This Week in the Green Room

This week was filled with activities and LOTS of testing. If you came to Meet the Parents/Teacher Night on Thursday, you heard about the NWEA and DIBELS testing that we started this week. The NWEA tests are computer-based individual tests that measure your child's placement in reading and math. The DIBELS tests are paper-based individual tests that help us to see how many letters your child can recognize and whether or not they grasp the concept of beginning sounds at this point in the year. The results of both of these tests will help me plan and tailor my instruction to your child's needs.

NWEA Testing

DIBELS Testing

I can put students on the computer for testing and still work with the other students, but I must do the DIBELS testing myself. While I was doing this testing this week, your child spent this time playing with exploring our math materials. Some built awesome pictures and structures, while others found, ahem, "inappropriate ways" to use the materials. Of course, I took this time to review our classroom rules and procedures, and discuss appropriate ways to complete our work. This is always something that takes several weeks to sink in, but we'll get it, sooner or later!

Somewhere during all this testing, we found a little time to read the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" We discovered we can all "read" this book because we can use the pictures to know what the words say, and we learned our very first two popcorn words: I and a. Your child should now be able to read "I" and "a" anytime you are reading a book to them and point to one of those words. It is fine to start this now - the earlier, the better!

Besides acting out this story (sorry, I don't have any pictures of that), we also began learning how to write our color words. We matched the color word to the animal in the pocket chart, then completed a worksheet that helped us learn how to spell each color word. We even wrote each word with the correct color!

I also gave each student several M&M's along with a sorting sheet, and made them work for their candy! They had to sort the M&M's onto the animal that was the same color in the book, then count each group and write the number before they could eat the M&M's. They loved this, and even begged to do it again!

I mentioned above about Meet the Teacher night. On Thursday, I introduced my homework policy to the parents in attendance. If you were not able to attend, I will be contacting you via email to explain my homework requirements. In a nutshell, your child will have homework to complete every night. Sometimes it will be just to read a book and record it on your Family Reading Log; other times, it will involve computer-based activities as well. Please be on the lookout for this email, as our homework will begin later this week. Click here to view the presentation I used to introduce the homework.

Lastly, a few reminders:

Reminder #1: I have had several students who have not been bringing their Parent Pack (green folder) to school (or home) every day. It is very important that this folder is brought back and forth, as it is the main line of communication between home and school. We all know how papers can get buried in the bottom  of a bookbag, never to be seen again until June - this folder helps to reduce the chance of that happening! As soon as you have checked the papers in  your child's folder (or recorded the books read) each night, please have your child pack their folder back in their bookbag so it is ready for the next day. This helps them learn how to be responsible for their belongings. I have already heard more than once this week, "My mom/dad forgot to pack it!" Of course, I never let them get away with this! I always tell them it's not Mom's/Dad's school folder, it's theirs, and it is their job to remember it.

Reminder #2: All money sent to school MUST be sent in an envelope with your child's name (first and last) and the reason for the money (lunch, school fees, library book, etc.) I am not a mind reader when it comes to loose money, who it belongs to, and why it's being sent to school! :-) And of course, your child doesn't know why they have it - half the time, they don't even know they do have money in their folder!

Reminder #3: If you would like to help out in the school in any capacity, or attend any of our field trips, you must go through the fingerprinting process and be Board Approved. You can do this by calling the Board Office at 773-4321 to set up an appointment. However, if you would like to attend our first field trip (coming up at the beginning of October), you must complete the fingerprinting process by this Friday, September 13, in order to be placed on the September Board agenda. The October Board meeting is not until after our field trip, so if you miss the September deadline, it will be too late to go on the field trip.

Reminder #4: Please continue to have your child wear his/her transportation necklace until the bus drivers are familiar with each student's stop and caregivers. This will continue through September.

This coming week, we will be reading and completing activities based on the books:

We will be waiting to see what kind of crazy antics those letters and number get themselves into this week!

Have an awesome week!

Mrs. Krouskop-Smith