Good Morning,
I hope you all had a great weekend. It certainly felt like it flew by. Today, we started our formal spelling and reading time. I used today's reading time to check in with kids on their choices and to make sure they understood the expectations. Tomorrow, I will start meeting with groups and individuals. For my beginning readers, they will often have a book that they can read to you and then one that they would like read to them. Please make sure they read each night.
1st Grade Math Homework: Today marks the start of 1st grade math homework. Your child will have a sheet of flash cards in their homework bag. Please watch the below video before starting the
.
work. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Notes:
*I have a district meeting on Thursday afternoon. I will be out of the room from 1:00-2:15. The students have two specials during this time, so they won't be missing much instruction at all.
I hope you all have a great week.
Peace,
Tommy
September 28, 2015
September 25, 2015
September 25, 2015
Good Evening,
We had a great hike today. The students all did a great job and there were certainly a lot of smiles. laughter, and great stories. We certainly had a beautiful day for the event. This week's all school read-a-loud also occurred with much enthusiasm and success. I love the way our school's older students work with the younger ones and the way the younger students look up to the older students.
I want to thank everyone who was able to attend the open house. If you weren't able to attend, feel free to stop by the classroom (with your child) anytime.
Notes:
*Since we were gone all afternoon, the students did not have a chance to write in their Weekly News. Therefore, they didn't bring it home this weekend. There was also no reading sent home today either.
Below is this week's video.
I hope you have a great weekend.
Peace,
Tommy
We had a great hike today. The students all did a great job and there were certainly a lot of smiles. laughter, and great stories. We certainly had a beautiful day for the event. This week's all school read-a-loud also occurred with much enthusiasm and success. I love the way our school's older students work with the younger ones and the way the younger students look up to the older students.
I want to thank everyone who was able to attend the open house. If you weren't able to attend, feel free to stop by the classroom (with your child) anytime.
Notes:
*Since we were gone all afternoon, the students did not have a chance to write in their Weekly News. Therefore, they didn't bring it home this weekend. There was also no reading sent home today either.
Below is this week's video.
I hope you have a great weekend.
Peace,
Tommy
September 21, 2015
September 21, 2015
Good Morning,
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It was nice to have great weather and be able to enjoy the outdoors.
We have a lot of events going on at the Waitsfield School this week. On Wednesday, the school will gather at 1:45 to participate in another session of the all school read a loud. The students will be mixed up in k-6 grade groups and work with two teachers as they read and discuss a story. Wren came in last week to help the school kick off the event. On Thursday, we will have our school's Open House. It will start at 5:30 and end at 6:30. Open house is meant to be an opportunity for your child to show you their school and classroom. They will have a variety of things that they will want to show you. I will be in the room and look forward to conversing to each of you. However, I want to keep the focus on the students celebrating their excitement and giving them the opportunity to communicate with you. On Friday, we will be eating lunch at 11:10. The whole school will be going on a hike at 12:15. We will be hiking near American Flatbread area. We will be back at school by 2:25. Please dress accordingly and bring a water bottle.
I hope you have a great week.
Tommy
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It was nice to have great weather and be able to enjoy the outdoors.
We have a lot of events going on at the Waitsfield School this week. On Wednesday, the school will gather at 1:45 to participate in another session of the all school read a loud. The students will be mixed up in k-6 grade groups and work with two teachers as they read and discuss a story. Wren came in last week to help the school kick off the event. On Thursday, we will have our school's Open House. It will start at 5:30 and end at 6:30. Open house is meant to be an opportunity for your child to show you their school and classroom. They will have a variety of things that they will want to show you. I will be in the room and look forward to conversing to each of you. However, I want to keep the focus on the students celebrating their excitement and giving them the opportunity to communicate with you. On Friday, we will be eating lunch at 11:10. The whole school will be going on a hike at 12:15. We will be hiking near American Flatbread area. We will be back at school by 2:25. Please dress accordingly and bring a water bottle.
I hope you have a great week.
Tommy
September 18, 2015
September 18, 2015
Good Morning,
We have had another great week. This week the students each wrote their first small moment story. I can;t wait to read them over the weekend. We also introduced our sight word routine and each child has their own set of sight words that they are learning to spell. For some of the 1st graders, they have some easier words to start, to allow them to get use to the routine and have immediate success. The students will work on their sight words for 50 minutes a week. This will happen from 7:40-7:50 each morning. They have a variety of kinesthetic ways to practice and learn their words. If your child is late for school, they will be missing out on this opportunity to learn and it will put them at a disadvantage with their peers. Please help your child reach their potential by arriving prior to 7:40. As a reminder, the doors open at 7:30.
Below is a picture of the Strength Quilt that the students made this past week. Each quilt square
represents an identified strength of each student. The idea is that we each have strengths and we put our strengths together we can create a beautiful piece.
Here is the video for Week 4.
Notes:
*Your child has their Weekly News in their homework bag. Please read it, respond, and send it back on Monday.
*We will have our Open House next Thursday from 5:30-6:30. I hope to see you all that evening.
*We are projected to have our first school wide Behavior Celebration next Friday. If we earn enough rocks, we will be hiking next Friday afternoon.
*Today we had to have our mandatory "School Lock Down" drill. This is where we teach the students what would happen of we needed to lock the school down to keep everyone safe. In this case, I had the class all sit in a protected corner of the room and read them a book. Please check in with your child about the drill.
Have a great week.
Peace,
Tommy
We have had another great week. This week the students each wrote their first small moment story. I can;t wait to read them over the weekend. We also introduced our sight word routine and each child has their own set of sight words that they are learning to spell. For some of the 1st graders, they have some easier words to start, to allow them to get use to the routine and have immediate success. The students will work on their sight words for 50 minutes a week. This will happen from 7:40-7:50 each morning. They have a variety of kinesthetic ways to practice and learn their words. If your child is late for school, they will be missing out on this opportunity to learn and it will put them at a disadvantage with their peers. Please help your child reach their potential by arriving prior to 7:40. As a reminder, the doors open at 7:30.
Below is a picture of the Strength Quilt that the students made this past week. Each quilt square
represents an identified strength of each student. The idea is that we each have strengths and we put our strengths together we can create a beautiful piece.
Here is the video for Week 4.
Notes:
*Your child has their Weekly News in their homework bag. Please read it, respond, and send it back on Monday.
*We will have our Open House next Thursday from 5:30-6:30. I hope to see you all that evening.
*We are projected to have our first school wide Behavior Celebration next Friday. If we earn enough rocks, we will be hiking next Friday afternoon.
*Today we had to have our mandatory "School Lock Down" drill. This is where we teach the students what would happen of we needed to lock the school down to keep everyone safe. In this case, I had the class all sit in a protected corner of the room and read them a book. Please check in with your child about the drill.
Have a great week.
Peace,
Tommy
September 15, 2015
September 15, 2015
Good Morning,
I was not in school yesterday because I had a sick child at home. My wife and I alternate days and yesterday I was "up to bat." Yesterday the kids took their pre-assessment on our first science unit, Earth, Moon, and Sun. This is always a fun unit and I look forward to jumping right in.
Today, I read the story Night of the Veggie Monster by George McClements. This is our first anchor book for our writing program. We will start the year by learning to write small moment stories by taking a small moment and exploding it with detail and elaboration.
Notes:
*I am at a state meeting tomorrow. I will be in the building until 8:00. Please see Friday's post for details about this meeting.
*On Wednesday, we will have an all school assembly at 1:50 tomorrow afternoon. This will serve as a kickoff event for our all school read-a-loud. Over the next several weeks, we will combined kids from each grade and have an all school read-a-loud.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace,
Tommy
I was not in school yesterday because I had a sick child at home. My wife and I alternate days and yesterday I was "up to bat." Yesterday the kids took their pre-assessment on our first science unit, Earth, Moon, and Sun. This is always a fun unit and I look forward to jumping right in.
Today, I read the story Night of the Veggie Monster by George McClements. This is our first anchor book for our writing program. We will start the year by learning to write small moment stories by taking a small moment and exploding it with detail and elaboration.
Notes:
*I am at a state meeting tomorrow. I will be in the building until 8:00. Please see Friday's post for details about this meeting.
*On Wednesday, we will have an all school assembly at 1:50 tomorrow afternoon. This will serve as a kickoff event for our all school read-a-loud. Over the next several weeks, we will combined kids from each grade and have an all school read-a-loud.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace,
Tommy
September 11, 2015
September 11, 2015
Good Morning,
I hope you have all had a great week. As we wrap up week three, I am both pleased and excited with what the group has accomplished and the routines they have already mastered. On Wednesday, we officially started our writing times. We talked about why writers write and discussed the concept of spelling in their work. I stressed that spelling is important but that I don't expect them to already know how to spell each word they use. I showed them how to sound out a word and then circle it and move on. By circling the word, they are indicating that they tried their best but don't think it is spelled correctly. This eliminates the issue of students getting hung up and not producing writing pieces.
Today I introduced a game called silent dodgeball. It is a fun game that has become a tradition in my classroom. We play this game every Friday during our morning meeting. I spent some time talking about wanting to win and how to handle if you don't. We also talked about respecting the game and the rules that come with it. I then related the conversation to the kids playing soccer this weekend. How can they respect the game and make sure that they are enjoying the experience of the game. I explained that it is absolutely ok to want to win but to also know how to handle when things don't go the way they planned (hence the Respecting the Game). I told the kids they could email me and let me know about their soccer experience over the weekend. The point of these conversations are much bigger than the specific examples themselves and will continue to be part of our discussion as we learn to work with others.
Below is today's video. I hope you enjoy.
Notes:
*I will be out of the building on Wednesday. Last spring the Governor appointed me to the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators. We have a monthly meeting and October's meeting is next week.
*Please have your child in the classroom by 7:40. Now that the year is well on its way and the students all seem comfortable with the transition back to school, I ask that you make this a focus. Once October hits, the students will be working on spelling words from 7:40-7:50 each day. This amounts to 50 minutes of work a week. If your child misses this or is late each day, it puts them at a disadvantage with their peers. I appreciate your support and focus with getting your child to school on time.
*Homework bags. Please make sure that your child brings back their homework bag and reading book each day. I can;t send home a new book unless both come back.
*WEEKLY NEWS: Today your child has their Weekly News journal in the homework bag. We will write in these journals every Friday. The focus in learning to write a letter, a paragraph, detail and elaboration and/or sentence structure. It allows kids to write at their level and for each student to work on different skills. The entry will always focus on something about each child's week at school. Your job will be to read the letter and respond back. We will share the responses at Monday Morning Meetings. When you respond, just write on the side of the column or top or bottom of each page. Please make sure these journals come back each week.
That is all for now. I hope you have a great weekend.
Peace,
Tommy
I hope you have all had a great week. As we wrap up week three, I am both pleased and excited with what the group has accomplished and the routines they have already mastered. On Wednesday, we officially started our writing times. We talked about why writers write and discussed the concept of spelling in their work. I stressed that spelling is important but that I don't expect them to already know how to spell each word they use. I showed them how to sound out a word and then circle it and move on. By circling the word, they are indicating that they tried their best but don't think it is spelled correctly. This eliminates the issue of students getting hung up and not producing writing pieces.
Today I introduced a game called silent dodgeball. It is a fun game that has become a tradition in my classroom. We play this game every Friday during our morning meeting. I spent some time talking about wanting to win and how to handle if you don't. We also talked about respecting the game and the rules that come with it. I then related the conversation to the kids playing soccer this weekend. How can they respect the game and make sure that they are enjoying the experience of the game. I explained that it is absolutely ok to want to win but to also know how to handle when things don't go the way they planned (hence the Respecting the Game). I told the kids they could email me and let me know about their soccer experience over the weekend. The point of these conversations are much bigger than the specific examples themselves and will continue to be part of our discussion as we learn to work with others.
Below is today's video. I hope you enjoy.
Notes:
*I will be out of the building on Wednesday. Last spring the Governor appointed me to the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators. We have a monthly meeting and October's meeting is next week.
*Please have your child in the classroom by 7:40. Now that the year is well on its way and the students all seem comfortable with the transition back to school, I ask that you make this a focus. Once October hits, the students will be working on spelling words from 7:40-7:50 each day. This amounts to 50 minutes of work a week. If your child misses this or is late each day, it puts them at a disadvantage with their peers. I appreciate your support and focus with getting your child to school on time.
*Homework bags. Please make sure that your child brings back their homework bag and reading book each day. I can;t send home a new book unless both come back.
*WEEKLY NEWS: Today your child has their Weekly News journal in the homework bag. We will write in these journals every Friday. The focus in learning to write a letter, a paragraph, detail and elaboration and/or sentence structure. It allows kids to write at their level and for each student to work on different skills. The entry will always focus on something about each child's week at school. Your job will be to read the letter and respond back. We will share the responses at Monday Morning Meetings. When you respond, just write on the side of the column or top or bottom of each page. Please make sure these journals come back each week.
That is all for now. I hope you have a great weekend.
Peace,
Tommy
September 8, 2015
September 8, 2015
Good Afternoon,
I hope you had a great weekend. I certainly enjoyed the time with my family and meeting up with friends at a few social events. Today the students finished illustrating the class rules. They will bring these illustrations home tonight. It would be a great piece to use as you engage your child about their day. There is also a video linked below to explain how we created our classroom rules.
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The class also started a quilt (out of paper) project today. The idea behind the quilt that each student will create a quilt square that will represent an individual strength of their own. The squares will then be adhered into one large class quilt. The quilt represents the power of our collective effort as well as a reminder of individual competencies. I will post a picture of the quilt once it is complete.
Notes:
*Bus safety assembly on Wednesday.
*School pictures on Thursday
I hope you have a great week.
Tommy
I hope you had a great weekend. I certainly enjoyed the time with my family and meeting up with friends at a few social events. Today the students finished illustrating the class rules. They will bring these illustrations home tonight. It would be a great piece to use as you engage your child about their day. There is also a video linked below to explain how we created our classroom rules.
<
The class also started a quilt (out of paper) project today. The idea behind the quilt that each student will create a quilt square that will represent an individual strength of their own. The squares will then be adhered into one large class quilt. The quilt represents the power of our collective effort as well as a reminder of individual competencies. I will post a picture of the quilt once it is complete.
Notes:
*Bus safety assembly on Wednesday.
*School pictures on Thursday
I hope you have a great week.
Tommy
September 4, 2015
September 4, 2015
Good Morning,
We had a great second week of school. This week the students each developed, illustrated, and shared their hopes and dreams for the year. Their hopes and dreams are their goals for the year. These were then used to create the classroom "rules" through a collaborative discussion. The students were asked to think about things that they would need in place in order to accomplish their goals. The original list had 19 rule suggestions. Lydia suggested that we look for similar ones and consolidate the list. Our final list is now has 5 rules. We will call our rules "Our Be-s." All of the rules start with the word "Be." The students worked on illustrating these rules and they will bring them home next week.
We continued playing both outdoor group games and indoor small group games this week. The focus of the big group games is to learn to work together, participate, and being a good-sport through fair play. I am focusing on everyone joining a game, participating and modeling how to converse with peers. After each game we reflect, as a group, on how the game went and what made it successful. The small group games allow similar opportunities but also allow me to give direct feedback on game play and how each student treats their peers. I will continue to use these choices to help teach and reinforce the social curriculum goals.
This week the students also worked on the skill of Read to Self. This is a component of the Daily 5 program that I use for language arts. It is not a curriculum but rather a structure that allows students the opportunity to choose components of their daily learning. To learn more about this, visit this link. The class also started science this week. To start, we will focus on what a science notebook is and how can it be a learning tool and what scientists do.
Below is the video of the week:
Notes:
*We have school photos on Thursday.
*There will be a bus safety assembly on Wednesday morning.
*Please have your child wear sneakers to school on PE days (Mondays and Thursdays)
I hope you have a great weekend.
Peace,
Tommy
We had a great second week of school. This week the students each developed, illustrated, and shared their hopes and dreams for the year. Their hopes and dreams are their goals for the year. These were then used to create the classroom "rules" through a collaborative discussion. The students were asked to think about things that they would need in place in order to accomplish their goals. The original list had 19 rule suggestions. Lydia suggested that we look for similar ones and consolidate the list. Our final list is now has 5 rules. We will call our rules "Our Be-s." All of the rules start with the word "Be." The students worked on illustrating these rules and they will bring them home next week.
We continued playing both outdoor group games and indoor small group games this week. The focus of the big group games is to learn to work together, participate, and being a good-sport through fair play. I am focusing on everyone joining a game, participating and modeling how to converse with peers. After each game we reflect, as a group, on how the game went and what made it successful. The small group games allow similar opportunities but also allow me to give direct feedback on game play and how each student treats their peers. I will continue to use these choices to help teach and reinforce the social curriculum goals.
This week the students also worked on the skill of Read to Self. This is a component of the Daily 5 program that I use for language arts. It is not a curriculum but rather a structure that allows students the opportunity to choose components of their daily learning. To learn more about this, visit this link. The class also started science this week. To start, we will focus on what a science notebook is and how can it be a learning tool and what scientists do.
Below is the video of the week:
Notes:
*We have school photos on Thursday.
*There will be a bus safety assembly on Wednesday morning.
*Please have your child wear sneakers to school on PE days (Mondays and Thursdays)
I hope you have a great weekend.
Peace,
Tommy
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