Attitude of Gratitude!

In the spirit of the holiday season (which, ready or not, is upon us!), and in an effort to focus on reasons we are truly fortunate, Room 10 is starting a project that will take place from now until we leave for the holiday break.  Introducing..... ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE!

It is true that many first graders by nature tend to be pretty upbeat, optimistic little beings.  That said, I do know that recognizing and celebrating all that we are grateful for promotes greater optimism, feelings of well-being for self and others, and quite simply a greater appreciation about what we can all learn from our peers, teachers, families and community members.   I'm hopeful that it will also bring us closer to the true spirit of the holiday season - giving from the heart in a way that is impactful to others and ultimately ourselves.

This week, we are kicking off our ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE project.  I will begin, of course, by facilitating a discussion about what gratitude means.  Then, each day we will take time to recognize and celebrate the many ways we feel grateful.  I suspect these will take the form of small, but important, gestures of kindness between friends and teachers, as well as things, actions, people, animals, places, etc., that make us happy and feel thankful.  We will see where our attitudes of gratitude take us!

We will be be creating a bulletin board with an ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE tree to display our ideas.  We will also have a special ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE jar setup in the classroom, with small slips of paper, for children to share how they are feeling grateful.  These will be shared every day or so.

The holiday season is often a busy time, and one filled with the pleasures of gifts, parties, food and holiday cheer.  I'm hoping that our ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE project helps to bring a greater awareness of how truly fortunate and blessed we all are.  It will be exciting to see what ideas and notions pop up for all of us in the days ahead.

Wishing everyone a joyful and gratitude-filled holiday season!

Kathy Ravinski

... Look for a home-school family gratitude project by the end of the week.  With an eye on what a busy time of year this is, I promise it will be simple!

Fall Garden Clean Up Day!

We worked hard last week, while the weather was still warm, to clean up and put the garden to bed until spring.  The children pulled weeds and old plants, gathered planter markers and signs, discovered some lingering carrots and coiled up the hose for winter storage.  Many thanks to Mrs. Crocker for her helping hands.  It was a job well done by all!

October Highlights

Room 10 is definitely in full swing, and Halloween is quickly becoming the topic of choice during free time!  More information will be coming soon about Halloween festivities, but for now know that a Halloween parade has been planned for 9:30 AM on Friday, October 30, and our classroom party will take place at 1:30 PM that same afternoon.

A few highlights of what we've been working on as of late...

• The children are beginning to meet with me at the reading table during our  "literacy center" block.  This is a time when they read “just right” books with a small group of children who are at a similar reading level.  It is a great way to differentiate and provide instruction based on the varied needs of the children in my room.  Among the MANY reading / phonics skills and strategies the children are learning about, one is reading fluency.  This is when a reader reads smoothly and with an even tone of voice.  The children are working to read like a “river” (with flow and fluency) and not like a “robot” (word by word).  This takes time and practice for some children, so don’t be worried if your child isn’t doing it right away.  Like many of the skills we’re learning this year, this part of reading doesn’t happen overnight.

• Another important focus area will be teaching the children how to retell a story in their own words after they’ve read it.  This skill also will take LOTS of practice.  Over the next few months we will work on retelling skills:  recalling and orally retelling the characters, setting and the main events of a given story or text.  

• During our daily "word study" time, the children are learning a wide range of phonics skills.  We have been reviewing / practicing all consonant and short vowel sounds (as in the words had, dig, got, bed, and hug).  We are building words with magnetic tiles, writing sentences with an eye on uppercase letters at the beginning and punctuation at the end.  We are learning about "trick words", also known as "sight words" (or high frequency words).  These are words the children will encounter often as they read/spell.  While they are learning how to segment/blend words that are phonetically regular by using a "finger tapping" strategy, they are also learning that "trick words" often don't look the way they sound so therefore they can not be sounded out.  They must be recalled and mastered by sight.  All of these skills will be practiced and reinforced many times throughout the year.  

• Our home reading program will start very soon.  Look for more information about BOOKTIME and the best ways you can support your first grade reader at home when he/she brings a book envelope home with "just right" books.

• I hope you and our child have enjoyed the first couple of weeks of Poem Notebooks.  Please try to send your child's notebook back to school on Thursdays as we use them often.  If you need to keep the notebook another night or two, just let me know.  The number of poems will continue to increase as the year moves along.  Some children like to read all of the poems each week.  Others prefer to pick and choose some of their favorites.  Either way, try to read for at least 10 minutes (or more) on Poem Notebook nights.

• Our writer’s workshop block is a favorite time in our day.  The children are learning that writers think first, then picture a story in their mind, and after that put their ideas into words one part at a time.  Learning how to stretch an idea across several pages and include key details takes lots of practice.   Of course, the children are also working hard on spelling, spacing, punctuation and organization.  This is a tall task indeed, but one that they are tackling with enthusiasm and persistence. 

• During our math block, the children have been working hard to solve addition / subtraction problems presented via a range of math story "types".  The children are learning how to use Part/Part/Whole visual tools to help them solve given problems.  Problems are presented in ways that ask children to determine what information is already known, and what they need to find out.  My goal is to create a separate math page on this blog so I can more specifically communicate what we are working on.  More on that soon!  

• You may have found that some of the math pages that come home are not fully complete and may have unfinished problems.  Our new math program offers a bounty of math practice pages, and I pick / choose which ones I feel will best meet the expectations in a given lesson.  I want to leave time for children to practice the math concepts with age-appropriate, hands-on games, rather than always tackling the task in a worksheet.  I'm working to strike a balance between the two.  Please feel free to finish any unfinished math problems at home with your child.  

Please always let me know if you have any questions about anything happening here in Room 10.  It has been a great start to the year and there's lots more learning, news and fun to come!

10 Days in Room 10!

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at Parent Information Night on Monday.  This photo gives you a sneak peak at one project we worked on this week.  When presented with the question - WHAT KIND OF PLACE DO WE WANT ROOM TO BE? - this is what we all came up with.  We have lots more to explore and learn in the days ahead!

Additional Room 10 Tidbits...

• Each week, Room 10 will have a special Kid of the Week.  This child gets to be our line leader, to decide the morning greeting, and to bring one special possession to school to share on the first morning of his/her special week.  The child will tell why he/she brought this item and why it is special.  The other children in the class will then have an opportunity to ask questions and make comments about the share.  When it is your child’s turn, please help him/her choose something other than a toy.  It could be a photograph, a favorite book, a letter or postcard from someone special, an item from a collection, a scientific experiment, an award, a drawing, etc.  Please know that it is perfectly fine if your child would rather not bring in an item to share.  Each Friday, we will draw the name of the next Student of the Week so the child can be prepared to share on Monday if he/she chooses.  A note will go home when your child is chosen.

• Each child will need an art smock for the year.  Old t-shirts, or men’s or women’s collared, button down shirts work well.  Obviously, the shirts can be old and worn as they will be used for art projects.  Please send in a smock as soon as possible. 

 

• A formal schedule of homework won't begin for a few more weeks, but rest assured that information will be forthcoming. The children are already asking!

You may find your first grader quite tired (and hungry) after school.  This is very normal for the first few weeks.  Our days are busy and the children are taking in a lot of new information each day.  We will all settle in slowly but surely.  Please be in touch at anytime with questions you may have.

Two days and counting!

Well, we made it through our first two days of first grade in great shape.  The children are doing a terrific job with all of the new routines that they are learning.  Thank you for sending your children to school so well prepared.  And thank you also for your generous donation of supplies for our year together.  They are appreciated!  

Included in this post is some general information about our class and school.  Please be sure to read the other Memorial School notices sent home by the office (or check the school’s website – www.medfield.net) for lots more detailed information about schedules and procedures.  It is particularly important that you read information regarding the arrival and dismissal of your child.  If you ever make arrangements for your child to be dismissed from school via another form of transportation, other than his/her scheduled bus or MAP routine, please be sure to write a note to me on that day.  In the case of different arrival plans, please be sure to check in at the office before coming down to the classroom.  All of this will make coming and going to Memorial much easier for the children, the office and for me.  

I will pay particular attention during the first few weeks of school as the children grow accustomed to their new routine and make sure they arrive and depart safely.  The children will be instructed to return to the classroom or the office after dismissal if they ever have a question or concern about how they are getting home.  I want them to always feel that they have a safe place to return to if they are confused.  Of course, the Memorial staff as a whole is experienced at making sure this process runs smoothly.

Please be sure to check your child’s backpack each day to help keep track of books, notices and papers.  I will send more detailed information about home assignments and/or projects as I introduce them to the children.

Your child received a Home/School folder this week.  These folders are intended to help the children get important notes, papers and notices back and forth from school.  If you have a note for me, please put it in your child’s Home/School folder.  Your child will bring the folder back and forth to school every day so that new materials or information come to me or to you on a daily basis.  Thank you for helping your child to remember to bring it to school daily.

The children will have time for snack each morning.  One note about food at school, the children are told that we never share food with our friends.  This is a rule in the classroom, the cafeteria and at other special occasions such as field trips.

As parents, your input and participation will be very important to the success of our program this year.  I will let you know about the different ways that you can get involved in the classroom if you’d like to do so.  I will have sign-up sheets at Parent Information Night on Monday, September 21 if you would like to volunteer in the classroom this year.  Please keep in mind that I do not get my volunteers up and running until I feel that the children and I have had enough time to establish strong classroom routines and have begun to come together as a cohesive learning community.  This “settling in” period is a big priority for me because it is so important for the children to feel secure and confident with their new classroom, peers and teacher.  I tend to get volunteers started towards the end of October or early November.  I will give you a more definitive timeframe after a few weeks have passed.

If you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of the school or classroom, you may reach me at Memorial by phone or by sending a note to school with your child.  I can also be reached via email at kravinski@email.medfield.net, which I check several times throughout the day.  

I am very excited to teach and learn with your children this year, and look forward to getting to know them well as our days unfold!

Welcome to Room 10!

Dear First Grade Families,

Greetings from the Memorial School!  I am writing to welcome you to our classroom and provide some initial information to help get us started this year.

This is the first of many informational letters / posts.  Please stay tuned for lots more information as our year gets underway.  Many children wonder about the kinds of things they need to bring with them on the first day of school.  To start, a small snack (including a drink) for the morning and a backpack are “must-have” items each day.  You should have already received information detailing the supplies that each first grader should bring at the start of school.  These supplies will be used as needed by everyone. 

With the help of the lunch staff, we will spend time getting the children accustomed to (or reacquainted with) the daily lunch routine  -  how to line up, where to sit, what kinds of food they can buy, and how to go about paying for it.  For those of you new to the lunch program, the cost is $2.50 to purchase school lunch, which includes milk or water.  Milk can also be purchased separately for $.50.  If you r child is paying with cash, he/she will need a change purse of some kind (even a ziploc bag), labeled with his/her name on it, to keep the money safe and in one place.  Our class will have lunch at 12:15 each day, followed by recess.

If you would like to make the lunch buying process easier, you can sign up for the online payment system My School Bucks to prepay.  Information for the My School Bucks program can be found on the district website, or by clicking on this link...  My School Bucks

Our classroom schedule for the year will vary slightly from day to day.  The children will, however, have special instruction in specific areas on a set schedule as outlined below. 

Monday                     Physical Education

Tuesday                     Music

Wednesday              Physical Education

Thursday                    Library / Health (alternating weeks)

Friday                         Art

The first few days of first grade will be full of many new and exciting things to learn.  We will work together to make sure everyone settles in, knows where things are and what our days will be like.  I will help the children find their seats, coat hooks, cubbies and mailboxes.  We will take lots of time to adjust to our new room, schedule, friends and activities.  Our classroom is in Room 10.  When children come off the buses on the first day of school they will simply walk straight down the hall in front of them.  They will find me in the last classroom on the right.  There will be lots of adults helping to direct children the first few mornings so that everyone finds their way.  No worries!

Enjoy these last days of summer.  I hope you’re as excited as I am to meet and learn about the many friends we’ll make together in first grade.  I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday, September 2!

Kathy Ravinski

Year End Open House - Thank you!

Many thanks to all the families who joined us today for our year-end Open House.  The children LOVED sharing their classroom with you, and all the work they've been doing.  It was a very happy occasion indeed!

Here is a link to our US Symbols Inquiry project.  Enjoy!

US Symbols Presentation 2015

Our First Harvest!

This week our Room 10 farmers finally had a chance to reap what they sowed!  We harvested our first radishes - Cherry Belle, Sparkler and White Icicle (not to be misidentified as a white carrot)!  Everyone had a taste, and we're happy to report that most of us enjoyed the spicy little gems!  We hope you enjoyed the one radish we were able to send home.  Next up, salad day.  Stay tuned!

P.S. Thanks for all the watering help on the weekends!

We've come a long way!

Check out where we've been and how far we've come.  Yay spring!  Our first harvest pics coming soon!

Sowing Our First Seeds!

It's been a busy week in Room 10!  Monday we kicked off our planting, managing to get over 20 types of seeds into the garden.  Many thanks to the parents who were able to join us and lend a helping hand.  Our garden teams worked very hard and the day couldn't have been more perfect weather-wise.  We definitely push the limits of Mother Nature this time of year, but our garden is in a very sunny spot so we will keep our fingers crossed and patiently await our little seedlings!  Happy spring everyone!

Opening Day!

I suspect your first grader has reported our exciting news!  Mr. Ravinski and I made a last minute decision over the weekend to take spring by the ears and get the garden ready for planting.  The children and I made quick work out of our morning routine and headed out with spades in hand to get things started.  Mr. Ravinski managed the rototiller for us, and the children all had a hand in putting the new salt marsh hay down for our garden path.  More information will be coming soon about our plans for planting!   Yay for spring!

Celebrating Dr. Seuss

and Read Across America!

As many of you may know, the famous author Dr. Seuss was born on March 2, 1904.  We will celebrate his birthday with a special “Read Across America” celebration this week.  Some special activities are outlined below:

Tuesday, March 3	Kick-Off Assembly for Read Across America
Wednesday, March 4	Community Readers:  We will be visited by someone from the community who will read us a Dr. Seuss book.  It is a mystery at the moment!
Thursday, March 5	Crazy (Fox in Socks) Sock Day!
Friday, March 6	The Cat in the Hat will pay a visit as children arrive at school. It will also be “red and white” day at school.  Dress in red and white colors to celebrate Dr. Seuss and one of his most beloved characters the Cat in the Hat!

The children are also invited to bring in their own Dr. Seuss books to share with the class as we celebrate this famous author and our love of reading.  Please be sure your name is written inside the books so that they can be returned to you when we are done. 

April brings even more reading fun!  Our celebration of reading continues on April 7and 8 when local author David Biedrzycki visits Memorial.  Look for an order form in an upcoming Thursday packet to order a David Biedrzycki book that will be personally signed by Mr. Biedrzycki to your child.

We are looking forward to these special days ahead!

Literacy Update

Since the start of the year, the children have engaged in a wide range of reading and writing learning.  As their skills and growing awareness continue to develop, I introduce new concepts while reinforcing/reviewing what's been previously taught.  One size does not fit all and I work hard to provide both support and challenge.  

While I certainly have key skills/concepts to monitor for each child, I remain eager to also create a community of learners who enjoy reading to themselves and with their peers, as well as listening to stories read aloud, and engaging in book talks where the richness of our ideas can grow and be shared.  Stay tuned for more information about our READ ACROSS AMERICA celebration coming up the first week of March.  Inspired by Dr. Seuss, Memorial students and staff will be digging into more great reading fun that week.

We are entering another assessment period where I will be further assessing skills in the following literacy areas:

-  reading connected text, including being able to demonstrate comprehension through oral retelling and responding to post-reading reflection questions

-  sight word reading and spelling

-  progress in the area of phonics, both for reading and spelling

-  written language development, including use of mechanics, writing complete sentences and attending to details so that written work makes sense and is sequenced

Through weekly lessons and word building practice, we have begun studying long vowel patterns, especially the role of "silent e".  We will also be learning about long "vowel teams" (i.e.  ee, ea, ai, ay, oa, ie, etc).  These phonics skills are broader and more complex, and therefore take lots more time to practice and integrate into daily reading and writing contexts.

The children are working hard each day.  We have lots more to learn in the days ahead!  As always, please let me know if you have any questions about anything happening here in Room 10.

Science in Room 10

Right before vacation we wrapped up our first science unit of the year.  We spent several weeks studying Solids and Liquids, engaging in many activities and experiments to learn about their attributes.  Using our senses, we studied concepts such as float/sink, stack/roll, magnetic qualities, hardness, shape, fluid/viscous, and the key characteristics that make solids and liquids similar and different.  Our wrap-up of liquids provided a high-interest chance to mix all of our liquids together and see what more we could discover.  Using glue, water, oil, shampoo and corn syrup, the children worked with partners to explore, get messy and enjoy the process of discovery.  They were, as you might imagine, delighted with the chance to do so!  

Valentine's Day Fun!

Many thanks to our room parents for putting together a very fun Valentine's Day celebration before we left for the winter break.  The children enjoyed snacks, crafts and a fun game.  We all enjoyed opening our Valentines before our party.  I never tire of watching the delight of the children as they open their Valentines.  I kid you not when I say you hear collective shouts of, "thank you!" over and over again as they thank each and every friend one by one as the cards are opened.  The pictures tell it all!

Happy 100th Day of School!

Snow days didn't keep us from making it (eventually) to the 100th day of school, and Valentine's Day got even more exciting!  Check out these happy, silly faces!

Valentine's Day!

We will have our Valentine’s Day celebration in our classroom on Friday, February 13th.  The children are invited to bring in a valentine for each of their classmates.  Please have your child prepare a valentine for every child in our room so that all are included.  A copy of the class list will come home in your child's folder.  Please address all of the envelopes before bringing them to school.  Children are asked not to send in valentines containing food or candy.

The children will decorate Valentine’s Day bags at school and will “deliver” their valentines to their friends. The children may bring their valentines to school starting on February 11.

One initiative I wanted to bring to your attention is the Share Your Heart campaign which raises funds for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.  This program was started by Peter and Jodi Augustini.  I am fortunate to know the Augustini family very well as I had two of their three children in my classroom.  As some of you may know, Jodi sadly lost her battle with cancer a few years ago.  With the help of some of Peter and Jodi’s friends, the Share Your Heart campaign has continued in Jodi’s name.  Information about it can be found in Memorial's Thursday Packet at this link:  

Share Your Heart

The campaign offers the sale of wooden hearts which can be used at Valentine’s Day for crafts or for actual valentines themselves.  I am bringing this to your attention so that you might consider a way to use the hearts as valentine’s or for any other project you might find them useful for.  The hearts can be ordered through the website listed above and will be sent home in your child’s backpack should you place an order.  Consider this a “heads up” and invitation only.  If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. 

Best wishes for a happy Valentine’s Day!

Let It Snow!

Well it certainly has been an eventful week snow-wise!  The children returned to school today with wonderful reports of playing in giant snow piles, building forts and having snowball fights.  They also enjoyed getting out to recess today to jump into the giant snowdrifts left behind by the plows.  All good!

As a reminder, now that winter has actually arrived, please send your child into school with boots, snow pants, mittens/gloves, hats, etc.  Children are invited to play in the snow at recess if they have ALL of these items, otherwise they need to stay on the hardtop (which isn't nearly as fun).

Also, cold season is definitely upon us.  We have had a symphony of coughs and runny noses here in Room 10 these past few weeks.  We are working hard to remember to turn away from others, and cover our mouths when we cough and sneeze so we don't spread our germs around.  I would appreciate any reminders at home about this!  

Enjoy the snow and stay warm!