May is here and with it comes lots of sunshine and excitement because summer is coming! This month we celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage, Jewish Heritage, and help bring awareness to Mental Health.
Last week the children had a blast making a home for our soon to be butterflies! They so brilliantly made a plan to build a home for our butterflies at their own desks and put each of their creations together at the end to make one large home. It was amazing to watch how they managed to find ways to collaborate even from a distance! I sent some great pictures to check out over email! We made some reading journals to use during readers workshop, and we are currently working on a character analysis unit. During writer's workshop, we'll begin our opinion unit this week and structure it around their own interests so they can share about some of the things they are passionate about. Our PM cohort welcomes a new student! Victoria from Ms. Richardson's class will join our class for the remainder of the year in the afternoon and we're very excited to meet her. Hopefully we can make her and her family feel as if they were with us all year long. Also, this week the apparatus opens! woohoo! The kids were so excited when I told them last week, and I'm glad they get a place to play on the playground now! Important Reminders: PICTURE DAY: Thursday, May 6th TALENT SHOW: Last day to accept submissions will be Wed. May 5th @ 5pm Don't forget, that all asynchronous work is optional! Have a great week!
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I can't begin to tell you how happy I and the children were to be back last week. It couldn't have run any smoother, and I can't thank you all enough for being so supportive, patient, and kind during the transition. The children were smiles ALL DAY LONG! They were jumping out of their seat and the most hilarious thing happened during class! There were one too many friends excited to share at once and one of the student's yelled out "mute yourself!" and then another replied "we can't mute ourselves anymore, we're not on zoom!" and we all busted out laughing.
Let's just say, we're still adjusting to not being on zoom anymore ha! The day goes by quick, but we found time for lots of art, book shopping, story workshop, and math within the short time together. I'm glad to have found a way to still include playful inquiry during the day (even though they're at their own desks). Story workshop began with materials being split between everyone in the class and acting out their stories to begin book making. We focused on setting and conflict this week and will continue developing these stories before we move into opinion writing. Reading workshop began with them checking out books for the next week. To avoid sharing, everyone has their own book baskets at their desk where they can choose a variety of books to keep for the week, then let them "quarantine" over the weekend to swap them out for new books. Science will continue with our conversation of environmental activism and we got some caterpillars to take care of before they transform into butterflies! They made beautiful artwork on Earth Day, and once I post them up on the walls, I'll send over a picture to share with you! This week we'll continue working on building these routines, and making sure that we're staying as safe as possible. Asynchronous Work: ALL ASYNCHRONOUS WORK IS OPTIONAL This week I'll begin sending a schedule home with the students for asynchronous work they can complete each day, but it will all be optional for them to complete. They won't have to turn anything in unless they'd like to. Each week, they'll have a sheet sent home with them that lists all the activities they can choose from. They can pick 1, all, or none at all....totally up to you! Don't forget their daily pass will still work and hoping for another great week! Just a few more days left of zoom..woohoo! I've outlined all the necessary information for (hopefully) a smooth and safe first day back to in-person learning. Please read through all the information below and let me know if you have any questions!
Morning Drop-Off: -You may drop off at the valet or walk them up to the Echo Park Ave. gate (near the auditorium/playground) -They need to have their daily pass ready to scan: if they took the test through a district site it will automatically be uploaded, but if they took a test from an outside site, you will need to upload a picture of their test result. Step by step instructions to a shortcut for the daily pass: IPHONE/IPAD ANDRIOD Here are instructions on how to upload your test results: UPLOAD COVID TEST RESULTS Here are instructions to access their daily pass: ACCESS DAILY PASS *FYI-You won't be able to access their daily pass until a negative covid test is in the system* -If they took an outside covid test they MUST bring out a printed copy of their negative test result because it takes the system 5 days to validate their result and it will not give them access to their pass until it has been validated. -Once inside they will report to the line marked for our class (room 14), stay on a dot and I will meet them about 10 minutes before the day starts. I highly encourage you to walk your child up to the gate on the first day of school just in case there are any mishaps with the daily pass. End of Class Pick-Up: -If your child is NOT in childcare, pick up will be at the Echo Park Ave. gate (near Room 1, where the valet drop off is located) -If they are in childcare, I will walk them to grab their lunch and then to LA's Best and you must sign them out each day. -For the PM cohort who will be in childcare in the morning: you MUST sign them out of LA's Best even if you are picking your child up at 3. (This is because they were signed in for the morning, so they must be signed out and picked up from there as well) -Lunch will be given to them by the school on their way out of class and can be taken home or with them to LA's Best. Classroom Materials Needed: Please bring the following materials from home to keep in the classroom: -Sharpies that were given -Math fluency book (yellow) -Whiteboard & whiteboard marker (was mailed) -Rekenrek (was mailed) -Any leftover blank white paper from what was given to them -iPad that was checked out to them School Expectations: -Mask be worn at ALL times (if a mask is not brought from home or perhaps breaks, we have extra in the classroom to provide them with) -Lunches from home stay stored in their backpacks with them. -Water fountains will not be used, so the must bring their own liquids -Covid tests will be given on campus weekly by a team of nurses. If you'd like to be with your child during the test, they are offering an afternoon session for you to bring them back and do it with them. Testing team on campus will be here once a week from 8am-7pm. -Snacks and lunch must be eaten outside only. LA's Best Childcare: -You MUST submit an application through the district to be enrolled (writing "yes" on the survey does not count anymore) -The application can be found here: ENGLISH SPANISH -To pick your child up from LA's Best you need to buzz in through the main entrance, the office will call your child, and they will walk over to the front entrance. Monday Schedule: -Every Monday our staff has professional development meetings, so they will be dismissed early each week. (Just as they did before on Tuesday's) Cohort A (AM Group) 8:00am-10:30am Cohort B (PM Group) 11:30am-2:00pm This schedule begins Monday 4/26 and continues weekly! Reminders: -Send me a family photo to keep in our class (can send in 2 for multiple households) -Monday 4/19: we meet on zoom for the last time for only 30 min. (9:00am-9:30am) -Tuesday 4/20: will be our first official day in person and our day begins at 8:00am for the AM cohort and 12:00pm for the PM cohort. -Email me for an appointment to schedule an open house visit either this Friday(2pm-5pm) or Monday(1pm-6pm) for any children or families who are still feeling a bit anxious about starting their first day and would like a tour of the class. If any new information comes out, I'll be sure to email you all as soon as I get it! See you all next week! I can't believe the last week of zoom is finally here! As excited as I am to see everyone, I'm sure we're all somewhat nervous to go back into a classroom full of children, but I'm hoping and praying for the best and sending good vibes our way!
To any families who may still be felling a bit anxious about our return to campus, I'll be hosting an "Open House" this Friday 4/16 and next Monday 4/19. This is an opportunity for you to come into our classroom to see how our day and materials will be structured. I've done my best to make our classroom feel as cozy as it can be with all the mandated regulations, so I'm hoping the children feel the same way! Here are the times you can come in: Friday: 2pm-5pm & Monday 1pm-6pm. Please email me if you are interested so I can set up an appointment for each family separately. If you do come, you will need a negative covid test from this week! Reminder: If you're child is returning for in-person instruction they need to take a covid test: COVID Test Appointment Link This week on zoom, we'll have 2 more presentations from the animal shelter on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we will not have any reading groups on those days. Math will be a continuation of using tape diagrams to draw out and solve for any given word problems and break apart tens and ones. We will continue journal writing on Monday & Thursday during our story workshop meetings and begin our new writing unit in class next week. To bring some feel of home onto our room, I'm asking the students to pick 1 family picture (or 2 if they have multiple households) they'd like in our classroom. If you can please email them to me, no later than Wednesday, so I can print them out and have them ready for their return. At the beginning of the year, the students drew out their family portrait, and I'd like to have these displayed next to them in our class. Later this week, I'll be sending an additional email with more information on what else will be needed for their return to the classroom. I hope you all enjoy the last week of zoom! Welcome back from what I hope was an incredibly relaxing week for everyone! We're getting closer and closer to our reopening day and I'm excited to see the students in person for the very first time this year. The next 2 weeks will be spent prepping for the return and making sure the transition from zoom to the classroom goes as smoothly as possible.
Spring is such a beautiful time of year and we'll spend this week starting activities that center around the Earth and its beauty and will eventually lead us into Earth Day in the coming weeks. We'll continue working on module 4 in our math workbooks and focus on journal writing before launching a new writing unit. Our new writing unit will begin when we return to campus so we can stay and focus on that journey together. Ms. Becky's reading challenge in still going on, so I encourage everyone to continue reading and logging in their minutes to win special prizes. I'm excited to see everyone again and get right back into learning! Spring Break is here! It's incredible to think about how long we've been in distance learning and how amazing these children are for being so resilient in the last 27 weeks of 1st grade. Your children are incredible tiny humans and they deserve this coming week to relax, and hopefully look forward to soon being in person once again.
This Monday we have a special guest presenter who will take our class through 5 presentations on behalf of LA Animal Services. The first presentation will be Monday morning and will continue over the course of the coming weeks. Pets have been a big topic with our students and I know this presentation will be very exciting for them. Since we will have presenters Monday morning, our morning meeting will last longer than normal and we won't have our reading groups. They will be on zoom for 45min- 1hr and they will get a 20 minute break at around 10:00, then return for our 10:20 meeting. During math class, we'll put away our math workbooks for the week and review previous skills before moving into larger place value numbers. Please be sure that they have their whiteboard, marker, and hundreds chart ready before their math group begins. Over the last few week, the students have been working on their informational writing piece where they chose 1 thing, place, or person they knew a lot about and wrote a book about their topic. This week we will share them on zoom and by Thursday, please upload a picture of their final product onto Seesaw. Reminders: -NO SCHOOL: Friday, 3/26 -Please drop off your child's drawing piece they will use for our community mural on campus no later than Wednesday 3/24! -Submit reading minutes for Ms. Becky's reading challenge by Sunday! Winners for the month of March will be announced when we return from break! I hope everyone has a great Spring Break and see you in April! We continue our celebration of Women's History Month and we'll also celebrate Read Across America this week! Finding the love for reading is so important and we're going to read and listen to stories we love and hopefully have family members come onto zoom to read stories they love! It'd be incredible to have as many families as we can share and read the books that inspire them with our class and be a guest reader on zoom! Please email me if you are interested in doing so this week.
To have fun with Read Across America Week here are some themes we'll be doing on zoom for each day: Monday: Crazy Hair Day Tuesday: Backwards Clothes Day Wednesday: Decorate Your Face Day Thursday: Fun Hat Day Friday: PAJAMA DAY (sort of like everyday right?! haha!) Along with Read Across America, our librarian Ms. Becky is launching a school wide reading contest! Take a look at the flyer below and I hope all of our students feel motivated to participate and win a special prize together! We will continue working on our informational writing pieces while focusing on finding real pictures from the internet or from home about their topic. They'll now expand their stories by not only focusing on what they know about their topic, but also teaching their readers through extended research they do independently at home. Don't forget this week are parent conferences, so I'm excited to see and chat with you all throughout the week! As Black History month comes to a close, I hope the last few weeks have brought some new knowledge to the children and your families of how important their community has been in the history of our society. We now welcome Women's history month and we'll continue learning about how influential women all over the world have been to our society. As we open our new month, I will be adding new stories onto our class library for March, so be sure to check them out soon!
Last week we had incredible conversations around space, such as the moon, the sun, different planets, etc. and we will continue learning and questioning each other about these ideas. We'll discuss astronauts and their role, space craft, and what scientists have learned since traveling to space. Our informational writing pieces will continue growing by adding text features and as a class we'll create a rubric collaboratively on zoom. This will help guide the children with their own independent writing at home. We will continue place value in math and on Friday we will take the district's Edulastic assessment for the 2nd time this year. In order to do so successfully, please have your child logged into Schoology before our whole group math class 11:15 am. Important Dates & Reminders: -Parent Conferences 3/8-3/12: Sign up here! -Bring Salt Dough made for Tuesday's art class -Edulastic Math assessment: please log into math at 11:15am on Friday Have a great week! This week brings hopeful covid-19 vaccination news! LAUSD will begin administering vaccines to eligible employees this week! We're one small step closer to coming back together as safely as we can! Woo hoo! Crossing my fingers to be eligible soon!
Our focus this week during will be on literature in Black History. Authors, poets, journalists, and so many more have used written and spoken art to influence and fight against prejudice and racism in our nation. I'm excited to share some of those works and the incredible people behind them and focusing on Black authors in our read alouds this week. Thursday, one of our own parents will get to share their experience of journaling in Africa, and help show us the beauty of its history. We will begin our 4th math module on place value. Time to throw away those old math books! On zoom all week, we will be using the Module 4-6 Fluency book(side is yellow) that I delivered with their new materials. Please be sure to have it with them during our math groups all week long. Independently at home, they will use their Module 4-6 Succeed math book (side is red) for the rest of the semester. Our informational writing unit will continue with our How-To book and we'll also look at a variety of authors throughout the week and notice craft moves and text features that can be included in their own books they will begin to work on. Reminders: -Please have their art materials from last week ready for art class. -Don't forget to turn in their assignments on Schoology at the end of the week Lastly, thank you to every single family for helping us put together such an amazing Valentine's Day treat for the students. They were beyond ecstatic to get their bags full of yummy treats and handmade gifts from each other. Thank you to Leanna and Anna for being the Valentine fairies and delivering everyone's bags to their homes on Sunday morning! I hope everyone got to spend their weekend filled with love and laughter with your special people! Art is something everyone finds comfort in, whether it's visual or performing. This week we're going to celebrate Black artists throughout our history. This includes exploring all forms of art, such as music, dance, poetry, visual arts, and more! I'm hoping to not only recognize these influential artists throughout history, but also look deeper into the roots of music and its history in Africa.
We also celebrate the 100th day of school on Tuesday! Incredible we've all survived this distance learning this long...another 80 days of zoom to go! We'll have some fun activities throughout the day and share their 100 item structures they'll create Monday night. We will finish our module 3 math book with analyzing data and interpreting information from charts. On Friday, we stay together whole group for math once more to give their module 3 assessment. Reminders: -Please drop off the Valentine's day gifts from your child this week Monday-Thursday, at Leanna's house or mine. We will both have a bucket outside of our homes where you can simply drop off the materials with no-contact necessary. (Addresses can be found in the email sent out last week) -Since we'd like to include all siblings, if possible, please bring enough gifts for 34-36 children. -Please check what materials the students will need for our Tuesday art class and have them ready for class beforehand. Our class library has some special new books for the month of February. Be sure to encourage your child to check out some of the incredible books this month! Have a great week! |
Room 14 EventsA review of what we have worked on in the classroom each week and important announcements! |