September 4th-September 7th

Welcome to the 2012-2013 starting lineup of Team Blowey Parents!

Today was such an awesome day!  I'm so excited to see what the rest of the year has in store for us.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Today, your child should have gone home with a packet full of papers from me.  Please fill out the student information sheet and the volunteer form if you plan on volunteering.  Some of you already filled these papers out at the ice cream social.  If that applies to you, simply ignore the papers that were sent home.

I encourage you to send in the "Getting to Know Your Child" questionnaires that were sent to you in the mail.  They really help me to get a glimpse at your child from the person who knows them best... YOU!  

Special Schedule:

Monday:  Library

Tuesday:  Spanish

Wednesday:  P.E.  (don't forget those sneakers!)

Thursday:  Art

Friday:  Music

If you are thinking about volunteering in the classroom at all (even if it's just chaperoning a field trip) please, please, please fill out the paperwork now and send it in!  It takes time to process these forms and the sooner we get them the better!  Also, on September 13th at 6 PM, Russell School will be having a volunteer night.  Please attend the meeting if you want to volunteer!

Please send in any of your child's school supplies as soon as possible.  If you need a copy of the list again to see what was needed, please let me know.  Also, if purchasing any of the items on the list is a hardship for your family, please don't hesitate to let me know.  We'll figure something out!  Again, HUGE thank you to all of the families that were able to send in donations for our classroom.  Every little thing helps!

If your child has any alternative plans for after school, please be sure to send in a note with your child.  It's important that we have these notes to make sure your child ends up in the right place!

Within the next couple weeks, I'll be sending home a paper newsletter filling you in on the ins and outs of our classroom.  I'll be letting you know expectations about behavior, our schedule, and even some of the activities that have been happening in our room.

If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask!

This week in Room 10...

Morning Meeting:  Right now we are learning all kinds of fun greetings that will be added to our "Good Morning, Sunshine!" box.  Once we learn all of the greetings, students will be able to close their eyes and pick out a random greeting for us to do that morning.  We will also read our morning note together.  Next, students will have a chance to share any stories they have with us during our 10 second share.  Then we'll talk about the days of the week and what the weather looks like outside.  We'll also be using the amount of days that we have been in school to practice our place value skills.  Finally, we'll read the "Words to THINK about."  These will be changed at the beginning of each month.  This month the words are:

In this classroom, you are important, loved, respected.  You are part of a team.  You are valuable, listened to, successful.

S.O.P.'s:  This week we will be developing S.O.P.'s or Standard Operating Procedures.  We will use these to develop routines, set expectations, and give reminders to students.  We will focus on getting ready for school, getting ready for lunch, and getting ready to go home.

Classroom Vision:  We will be creating a classroom vision together.  Today, everyone got 3 post-its to write down what they thought were the three most important things for having the best year ever in second grade.  We got answers like extra recess, lots of crafts, a teacher that listens, kind friends, and even extra homework!  We combined all of these answers into categories.  Tomorrow, we will vote on the most important categories.  I will then use these to come up with several drafts of a classroom vision.  Then, we will power vote again to decide which vision is the one that works best for us.

Friends:  We will also be doing LOTS of getting-to-know-you type crafts and activities to help build our classroom community.  We'll be doing scavenger hunts, playing games, and so much more!  All of these things will help us get to know each other a little better and also begin laying the foundation for great teamwork!

CAFE and Daily 5:  We will begin setting up expectations and developing routines for how we will practice our individual language arts goals this year.  These will be developed through lots of discussions, role-playing, and practice.  This week our focus will be on what it looks like to read to your self.  We'll also start introducing our first CAFE reading strategy which is "Check for Understanding".

For those of you who aren't familiar with CAFE or the Daily 5, CAFE stands for comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and expanding vocabulary.  Throughout the year, we will be learning reading strategies that correspond with each of these things and developing a "menu" of choices.  The Daily 5 is how we will practice our goals.  The Daily 5 are read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, writing, and word work.  

Goal setting:  We'll also take some time this week to set our initial goals for ourselves.  What is it that we want the most by the end of second grade?  Students will brainstorm their goals and then write their goals on a smaller version of a team jersey.

Read Aloud Books:  This week's read aloud books will revolve around building classroom community.  We'll be talking about the importance of using kind words (Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes), bucket filling vs. bucket dipping (Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud), respect (The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neil), friendship (Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka) and giving (The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein). 

I hope you all have a wonderful first week of school!