Hello, Room 13 Families! 

September is already well underway - amazing! We were glad to dive into our reading curriculum this past week and Science is right around the corner, too!  

This past Thursday and Friday mornings, Ms. O was the substitute teacher while I conducted the remainder of the one-on-one Fastbridge Reading and Math assessments. Thank you, Ms. O! (We are very fortunate to be given the time to schedule a substitute so we can reduce the impact the assessments have on instructional time.) All assessments were completed and you will be receiving a report on your child's results in the coming weeks. We will discuss the results more in-depth at the October Goal Setting Conferences. More details on those as well in a couple of weeks! 

Here are some of the learning topics that we discussed over the past week:

• We delved into our first unit of our English Language Arts curriculum. The first unit is titled Plants and Animals Grow and Change. It starts with a review of short vowel sounds, so we applied that concept to fun games of building their own consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words as well as partner games of guessing the CVC words their partner built. We also read about the life cycle of a frog. 

• We introduced the topic of nouns! The students were tickled by the idea that EVERYTHING in the classroom is a noun. We introduce a noun as a person, place, thing, animal, or idea. 

• We continued our review of number bonds in Math. We applied our knowledge of number bonds to number sentences, as well as to story problems. 

• Being a Safe, Responsible, and Respectful Superstar (Yep! It's still one of our main points each and every day!)

• We continued do morning journal writing and students were feeling more confident with stretching out the sounds they hear in words to do more spelling on their own!

• Quick preview: September 11th will be this Thursday. There is a very simple book written by First Grade students that I read to my students. The book is September 12th We Knew Everything Would Be All Right. It was published in 2002. Here is a link to the story so you can preview it with or without your child this week before I read it. I do not discuss the specific events of September 11th, but just keep it very simple like it is explained in the storybook. I focus on the idea of "hope for tomorrow" and how sometimes things happen in life that make us sad, but that we have our family we can talk to, our friends to play with, and the concept of we "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep moving forward." If they have any further questions, I do refer students to talk with their parent so you can guide the conversation with them. 

For those of you who could attend, I hope you enjoyed the movie night as much as my family and I did! Right now, Lilo and Stitch is a favorite for my kids, so they were excited to come and watch it on the big screen. We enjoyed delicious concessions like chicken and rice with macaroni salad, hot dogs, popcorn, candy, chips, and cotton candy! We also saw the 5th graders Science Camp fundraiser that was there selling light up bracelets and 3D printed keychains. 

I heard it through the grapevine that there is an indoor movie night in the planning stages for November! Do you want to be part of the planning? Let me know and I'll get you connected.

First Graders Can Bounce Back!

Has your child ever gotten upset over a seemingly minor setback and you aren't quite sure what is going on? At times, an unexpected upset may derail a student's emotional state if they haven't had as much practice with trial and error. Especially at their young age, they truly haven't had much practice and so it can be harder for them to bounce back after a disappointment. 

This past week we introduced the concept of being resilient to the class. There is so much that is required of the students on a daily basis and so much of what they try the first time around ends up in confusion and perhaps failure. This can be hard to overcome, especially if a child wasn't expecting to fail or if they were so sure that they were correct. We celebrate their mistakes and encourage the class to keep trying so they see that it is all a part of the learning process. As they try, fail, and succeed in our safe learning environment, our goal is they grow their subject matter competencies, deepen their connections with their fellow learners, feel more brave to contribute to class discussions, cope with unexpected situations, which in turn raises their overall confidence and builds their resilience.  

• Homework is an optional educational activity. If your child will not be doing any of the homework, please read with your child for at least 15 minutes each day.

• If homework is going to be a struggle for your child but you still want your child to practice the responsibility or task of doing homework, please contact me so we can work out a solution. 

• The packet will go home on Mondays in the weekly "Homework Folder" and are due back in the folder each Friday. 

These activities are always good extra practice:

• Watch your child write their name. Please help your child to make sure they write their name this way: start with an uppercase letter, followed by ALL lowercase letters. 

• Holding a pencil with the proper pencil grip (Adorable YouTube video).

• Cutting paper with scissors safely. Click here for a scissor safety video.

• Counting forwards and backwards: up to 20, 50, 100, 120

• Book Video: This past week, Ms. O read Have You Filled a Bucket Today? Here is a link to a read aloud on YouTube. (I did not make this video, but I did watch it before posting here.)

• Song Video: The focus sound for the first week in our Benchmark Reading curriculum is the short a vowel sound. Here is a video the students watched last week. 

• Resilience Article: Do you want more information about resilience? Here is a website link to a potential starting point for you. (I do not have any affiliation with the author, but I did read through her article before sharing it here with you.)

• Zones Video: The Zones of Regulation is an ongoing, daily topic that we will speak about throughout the year. Click here for a very short video that defines each zone. It may be helpful for when you ask your child how their day was and what zones they were in. It is ok if your child isn't sure about their zones yet. Sometimes it can be hard for children to identify how they are feeling.

• Classroom Wish List: From outdoor seats for reading to pencils and baby wipes, take a look here at our Classroom Amazon Wish List. Feel free to share with others. Thank you!

• School Newsletter: Want more information about all the happenings at Sartorette? Click here for the most recent Sartorette School Newsletter.

• Old Room 13 Newsletters: Looking for a previous Room 13 Newsletter? Click the Newsletter Archive page.