Open House
It was wonderful to see so many families at Open House. The children were very excited to share their work and our classroom with you. If you were unable to attend Open House but would like your child to show you around the classroom, please let me know and we can arrange a time for you to visit. 
Parent Conferences
Included in this week's folder is a yellow sheet with details about dates and times for parent conferences. Please indicate your top choices for a time slot and return the form to school. I will fill the slots as I receive requests. If none of the times work for you, please let me know and we can arrange to meet at a different time. Reteach Sessions
All of the students in first and second grade are now participating in reteach groups. Individual letters were sent home early last week explaining your child's reteach group and the broad goals of the group. The majority of first grade students are participating in literacy focused groups this session. If you have any questions about reteach, please do not hesitate to contact me or your child's reteach teacher.Perseverance
We have expanded our learning about growth mindset and the power of yet to include positive traits that help you learn. This week I introduced the concept of perseverance to the class. We have defined perseverance as "not giving up even if it is hard." One of the ways we explored this concept was with a short video clip of "Ormie the Pig". We have also looked for and identified perseverance in read aloud books and in our classroom conversations. Next week I will be asking the students to identify times that they have demonstrated perseverance and times when they have noticed others being persistent. Literacy
During literacy time we have been working on building "Good Reading Habits" and building our reading stamina. In order to build stamina and good habits, we have had conversations about "bad reading habits" and "just right books". A "just right" book is one that you can read by yourself with accuracy and one that fits your needs. Right now we are trying to build our reading stamina so we want to read books that aren't too hard to try out new strategies and habits. The typical guideline in our room is if you don't know 5 words on the first page, then the book is probably not just right yet. I often compare reading just right books to wearing just right shoes. I wouldn't wear my son's ice skates to hike a mountain and he wouldn't wear my shoes to go swimming. Some of the popular bad habits that we are trying to replace with better habits are the "Tell Me" (asking without trying) and the "Blooper" (totally random word). When your child is reading to you, encourage good habits such as:
- Look at the letters and think about the sounds
- Look for a little word that you know in a larger word
- Look at the picture
- Think about what might make sense
As we are reading puzzling words we always ask "Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?".
