The Week of Oct. 24

 

**Student Illness**

Many students in first and second grade have respiratory symptoms such as runny nose, sore throat, coughing and sneezing at this time. We are encouraging students to wash their hands multiple times a day, drink lots of water, along with other best practices (coughing/sneezing into your arm etc.) Please keep your student home if they are not feeling well. 

**If you are sending cough drops  to school with your student, we need to know. Nurse Allysa or I will keep cough drops in a safe area and will monitor when your student needs and uses them**

Upcoming Events

Parent Teacher Conferences 

Nov. 8-10 

Thank you to all of the families who have already signed up for a conference. Please check with Ms. Stephanie in the office and she will help anyone set up a time.

Teacher In-Service/ No School 

Nov. 11

Big Buddies Little Buddies

This week, we had a engineering challenge to work on with our Big Buddies! Students could build the tallest or strongest structure. Students worked to plan, build,  and test their creations. It is really special to see the relationships being built through our Big Buddy/LIttle Buddy tradition. 

Readers' Workshop

In reading the first and second graders wrapped up our first unit of study on Building Habits of a Good Reader. Together we built a amazing Readers' Workshop time where students have purpose and a love of reading.  We continue to work in our small reading groups each day.  Book discussions are a big part of developing comprehension. Students are learning to write about their reading in their reading journals. I am excited to share their reading journals with you at parent/teacher conferences. 

 Our next unit will focus on reading nonfiction texts. Students will work on visual strategies for solving unknown words, and begin to ask/answer questions about nonfiction topics. Students will join book clubs based on interest at the end of our unit. 

Writers' Workshop

In writing, we are working on building our writing stamina. Students are learning to write for extended periods of time. In first and second grade, students are learning to plan, write and revise their small moment stories. 

Writers' Workshop Format

All students take part in our main lesson. This lesson teaches a specific grade level skill or strategy and lasts for about 10 minutes.

Students then work on their own writing for about 20 minutes. Some students work in small guided writing groups to develop a specific skill or strategy, while others are writing independently during the workshop. 

Lastly, we often end our writing time by sharing our writing with others. 

School Wide PAWS Celebration

On Friday, WES students celebrated using our PAWS with some Halloween Craftivity time. Students were broken up into small groups and worked with a teacher on a special craft. Students were sorted into groups based on their top 3 choices. In the 1-2 classroom we made Halloween Slime. Be sure to ask your student which craft they made :)

Here is the link to the Fluffy Halloween Slime we made the 1-2 class.

Fluffy Halloween Slime