This will also help your child to return to school after break, if they have had time to review some of these skills.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

Our Social Emotional Learning (SEL) at Dublin is an important part of our learning in an elementary school. At Dublin we use the Second Step program and completed the first unit while we were virtual. This past week at Dublin we launched back our Monday Morning Meetings only instead of meeting with the whole school in the gym, we all gathered on Zoom. Mr. Drewno led an awesome review session on the beginning unit of Second Step goals - focusing on being welcome and being safe. As a class I have been working hard to catch students making good choices and rewarding them with Dublin Shamrocks. Shamrocks are awarded the first month for: being welcoming, being safe, being respectful and being responsible! I am happy to report that I have been filling out a TON of shamrocks! We will do a weekly drawing and send the rest home to be celebrated. 

This will be our last blog post for 2020... What a year!! I just wanted to extend a huge, heartfelt thank you for ALL that you have done at home this year to help your child to learn remote and to learn in person throughout all of 2020. I know this has been a tough year and that many of us have gone through unimaginable times during this pandemic. Please know that I appreciate you all and also look forward to better days ahead with everyone in 2021. Please have a safe, happy and healthy holiday season. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to work with your children this year. They are such an incredible bunch of learners. I look forward to the day when I can hug and squeeze them all!! Until then, I look forward to returning with the kids to school on Monday, January 4, 2021.  

Fondly, Mrs. Weckstein :-) 

Learning Update :-) Friday, Dec. 11

 Friday, December 11, 2020

Hello Weckie Families!!

I wanted to provide a good Friday update on ALLLLL we have been up to in 2nd Grade - both virtually and in person! What a great week of transition and learning we have had. We began the week on Zoom and ended the week in person. Thank you for all of your continued support at home with virtual learning, at home with packing your kids back up and in sending in encouraging words, cleaning supply donations and happy kids on Wednesday!

 We have really been working on new routines at school now that we are back in person. Staggering the kids coming in first thing, learning what to bring in to the classroom and put at tables vs. what goes in our mailboxes. We have been working on our cleanliness with reminders about good handwashing, using sanitizer and continually wiping down our learning spaces. In a typical day we wipe down our tables 3-4x a day! Our custodians are only doing a limited job of this, so the pressure is on for us to keep our space clean and safe.

Thank you for following district protocol with Covid exposure and Covid like symptoms. It is important that we are all working together on this and that we continually err on the side of caution so that we can work to keep everyone healthy and safe. Our learners are getting better each day with their mask routines, their abilities to social distance and their willingness to follow these new procedures. It is work, but work that is totally worth it! When in doubt, either reach out to me or to the office, and we can help you decide what's best to do!

Your Weckie will be bringing home their yellow "Friday Packet" folder today! In there you will see work from our first math unit test as well as some fact review sheets we worked on for morning work this week. The unit 1 test gave us a great foundation for knowing what our kids know and what they still need to learn when reviewing first grade concepts. Please take time with this assessment at home to work through anything your child missed. The second unit test came home with your child a few weeks back when we took our pause in face to face learning. You can use that unit 2 test at home to continue to practice math skills with your child. The yellow slip on the front of the Friday packet needs to be signed and returned. Unless specified on your child's work that it needs to be fixed and returned, the rest of the work in the packet can remain at home.

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop we have been wrapping up an awesome unit on different reading strategies for tricky words. We have really taken time to slow down and break words apart to try to piece together the sounds. We have looked for familiar sight words in our reading to help us read more fluently. We have taken time to work with blends and digraphs to also use our knowledge about the sounds they make to help us when faced with words using these features. Students have had time this week to shop for new books for their book bins and are encouraged to shop for a mix of just-right books and books that interest them from our classroom library. Often times the just-right books may seem more simple to a student, but that means it's a good fit and a just-right book! Harder, "thicker" books at times look appealing to many but are often just too tricky for them to read. As the Weckies get more comfortable shopping in our classroom library, they'll learn more to often to stick with those just-right books to get the most out of their reading time. We have done some limited partner reading time in person, with partners meeting for just about 7-10 minutes. Remember, most kids already sit at the same table and most likely, next to, their reading partners. 

Writers' Workshop

In Writers' Workshop this week we have been working on their realistic fiction book series. Each child has created a character and a book or two or more about their character featuring real-life problems a child may face. Writers had time this week to do some editing and revising of their work. Our focus was on adding realistic details to our pieces and to "show" the story in their writing instead of just "telling" the story. Most of our students have shared one of their realistic fiction pieces on Flipgrid and it has been great to hear their entire stories. When I pull them to do conferences I most often just hear a little segment of their story. You should ask your child to show you their video on Flipgrid. You can find them by going to a post from last week on Google Classroom with the Flipgrid link.

Phonics

Our work in Phonics this week we have been digging deeper with vowel teams. This is when two vowels work together in a word (such as the "ea" in team). The saying we use is: When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. This helps readers and writers to understand in a vowel team, the vowel sound is typically long and typically the sound of the first vowel in the team. We spent time finding vowel teams in books and in our own writing to explore with. We took time to practice reading the teams and noticing similarities and differences. For instance the "oo" vowel team sounds different in moon and look. Last we reviewed earlier work with the "r" controlled vowel and looked at words that have a changed vowel sound when an "r" is added, such as the "a" sound in had vs. hard.

Math Workshop

In Math we are working on strategies for solving subtraction facts right now. We have reviewed strategies for -0 and -1. We have spent a lot of time practicing counting up and counting back with story problems. Subtraction will be one of those skills we will be working on all year! If your child still has their fact triangles at home, you can use these this weekend to review subtraction but please send them back to school for math next week!

Science

We continue to work on our New Plants unit in Science. This week we wrote the results and conclusions for our lab reports. We have spent time watching the grass and alfalfa grow together while also watching our wheat seed succeed in growing in a straw (for most of us). You can continue to watch the growth at home as these will not need to be sent back to school. We also watched an experiment this week that Mrs. Weckstein did with growing new plants from an old plant... these botanists were pretty amazed! :-)

Important Info:

Progress Profile Reports (aka our fall report cards) are now posted on Skyward Family Access. Once you log in to Family Access click on Report Cards and you will find this important document there. Please let me know if you need help accessing this.

Friday, November 13th

 

Hello Weckie Parents!!

What an amazing first week we are having here at school!! After many long months, it has been nice to hear the sound of laughter and learning in the hallways and class of Dublin once more. We have spent a TON of time this week going over many new procedures:

1. Arrival - Where to go, how to unload and what to unload

2. Supplies that stay vs Supplies that go home (Monday - Thursday the kids will only bring home their device and water bottle. Everything else should stay here!) We do not have the Chromebook Carts back in our classrooms to have the ability to lock up devices at this point. * On Friday we will send home their Friday folder loaded with goodies - things they have done, and possible supplies we would like kept home, just in case we go remote once more. They will also bring home their math journal and writing folder.  All things in their folders are labeled with explanations :-).  On Monday, they should return their yellow folder EMPTY. Please make sure to date and sign the front of the folder as the letter on front explains.

3. Lunch - Here's where it gets tricky! Each child has been assigned a number in our room and they sit by these same kids in our room, in the lunchroom, in FAPES, etc. On TUESDAYS we will be eating in our classroom. There is not an available space for us to eat. At least for the next few weeks (until we see if we can find a space for lunch) please send your child with a PEANUT AND TREE NUT FREE LUNCH. I am overly worried about bringing nuts- tree nut or peanut into our class room right now with allergies that some of our students have. Please be diligent about this - Please imagine if this was your child. Students who receive the free hot lunch will always be provided with a safe lunch, so this could be a great day to have your child order lunch if you are worried. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we eat lunch in one half of the lunchroom which has a safe peanut/tree nut free area but also allows for no dietary restrictions at other tables.

4. School not looking normal… Our kids are staying at their seats as much as possible. I try to offer brain breaks, mask breaks, snack outside (weather dependent) as much as we can between our learning. This has been REALLY hard for everyone. Please discuss with your child at home about remaining in their learning space with a mask on. Several times I have found that the kids take their masks off at their seats simply because they feel protected with their dividers up. Also many students have just needed reminders to stay seated. They are up and moving around simply to show a friend something or to talk - which makes learning and being safe, difficult. The bad news is that there is no division between children in their seats - the divider is simply on the table. We have to remain diligent if we want to remain safe, healthy and open. Thank you!!

Remember, everything in their yellow “everyday” folder stays home this weekend and beyond just the folder is returned (and if you have a book order), everything in their colored book bag is also meant to stay home, but please do not let them read the books in there, yet!

Last but not least - there is ONE chromebook charger cord that has been left behind. Every child has promised they have checked their bag and that it is not theirs. However, I know it must belong to someone and this is worrisome. Please make sure to label everything! Even a piece of tape with their name on the chromebook and charger is fine at this point.

Thank you for all of your donations of supplies and sanitizer this week!!! In four days we have gone through two tubs of 75 wipes… just in wiping down our learning spaces for breakfast, lunch in the room Tuesday, snack and at the end of the day! It is a lot! It has become our mission to keep our room clean. Custodial services only cover vacuuming and trash emptying each night within our room.

I promise there have been academics too -  but I wanted to get as much information out to you as I can right now about routines and procedures. Please stay safe this weekend and please stay healthy.

Your partner in safety and learning, Jen Weckstein