First Week ✅

Ask Your Child About...

1) Their "All About Me" poster. The directions are clipped to the poster in their Friday folder. Please return this to me by the end of the next week. We will be sharing them and hanging them in our classroom for Back to School Night. Thank you for helping us with this- it will be so wonderful to see your photographs!

2) Working with a partner during math time to play "Collect 10"/"Racing Bears"/"Number Line Frogger" game. They did very well! These math activities reinforced counting, adding, and one-to-one correspondence. It also required cooperation! 🙂

3) Writing numbers at various number stations set up around the room (numbers cards and white boards, number templates, and so on). You should have seen some number writing sheets coming home throughout the week.

4) The number rhymes we are learning to help with number writing! We are practicing good habits such as starting numbers and letters from the top, and using curves and sticks to form our numbers and letters.

5) Our expectations and how they connect to honesty, caring, respect, and responsibility - Lincoln Lions ROAR! 🦁

6) The fire and tornado drills today! The children were EXCELLENT! 👌

7) Playing the game "Fill the Hexagons" during math time. The children used a tub of pattern blocks and a dice with various shapes on it (trapezoid, rhombus, triangle, and hexagon). The children rolled the dice, took the appropriate shape from the tub, and figured out how the shapes could fit together to create hexagons. The goal was to fill all six hexagons. They loved the game and are getting really good at the shape terminology!

Wow!

It has been a wonderful week at school! We continue to talk about what different times of the day (i.e. group time, work time, clean up time, lining up, etc.) should look like, feel like, and sound like.  The children are getting more and more accustomed to the many new routines and are developing the sense of community that is so important to having a happy school and classroom. 💕

Ask your child about GoNoodle!

As I read big books and other stories with the children, I am continuing to introduce/ demonstrate strategies good readers use naturally as they read every day. These are great strategies for you to try at home as well! Some of these strategies include: 1) Previewing a book and doing a "picture walk" prior to reading a story. This allows the reader to get a feel for the story, make predictions, and anticipate some of the vocabulary within the story. 2) Reading fluently, so our reading sounds like "talking". 3) Thinking as we read. This involves stopping to ask questions, clarify, make predictions, and connect to other books or our lives. Good readers see reading as an interactive experience and I will be continually reinforcing this! 4) Retelling and summarizing what we have read. There are many ways to do this, and I will be sharing different ways throughout the year (flannel pieces for retelling, dramatizing a story, filling out a story map, answering questions about plot relationships, characters, events, and so on).

This week was the start of our library visits. Your child should have shared two books with you and will continue to bring two books home each week as long as they bring the old ones back! 📚 We will have book check-out on TUESDAYS.  Thank you for helping your child return their library books each and every week before or on Tuesday. Mrs. Locher will help your child choose a book based on interest, which would be great for a read aloud or shared reading time at home.

Each week we have a special time with Mrs. Johnson's 4th grade class. This time is called Buddies. 🤝During this time our older friends will help us read books and help with various activities. Here is a picture from our time with them today!

Thank you for returning your Friday Folders! 🦁 Continue to check each Friday for important information and send back any requests on Monday. I collect these folders every Monday from your child and fill them through the week as I get information, then place them in their back pack to be sent home on Fridays. Please do your best to help your child remember to check for their Friday folder and keep it in good shape all year long!

I am so enjoying getting to know your children. 😊 What a WONDERFUL group of learners!  Thanks so much for all you are doing to help get your child off to a great start! Stay cool and enjoy your weekend!  By the way, your children are EXHAUSTED!  😴 You may find the need to move bedtime to an earlier time while the children are getting accustomed to the new routine and schedule.  We are very busy at school! Thank you for your help with this! 🙂

*I will post to this blog each week on Friday afternoons to let you know what we have been up to throughout the week. I will also try to include a couple of picture from the week just for fun! If you prefer a paper newsletter to be sent home each week please let me know and I will be sure to get that sent home in your child's Friday folder.

Please let me know if you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns! You can always contact me through the school phone or my email! grady.allison@iowacityschools.org 🦁