We have a couple of trips coming up! On Thursday, September 27th we will go to Gales Meadow Farm near Gales Creek. We will be gone from 11:00-2:15. We need one extra adult to help chaperone this trip. If you are available, please let me know. As you know, on Monday, October 15th we will go to Zenger Farm. We will need four to five more adult volunteers to join us in order to make the trip and we would love for you to join us. If you are interested in either of these volunteering opportunities, please email me at: S.Reuter@fgcschool.org
Class trips are a great way to spend some time with your child, and get to know the class. Thank you!
Last week we continued working on our self-portraits. We brainstormed, discussed and established our classroom rules. They are: Take care of each other, do your best, be safe, and take care of things. Story writing workshop was introduced and students had opportunities to use Playdough to develop a story in the classroom, and natural materials to develop a story in the Backyard Garden during our Out and About. Ask your child if he or she remembers what stories were made last week. On Friday, we began recording these stories. On Thursday students began math class and in the afternoon we explored The Sunflower Garden (the smaller garden behind the school). We worked together as a class and created a garden scavenger hunt. Students found zinnias, tomatoes, peppers, oat seeds, and more. We ended the afternoon taste testing lemon summer squash and cucumbers. In our first full week together we had many moments of fun, excitement, hard-work and community building. Thank you for all you have done to prepare your children for our time together!
We will begin our homework program after goal setting conferences in October. We can talk in more detail about homework at that time. Home Bags will come home with your child every Monday, or the first day of our school week. They will contain homework ("just-right" books, math homework, a spelling activity, and handwriting practice). If your child brings finished work home it can stay at home, unless a note is attached to indicate otherwise. Please always return the bag to school on Monday morning so that our volunteers can prepare it to go home again that afternoon. If for some reason your child forgets to return the bag on Monday morning, we will send home new math, handwriting and spelling pages, and your child can continue to reread the same books from the previous week. Please help your child to develop the habit of regularly returning homework each week! When your child completes homework, it should be returned to school in the home bag. Please have your child read the "just-right" books several times throughout the week and return the books to school, so that the books may be used by another child. My hope is that these bags will be one more tool in our efforts to work together as a team in educating your children. Thank you!
In the meantime, please continue reading routines together at home. Children can read to you, you can read to them, or you can take turns. Reading for enjoyment is very important! Writing for real purposes at home, such as writing notes to family members, making lists, writing in a journal, etc. is good writing practice. Emergent writers work on 'writing the sounds they hear.' They start with phonetic writing, though working on the spelling of sight words (for example, said, the, was) is always a good idea because these words do not typically follow 'phonetic rules'. Encourage your child to stretch out words and to try to include a letter for each sound he or she hears. Encouragement and support of this stage is really important. Ask your child about our Story Workshop where students use materials to make (and find) a story. As your child plays at home, see if he or she can record part of all of their stories through writing. Cooking, measuring, telling time by the hour and possibly five minute increments, adding and subtraction single and double digit numbers, working through family story problems, and working with coins all will help support your child as a mathematician. The more these activities are incorporated into everyday home routines, for real purposes in an enjoyable context, the better connection students will have to how school can help them with 'real life'.
Please contact me with any questions you may have. Thank you families for your support at home!
Sincerely,
Sherry
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