Our Week That Was

Classroom Updates

We hope that everyone has had an outstanding week. Our new students are doing an outstanding job learning the routines and our returning students have continued to show growth. For our newsletter this year, we will rotate between school wide, thematic content and classroom updates. This week, our content will focus upon what students have been learning during these first few weeks of school.

Keeping Up With Kindergarten

Wow! These first few weeks of Kindergarten have really flown by! We have been busy at work learning all about the classroom routines and how to use different learning tools.

In reader’s workshop we have learned different ways to read a book. We can read the pictures, read the words, or retell the story. We also have learned all about why we read and about the differences between letters, words, and sentences.

Last week we loved learning about the different math tools we will use this year. We can’t wait to use counters, snap cubes, and dice to help us learn. This week during math, we practiced counting and writing numbers 1-5. Check out our worksheets to see the catchy poems that help us remember how to form our numbers!

We are in the beginning stages of learning to write. This week we learned that super writers think about what they are going to write, draw a picture, and then label the picture. We can label pictures by listening to the sounds we hear in the word and writing them down. Before you know it we will be able to write whole stories to match our beautiful illustrations!

We even started FUNdations which is the program we use to help us learn about our letters, the sounds they make, and how to write them. We will focus on a couple of lower case letters and sight words each week. At the bottom of our blurb you will see the letters and sight words we have been working on these past weeks.

Thank you so much to all the families who have donated extra supplies to the classrooms! Your generosity is amazing and it is very much appreciated!

*~* Homework for parents *~*

Please see the “Hopes and Dreams” paper that came home today (Friday). It is a chance for you to let us know what your hopes and dreams for your child in kindergarten will be this year. Please send these back to school by Tuesday. (If you can get them to us Monday, that would be even better! Thank you!!)

Our FUNdations letters are: t, b, f

Our sight words are: I, we

Learning and Fun in Grade One!!!

The third week of school found our friends in first grade quite busy. They have been getting acclimated to our routines, rules, and their responsibilities. Our days are extremely active and filled with much learning and laughter. Your child should be tired by the end of the day, so be sure they receive enough rest.

It is a pleasure having your child in our class. We feel as though open lines of communication between the parent, student, and teachers are the key to promoting an educational climate that is conducive to learning. This year, we are looking forward to working with you and your child. Together we can make a difference! You can help us by sending well-rested children to school with a hug and a kiss still fresh on their minds. This sets the stage for a lovely day.

Please feel free to contact us at any time if there is a question or situation you would like to discuss. You will receive additional communications throughout the school year. We look forward to building a relationship with you and your child and thus providing the best education we are capable of giving. Remember, we are partners in your child’s education.

Many thanks to all the families who donated classroom supplies – it definitely comes in handy!!!

Below is our promise to you:

We promise you every day your

child will learn something.

Some days they will bring it

home in their hands.

Some days they will bring it

home in their heads,

and some days they will bring it

home in their hearts.

Looking forward to a wonderful year in first grade!! Enjoy your weekend; it promises to be a great one!!!

Whatś New in Grade Two

Happy 2019-2020 school year!

We jumped right into learning new routines, making new friends, getting acclimated to our classroom, and following expectations.

Each day we are strengthening our active listening skills and ability to follow directions quickly.

As readers, we are becoming more and more familiar with our classroom libraries, respecting materials, and using a Readerś Notebook. In addition, we are working on choosing ¨Just Right¨ books to keep in a personal book boxes. We have even written a couple book reviews. At this point, your child should be reading for 15-20 minutes each night. The more they read, the stronger they get in all content areas.

As writers, we are revisiting sentence structure, capitalization, punctuation, letter formation and spacing. In doing so, we are using our Writer's Notebooks, to write about various topics. We have been reinforcing their ability to apply prior knowledge about spelling and use their available resources around the room. It is extremely important that your second grader practice their writing, as frequently as possible.

As mathematicians, we are reviewing addition facts, combinations of 10, even and odd numbers, and comparing numbers. Also, we have started to problem solve and share different strategies for solving word problems. Continued practice of math facts will build a strong foundation as the content becomes more challenging.

As scientists, we are working on the three states of matter. We have talked about various things around us that are solids, liquids, and gases. Using foot loops, we showed our knowledge about molecules in a solid, liquid, and gas. Last Friday, we explored combining solids and liquids to make slime.

Please take a moment to ask your second grade scientist about our explorations thus far.

Thank you for everything you do at home!

We are looking forward to meeting you at Open House next Thursday!

Thrills in Third

Our student were back at work this week, with place value being our focus in Math class. As you probably know, our classes have a morning meeting each day. Please ask your child or children about C. A. R. E.. S., as we are looking to create a fun and friendly environment each day. This connects to our social studies class, as we are discussing citizenship. Students are learning about what makes a good citizen and the things that citizens do to help one another. We finished Third Grade Angels this week- please make sure to ask your child what chipmunky means.

Learning More in Grade 4

Students have settled in nicely and have adjusted well.

In Reading Workshop, we have been learning our routines, setting long-term and short-term reading goals, talking about strategies that help us focus on what we are reading, and what to do when we don’t understand what we are reading.

This week, we finished our first math chapter. It was on place value. Next week, we will start chapter two, and it will be about adding and subtracting large numbers.

In social studies, students learned about the continents and oceans, hemispheres, and lines of latitude and longitude.

We are off to a good start!

The Fabulous Five

We are very excited to have launched our Reading Workshop in grade 5! We worked on establishing our routines and expectations of what reading workshop looks and sounds like. We also reflected on our summer reading as well as sharing our most powerful reading moments. Ask your child to share with you their most powerful reading moment. Each fifth grader set goals for themselves in order to build their reading lives and to stay focused and engaged as readers. It was wonderful to hear that we did lots of reading over the summer!

In math, the students are expanding their understanding of place value to include millions and decimals through the thousandths. They are using models, such as grids and place-value charts, to represent whole numbers and decimals and to help them gain a conceptual understanding of the numbers themselves. The students are using this knowledge to compare numbers and solve problems involving whole numbers and decimals. This year, we are also focusing on mastery of our multiplication facts. As the concepts in 5th grade become more challenging, a strong foundation in basic skills and automaticity with number facts will help the students be more successful in math.

We look forward to meeting you at Winsor’s Open House on Thursday, September 19th!

Art Update

Hi Everybody,

I hope everyone is off to a terrific start! I am excited for another year of Art and Design with our students!

We tend to get very messy in Art, so please be aware of when your child has Art Class this year and encourage them to wear clothes that can get dirty on that day.

Please find updates on what projects we are working on and photos of students at work on our Art and Design at OCRS and WIlliam Winsor Facebook Page.

I have also started an instagram account called art.design.with miss burrows where I will be posting more finished and in progress artwork.

If you do not want your child to appear on the facebook page, please let me know.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me at lburrows@smithfield-ps.org.

PE & Health

Hi Everyone,

We are off to a terrific start in PE and Health for grade 5. Our theme for this year is based on the book The Coffee Bean by bestselling author Jon Gordon and Damon West. The focus in the book is a simple lesson about creating positive change in any situation. " Be a Coffee Bean" is a thought of self confidence and the belief that you have what you need inside you to succeed. We use it everyday and the kids are loving it! Kindergarten has been introduced to rules and expectations as well as locomotor skills, body and spatial awareness Grades 1 and 2 are being introduced to and or reviewing rules, skills, expectations as they continue to team build in our cooperative games unit. Grades 3-5 are starting Football 101. Students are learning the ins and outs literally of the passing tree routes as well as assignments and responsibilities of running plays as they learn to commit to running a successful play for their team. Grade 5 Health is learning about the three areas of health (Physica, Mental/Emotional and Family/Social and how BALANCE is the key to optimal wellness! We are beginning my favorite PBL (project based learning) unit Social (In)Justice. Social and Emotional health is crucial to a person's development and our students will be reading a book called in ELA called Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. They also will be starting a campaign in Art class and a project/event in Health. PBL is about collaboration with other subjects and our students working together for hands on projects. I'm truly looking forward to doing BIG things this year! Have a great weekend!

Volunteer Information

It always makes our students and staff happy when our families volunteer to attend field trips and attend special events. To make this process easy, we ask that all potential volunteers take two steps: complete an annual BCI check and attend a VIP training. The BCI check process is found here:

http://winsor.smithfield-ps.org/o/smithfield-public-schools/page/school-volunteer-bci

Please check your records as BCI checks need to be updated on an annual basis.

Also, please consider attending our next VIP training, scheduled right before Open House begins:

Thursday, September 19th at 5:15pm at Winsor. Please contact the school for more information.

Thank you and have an outstanding weekend.