Some Questions To Ask To Find Out About Your Child's Day

Here’s some of their favorites! 

1. What made you smile today?
2. Can you tell me an example of kindness you saw/showed? 
3. Was there an example of unkindness? How did you respond?
4. Does everyone have a friend at recess?
5. What was the book about that your teacher read?
6. What’s the word of the week?
7. Did anyone do anything silly to make you laugh?
8. Did anyone cry?
9. What did you do that was creative?
10. What is the most popular game at recess?
11. What was the best thing that happened today?
12. Did you help anyone today?
13. Did you tell anyone “thank you?”
14. Who did you sit with at lunch?
15. What made you laugh?
16. Did you learn something you didn’t understand?
17. Who inspired you today?
18. What was the peak and the pit?
19. What was your least favorite part of the day?
20. Was anyone in your class gone today?
21. Did you ever feel unsafe?
22. What is something you heard that surprised you?
23. What is something you saw that made you think?
24. Who did you play with today?
25. Tell me something you know today that you didn’t know yesterday.
26. What is something that challenged you?
27. How did someone fill your bucket today? Whose bucket did you fill?
28. Did you like your lunch?
29. Rate your day on a scale from 1-10.
30. Did anyone get in trouble today?
31. How were you brave today?
32. What questions did you ask at school today?
33. Tell us your top two things from the day (before you can be excused from the dinner table!). 
34. What are you looking forward to tomorrow?
35. What are you reading?
36. What was the hardest rule to follow today?
37. Teach me something I don’t know.
38. If you could change one thing about your day, what would it be?
39. (For older kids):  Do you feel prepared for your history test?” or, “Is there anything on your mind that you’d like to talk about?” (In my opinion, the key is not only the way a question is phrased, but responding in a supportive way.)
40. Who did you share your snacks with at lunch?
41. What made your teacher smile? What made her frown?
42. What kind of person were you today?
43. What made you feel happy? 
44. What made you feel proud?
45. What made you feel loved?
46. Did you learn any new words today?
47. What do you hope to do before school is out for the year?
48. If you could switch seats with anyone in class, who would it be? And why?
49. What is your least favorite part of the school building? And favorite?
50. If you switched places with your teacher tomorrow, what would you teach the class?

Book Making

This year, we will engage in bookmaking. The children will make thoughtful decisions as authors and illustrators. We will study a variety of illustration techniques and think about how authors choose words, phrases and text design to create meaning.

Language Arts

During the month, the children will be learning about our classroom literacy station activities. The station activities will be an integral part of our Readers' Workshop. The children will use a listening station, Big Books ,writing station, poetry journals, word games and other experiences to strengthen their reading skills and comprehension. The children are learning how to work independently which will allow me to focus on guided reading groups and individual reading conferences.

Fundations- Unit 1

The students will be practicing lower case letter formation. We are reviewing consonant and vowel sounds and key words as we practice writing our lowercase letters.

Math

Our first math unit involves building numbers and solving story problems.  We will be learning how to work in a variety of math stations. We will focus on the doubles and adding and subtracting 1 and 2. There are a variety of partner games we will learn how to play, too.

Social Studies

We are focusing on building connections and the concept of being kind, caring and helpful friends and learning partners.  We will be discussing our hopes and dreams for first grade and what community rules we will need for everyone to feel welcome and safe in our community.

Science

Throughout the year, we will using the STEMSCOPES curriculum. Our 1st unit will focus on

Our Poetry Journals

Our Poetry Journals

 We were excited to begin working in our poetry journals.  As part of our literacy study, we will put all a variety of poems, lyrics and traditional rhymes in our journals.  Today, we put in a poem about the month of September from the book Chicken Soup With Rice. Then, we discussed visualization and text to self connections. Also, we love to include song lyrics, too!

Scholastic Book Orders

Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub
One-Time Class Activation Code: DXNG8

Dear Families,

Encouraging reading is one of the most important things we can do to help your child succeed. It can be tough finding the right books to keep them interested, which is why I am so excited that our class will be participating in Scholastic Reading Club this school year.

With Scholastic Reading Club:

• Every book you buy earns FREE Books for our classroom library
• You can choose from handpicked, grade- and reading-level-specific books for your child
• You'll find the best values on a variety of formats, including eBooks

Each month, your child will bring home Reading Club flyers. Together you can choose from books hand-selected by teachers and experts, and then order online or by returning your order form and payment to me.

I'd also love some help growing our classroom Reading Club. If you'd like to help out, please let me know! I'm excited to get our class reading!

Thank you for your support,

•  VISIT scholastic.com/readingclub
•  ENTER the one-time Class Activation Code DXNG8
  
•  SHOP from a carefully curated selection of the best books, value packs, and Storia eBooks
•  SUBMIT your order and earn FREE Books for our classroom
•  All book orders will be shipped to our classroom so we can celebrate the joy of reading together!

Our Hopes And Dreams as school begins

In first grade, I want to learn

how to be stronger (Cortland)
how to do a flying front kick (Max)
how to score a soccer goal (Molly)
how to bake better (Rowan)
my front handspring (Hazel)
how to be an army man (Kai)
how to play lacrosse (Grace)
about electricity (Graham)
how to slide down grass (Alex)
how to play violin (Clare)
how to score a goal in soccer (Jill)
about unicorns (Olivia)
how to play piano (Emma)
about gods from Roman times (Zach)
how to juggle in soccer (Emilia)
how to back flip and front flip (Nathan)
how to build a tree house (Matthew)
how to play football (Emmett)
about bugs(Jayden)
new songs and chants for morning meeting (Mrs. Adamik)

Our Hopes and Dreams Article From Responsive Classroom

Our Hopes and Dreams for School

Asking students to articulate their hopes for the year

Responsive Classroom Newsletter: 

 August 2001

"What are your hopes for this school year?"

Many teachers using the Responsive Classroom approach ask students this question at the start of every school year.

While the question may seem simple, posing it to students and asking them to share their responses can have a profound effect on the classroom. Just think about the messages inherent in the question: what you care about matters at school; your hopes and goals are taken seriously; you have a say in what we'll learn.

Taking the time to help children articulate their hopes for school—or their "hopes and dreams," as they’re often called—sets a tone of collaboration and mutual respect. It fosters reflection and self-knowledge by prompting children to ask themselves questions such as "What’s important to me at school? What do I want to learn more about? What’s easy for me? What’s hard for me? What do I want to get better at?"

Sharing hopes and dreams also creates a meaningful context for establishing classroom rules. Once hopes have been articulated, discussions can begin about what rules will be needed to help everyone’s hopes and dreams come true.

In older grades, the teacher might ask, "If these are our hopes, what rules will we need in order to make these hopes come true?" In younger grades, "How can we take care of ourselves and each other so that we can all do what we hope to do in school?" In this way, rules become logical outgrowths of the students’ and teachers’ goals rather than directives handed down from above.