Weekly Update

Team Summit Weekly Update
9/4/09

We have had a wonderful first week of school together! I hope your child have told you about all the exciting learning already taking place. We had our first library class and started exploring the books in the classroom as well. We have a wide variety of genres and educational magazines and I hope your child will read many different kinds of books this year as we read and discuss literature together. Your child’s first Reading Log is coming home today, and this Reading Log will come home on Fridays. As you might have noticed, each day has a different writing prompt to encourage critical thinking skills in literacy. I will change these writing prompts periodically as the school year progresses. The Reading Log is due on Fridays. Please sign the log and encourage your child to also talk about his or her reading at home.

We have had the opportunity to share about ourselves this week and our poster projects are well under way. Many times, we have even shared the creative process using the Smartboard, projecting art-work and pictures for all to see. We have also played many community-building with other classes. Ask your child to tell you about the “Silly Voice Greeting”, the “Favorite Dessert Greeting”.

There are many new routines to get used to in the beginning of the year and we are getting used to them together. Ask your child to tell you about our many new and exciting classroom jobs. For example, we have a Classroom Poet and a Postmaster. The Classroom Poet reads a poem of his/her choice every day and the discussion focuses on two parts: why this particular poem was chosen and what it means. We are already building our own poetry collections in our Personal Readers!

Your child will bring home a blue Homework Folder every day with homework assignments, letters and special notices from the school, etc. Your child will also bring home a personal Student Planner every day. Students are encouraged to record homework assignments inside this planner so families can plan their schedules accordingly. Soon, assignments will be larger and require several days worth of work, so knowing well in advance benefits everybody. We use the Student Planner as a due date book, ie we record our assignments on the day it is due, not when it is assigned!

Your child might also have brought home a Book Bag already. The book bags are used to carry and keep books as they travel back and forth. Please make sure your child return books to the school and the classroom when they are read. Thanks for your help!

Information regarding math homework and spelling will follow in next week’s letter.

If you have access to the internet at home, please visit my classroom Wiki and Blog sites. The Wiki is used as a web-site with many interactive games for your child to explore. The Blog hosts weekly updates and newsletters. Our weekly UA schedule is also posted there alongside special events and school functions. I have also added a new feature entitled “Reference Question”. I will pose a challenging question for students to solve outside the classroom. Sometimes, the question requires research, sometimes it requires mathematical problem solving and sometimes it is related to general wonderings we have in the classroom! I hope you get a chance to check it out!

This has been a great week and I am very excited about this school year! Have a great long weekend.

Regards,
Maria McCormack