Junie B. Jones
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Thursday, November 05, 2009
Newsletter 5
Newsletter 5 11/5/2009
Dear Families,
What a lot of illness we've had lately. Let's hope it's done, soon.
Halloween Party
This was great. I had three different students tweet about it, since there was so much to tell. Thanks to all who worked to make it a success.
Twitter / Blog
We continue to tweet several times per day. We began with writing them as a class, and now students are writing them on their own. The class helps me revise and edit before I post them. The tweets the kids are writing provide wonderful snapshots of what they can do in writing, and next steps we can take. We hope you're enjoying reading them, and that they help inspire conversations about school and learning. Look at the end of the tweet for the author's initials.
Our tweets also appear on the blog, where I've also been adding links for articles that may be of interest. It's a good place for me to easily collect things to share.
Conferences
Conferences days and times have been scheduled, and are coming home on notes today. Let me know if you don't get one, or if you need a different time. Please plan to bring the students to conferences. We'll celebrate progress, and discuss next steps. They need to be here for both, and they deserve it.
Classroom Visits and Volunteering
I welcome visits and volunteers, any time, no need to call first if you want to drop by. If you want to help on a regular basis, that would be great. There are still many opportunities, including coordinating some or all of our celebrations.
Chapter Book
Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary.
Calendar
Friday, November 6—No School
Sunday, November 8—Mallory's birthday
Wednesday, November 11—Ashley's birthday
Wednesday, November 11—No school
Saturday, November 14—Evan's birthday
Thursday, November 19—Half day, conferences
Friday, November 20—Half day, conferences
Monday, November 23—Half day, conferences
Tuesday, November 24—Half day, conferences
Wednesday, November 25—Half day
Thursday, November 26—No school
Friday, November 27—No school
Sincerely,
Jeff
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Newsletter 4
Newsletter 4 10/26/2009
Dear Families,
I'm sad to say that Alex S. and Carter will now be attending different schools. We'll miss them, and we wish them the best!
Halloween Party
This will be on Friday, October 30, from 11:30-12:30 in our classroom. Parents/families are welcome to attend. We'll be doing math with pumpkins and having treats.
Students are welcome to bring costumes to change into, but they do not have to. I'll give them time to change at recess. It would be helpful if they practiced doing it alone at home before trying it here. Please remind them that weapons are not allowed.
We need volunteers to help at stations, plates, cups, napkins, and treats. If you're able to volunteer to help, or contribute something, please contact me.
You'll now notice audio links as well as text. Students volunteer to read to the class, and before they can be recorded they must read to themselves, to a classmate, and to an adult. This is to ensure performance quality reading. Reading in public and being recorded can be highly rewarding, and it motivates some kids to read and reread texts. This can have a positive effect on fluency, punctuation usage, pacing, phrasing and intonation. These are all highly desirable qualities for readers to attend to, and the power comes from them doing so voluntarily. Even those who don't choose to be recorded benefit from hearing classmates practice, and from our discussions of what good readers do.
Math
Ok, so this is sort of in flux. I've been having kids keep the pages in their books, and now I'm thinking it may be useful to save them in case we want to talk about certain things at conferences, or if I need evidence of learning when doing report cards. This program is new, so I appreciate your patience as I figure out the best way to use it. Our lessons have included: listening to story problems, drawing pictures to help solve problems, addition facts, money, counting, skip counting, checking work, and explaining answers.
Classroom Visits and Volunteering
I welcome visits and volunteers, any time, no need to call first if you want to drop by. If you want to help on a regular basis, that would be great. There are still many opportunities, including coordinating some or all of our celebrations.
Snack
Thanks to those that are sending in snack. Seems like we have at least half of the kids eating what's here, and the rest bringing their own. We are again getting low, so this would be a good time to send some in.
Chapter Book
Our first chapter book was Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business by Barbara Park.
Our current one is Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary.
Calendar
Friday, October 30—Joe's birthday
Friday, October 30—Halloween party, 11:30
Sincerely,
Jeff Kurtz
--
Jeff
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Newsletter 3
Newsletter 3 10/11/2009
Dear Families,
Wow! Six weeks in….it goes by so fast. Here is some new info.:
Calendar
We do calendar as part of our math every day. It would be helpful if we had a large, desk-size calendar to display and write events on, so if anyone has a spare they could donate, we'd appreciate it.
It's great that so many of you are able to use the Twitter site to stay in touch with what we do, and to spark conversations with the students. I'm trying very hard to make sure that our "followers" are appropriate for first grade, so if you sign up and think I might not recognize you, please let me know so I don't block you. This would apply to family members and friends, too—we love to have them as long as I know who they are. If I do accidentally block you, just let me know and I'll fix it.
Blog
Long ago I used room302.blogspot.com as a place to post information, and now that I have access from school again, I have revived it. It's the easiest way for me to give you online access to things like newsletters. I also put our Twitter feed there, and some links. It's just one more way for you to stay in touch.
If you ever notice anything here, or on Twitter, or on any of our internet sites, that seems questionable or not OK, please let me know ASAP. There should never be last names, and there should not be any names with photos. I try to filter it, but it's possible something could escape my notice.
Math
I'm going to start sending pages home once a week, in case we want to use them in our collaboration meetings. Sometimes we talk about how kids are doing, and ways to better meet their needs, so it's good to have evidence. Just a reminder: I do not try and correct every single thing on every single page, but we do have conversations about the lesson and what kids are learning. They know and lots that never shows up on the page, and doing it on paper is merely one way to demonstrate knowledge and understanding.
Classroom Visits and Volunteering
I welcome visits and volunteers, any time, no need to call first if you want to drop by. If you want to help on a regular basis, that would be great. There are still many opportunities, including coordinating some or all of our celebrations. See below….
Parties
I'd like a parent or parents who are willing and able to help me with class parties. If you're available to coordinate or help with the Halloween one at the end of the month, please let me know. We'll also need food and pumpkins that day, for those who like to think ahead.
Snack
Thanks to those that are sending in snack. Seems like we have at least half of the kids eating what's here, and the rest bringing their own.
Music and P.E.
We have P.E. on Tuesdays and Thursdays this year, and music on Wednesdays and Thursdays this year. Please help the students remember to have appropriate footwear for physical education.
Library
Our library day is Tuesday. Please help students remember to bring books back. (I just noticed that last time I wrote pleas instead of please. Either is grammatically sound, I guess, but I hate to think we need to plead with the students to bring books back.) They can also bring back books any time and get new ones. They don't have to wait until Tuesday.
Birthdays
We'll celebrate birthdays in class, unless otherwise directed. We use the birthday as an opportunity for guided writing: Mrs. Huizenga teaches card writing as a special project during Writers' Workshop. It's perfect because there is a real audience and a real purpose—which are the two things that real writers always need for real writing. If you would like to send in a book for the class, or birthday treats, or something else, that would be great. If you can let me know in advance, fine. If not, we're flexible.
Show and Tell
I ask the kids to bring things in that they have worked on or earned. That seems to eliminate most of the toys and things like that they want to share. They are welcome to show those other things, but I'm reluctant to take class time for them, since time is so precious and I don't want it to just be about who can buy more. I'd love to see art work, stories, trophies, Lego stuff, food made from a recipes, etc.
Chapter Book
Our first chapter book was Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business by Barbara Park.
Our current one is Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary.
Calendar
Thursday, October 8—PTA Dance
Friday, October 9—No school
Thursday, October 15—PTA Meeting
Saturday, October 24—Grace's birthday
Friday, October 30—Halloween party
I appreciate hearing your questions, concerns, comments. It's always good to know what you're thinking.
Sincerely,
Jeff