We had a great time on the field trip today! A huge shout-out to our parents, grandparents and other guardians that were able to drive and chaperone the students. They loved it! The performance did get started a little late and lasted longer than expected, including me being stuck in the parking lot at the Browning Center and arriving back to school later than most of you. I apologize for the inconvenience and any concern of where your child was at at the end of the day. Your child was a good hands at the office and we are so grateful for their help. Thank you again for helping us give our students out-of-the-classroom experiences. We couldn’t do it without you!
This week we settled into another part of our classroom organization: daily work plans. Your student will continue to have their weekly work charts where they record their lessons and follow-ups so they know what they need to complete during the week and now we are working with each child individually in the morning to plan their day so that follow-up work isn’t falling through the cracks and we are better able to assist with their workflow. For our second- and third-graders, we are following an identical format to their daily work plans from last year. Our first-graders are quickly catching on and I’ve been so pleased and impressed with how much more engaged they have all been with their work.
The favorite lesson of the week was our look at the Precambrian Era. We watched a video from National Geographic about the earliest of earth’s eons and the children enjoyed it so much that we watched it again at the end of the day. Some of them requested the link so they can watch at home. You can find the video here. It’s fun and very brief, and don’t worry, we had a discussion about how the music is definitely not authentic to the time period. We also enjoyed learning about calendars from other cultures, animal phylum and fractions!
Spelling groups will start this coming week! I do not plan to send the spelling list home as spelling activities will be part of our classroom work, but if you would like to receive the list, I can send a copy home with your student for extra practice.
Our DIBELS assessments will be completed this week, so we should be able to start reading groups in the next few weeks. I have some parent volunteers to help with reading groups, but if you didn’t see that sign-up sheet and would like to be involved, please let me know!