September Start Line!

It was wonderful to meet so many of you at Parent Information Night last week.  Keep any questions coming as the year rolls along, but for now know that we have been BUSY!!!  Here are a few highlights from our first few weeks of school...
 

Room 10  -  Day One!

A visit to see our sunflowers in the class garden

Mindful Bodies and Mindful Listening... 

lots more to come as we learn and grow together!

The ABC's of Mindful Breathing

"J" is for Join Your Breath  -  we partnered up for a back-to-back mindful breath break with a pal!

Signmakers of Room 10!

Who needs the teacher store when you have 21 fabulous first graders to label the room with important signs for the year?!?!  The children (aka signmakers) did an amazing job creating environmental print for our walls, cubbies, tables and more.  

The room was buzzing with excitement!

Books, books and more books!

The children selected their first books and got started with READ TO SELF.  

We are learning how to choose "just right" books - not too hard, not too easy.  

Lots more learning to come regarding reading strategies, fluency and comprehension.  

Welcome to ST Math!

The children logged in with their QR codes and met the silly penguin, Jiji, for the first time.  

The ST Math app will be used throughout the year to practice important math concepts 

and problem solving strategies.

And... Hello Writer's Workshop!

We kicked off our first unit of study in writing this week.  The children will work to zoom in on 

"Small Moment" stories from their lives, telling one part at a time, bit by bit, 

with lots of interesting details.  More to come!

Opening Days!

Welcome to first grade!  A new school year has begun!  We will be engaged in a wide variety of learning experiences throughout the year.   I’m looking forward to learning more about your children as we move through our first few weeks of school together.

We made it through our first few days of first grade in great shape.  The children are doing a terrific job with all of the new routines 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 and will be put to good use! 

As you know, your child has received a Home/School folder for the year.  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.

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

 

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 you can get involved in the classroom at Parent Information Night on Tuesday, September 17.  While I do invite parent volunteers into the classroom, 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 teachers.  I tend to get volunteers started towards the end of the fall.  I will give you a more definitive timeframe after some weeks have passed.

Each week we will have a special Kid of the Week (starting this Tuesday).  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 Kid 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 messy art projects.  Please send a smock in for your child as soon as possible - and if you have an extra one (or two) we can put them to good use!

You may find your first grader quite tired (and/or hungry) after school.  This is very normal for the first few weeks.  Our days are busy and they are taking in a lot of new information each day.  We will settle in slowly and take our time to adjust to our new schedule.  Please be in touch anytime with questions you may have.

Enjoy the week ahead!

Kathy Ravinski

School starts real soon!

It's almost time to begin! 

More information coming soon!

Garden opening day and more!

Hello!  I hope vacation proved to be a positive one for all.  As we gear up for the final weeks of school, it is only right that a proper update be shared about all the hard work that was done before the break.

Perhaps one of the most exciting bits of news is that our garden is underway!  While we are certainly pushing the limit of mother nature planting this early, we also have a shorter growing season given the earlier final day of school.  The good news, fingers crossed, is that our garden is located in a super sunny spot so when the rain settles down we will see some great growth.

Below you'll find a snapshot of the planning and hard work that has already gone into our garden's opening day.  We laid our salt marsh hay path (thank you to Drew and his mom for picking that up for us and delivering it to the garden), and we did some initial configuring for how our seeds would be planted.  We learned about what plants are best for our garden given the constraints of size, sun vs. shade, speed of growth and level of care.

The children worked together to study each seed packet to determine the approximate days for germination and how long each plant takes until fully mature.  We broke up into gardening teams where the children helped prep the planting stakes to mark the placement of the seeds.  Finally, we bundled up and got to work - it was a chilly day but we are farmers and so we got out there and persevered!

Many thanks for the donations that have come in to help support our garden fund.  I purchase new seeds each year, as well as other consumables like the planting stakes and fertilizer.  This year, I also had to purchase a new spray nozzle for our hose.  Additionally, the extra funds will help when it comes time for Salad Day later in June.  So thank you!

And... thanks to the parents who came to lend a helping hand.  We did our best to capture pictures of each of the gardening teams, but some got more coverage than others.  Fear not, there will be lots more to share in the days ahead.

Take a peek at our efforts...

Laying our salt marsh hay path

Ready set go!

A job well done!

Before all THAT... we did some strategizing and planning...

Garden planning 

After planting we sat down and determined that our total number of growing days is 66 which means the countdown is on.  The children will use their Garden Journals to keep track of the growing days, record what was planted and how things are moving along.  We will also learn how to track the weather over a 10-Day forecast with hopes for a balanced combo of sun and rain.  

One thing I've made clear is that the garden belongs to all of us so feel free to pop by after school or on the weekends to see how things are shaping up!

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Prior to all the garden excitement, the children enjoyed exploring more about maps and the globe by connecting live with Mrs. Oppel's son-in-law Wayne, who lives over in Dublin.  We studied the map ahead of time and came up with a bunch of questions for Wayne before our scheduled meet-up.  We learned some interesting facts about Ireland, and also some different ways of saying things.  Jumper = sweater and track-suit pants = sweatpants, just to name a couple of unique ones.  But, the thing most interesting and curious to the children was the elusive nature of the leprechaun.  Even Wayne has yet to see or catch one :)!

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The early spring days of April wouldn't have been complete without a visit from Johnny The K, who has been coming to Memorial for many years.  Johnny pairs his love of music with important messages about kindness, compassion, friendship, cooperation and quite simply how to be the best human you can be.  Our hearts were surely full!

Spring is here and with that comes our trip to Stony Brook on May 23.  We will also be kicking off our study of honeybees this week.  With Earth Day upon us tomorrow too, there is lots more to dig into!  Stay tuned!