I can hardly believe the time is passing so quickly.  The last two weeks have been spent learning to work together, learning the rules of the classroom and introducing The Great Lessons.

Tomorrow begins our third week of school.  We will also begin our regular work cycle, in earnest, where we start breaking the class into smaller groups and give more individualized lessons.   This week we will also assign reading groups and the children will be selecting the books they would like to read as part of our reading curriculum.  By the end of the week, we will have completed our Great Lessons.   Whew!  Take a breath, we are just getting started.

Wednesdays will be our designated day for our Celebrations of Life.  This is a time for you to share with us photos of your child, special stories or experiences.  We ask that no treats be brought for these celebrations.  If you would like to donate a favorite book to our classroom library, in your child’s name, the gesture is always appreciated.   You can sign up for your child’s celebration at this link.

Ask your children about the Time Line of Life Research paper that is due Wednesday, Sept 4.    This is a low-key project designed to get them moving in the right direction for the home projects that are to come.

Hooray for the first day!

We all made it through the first day of school without any bumps or bruises.  We have some wrinkles to iron out but all in all, as a class, it was a success.

Just a few items of business.  First and foremost, if you came to parent orientation and we haven’t received the parent/student contract or your photo release, please return them ASAP.  They are due at the end of this week.  If you did not make it to the parent orientation, contracts and photo releases will be coming home with your students tomorrow.  They are due Friday.

As a reminder, we wear slippers in our classrooms.   We do this in order to encourage quiet feet as well as protect our environment from all the things we bring in from outside on our shoes.  In years past we have allowed students to go in stocking feet, this is no longer the case.  For safety reasons, all students are required to wear slippers inside the school.

Today your child brought home their planners for the first time.  In the next couple of weeks, these planners will contain their spelling words, work they are doing throughout the day and future due dates for assignments.  We ask that you review these planners with your children and sign them in the space provided.  Your student is responsible for returning the planner to school each day, we will be checking them for signatures as they enter our class in the morning.

Finally, this week we will continue learning each others names, learning what we may have in common with others and learning how to work together as a team.   We will also formulate a set of class rules and continue learning how to respect each other and our environment.   We will begin our math and language assessments on Wednesday and will continue this through the end of the week.

Cheers,

Ms. Amity and Ms. Kari