August 26th Newsletter
Dear Parents,
Wow, this class is such a great group of kiddos! We got off to an excellent start last week. The class was enthusiastic, engaged, and motivated. We're going to have fun learning together this year!
School-to-Home Communication
Your child went home with a red Friday folder that provides important school-to-home communication. You will find a weekly reflection within the folder that needs to be reviewed and signed each weekend and returned each Monday morning. Each week, the back of the weekly reflection will ask your child to respond to a different prompt to facilitate a conversation between you and your child about school. Our first week's reflection prompted your child to write three things about the first week of school or 5th grade that he'd/she'd like to share with you or me.
The purpose of this weekly reflection is to foster a growth mindset and help students develop an ability to communicate effectively with adults. The great benefit of self-reflection is the involvement of the student in the consideration of his/her performance and behavior. The goal is for each student to look inward instead of outward to evaluate his/her performance. We want students to develop an internal lotus of control. Also, listening and talking is key to a healthy relationship between parents and children, particularly as students enter their teenage years. Around this age, the narrative shared about the school day can be harder to pull from your child and you may already be familiar with receiving a simple "fine" or "good" response to the question, "How was your day?" My hope is that this weekly report will facilitate a positive dialogue between child and parent about school and establish a norm that can continue in following years.
To Do
- Read, discuss, and add your signature to the weekly reflection. It's double-sided so make sure to check the back. The section for parent comments can be used to provide encouragement for your child to see or to share thoughts or questions with me. I check the forms each Monday after school. If there is any critical information that I need to know for the day on Monday, please send me an email.
- If you haven't yet had the opportunity to do so, please complete this child learning inventory. Thank you! The feedback I've received has been very helpful!
- Our class visits Spreckel's Park about once a month for Writer's Workshop. I'll go over the why of these walking field trips at Back to School Night, but there are many advantages. Our first walking field trip to the park will take place on Friday 9/6. I've embedded the permission slip below. Please complete it at your earliest convenience.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM LAST WEEK
First Day of School
We had fun being creative on our first day. Discussing expectations on the first day can be a bit boring. Our discussion was guided by student creations. Students were able to show me their ideas and standards by creating Play-Doh figures from a series of prompts. WOW, I was impressed, not only with their artistic ability and creativity but with their thoughts and ideas. Students were challenged to respond to prompts by creating a figure with Play-Doh. After several short challenges, they were challenged to create something that was in someway representative of themselves. We have a fabulous gallery on display in our classroom now.
Learning to Use Apps in Google Suite
In our lesson on Internet safety and online behavior/communication, we discuss rules to follow to avoid misunderstandings and consequences. Below is a screenshot from my presentation. If your child is using other online tools at home, these are excellent points to reinforce.
OVERVIEW OF THIS WEEK'S CLASS TOPICS
Before delving into our Singapore Math curriculum, we reviewed divisibility rules last week. We had fun creating large numbers with dice and determining whether the number was divisible by another. The ability to quickly determine if a number is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, or 10 enables a student to find the prime factors (factor trees) of a number. Additionally, students will be able to determine common factors and common multiples with greater ease. When students perform these task easily, operations with fractions become less onerous as well, especially simplifying fractions. We'll round our review of divisibility rules out at the beginning of the week and then we'll dig into Unit 1: Whole Numbers this week!
I look forward to seeing you all at Back to School Night next week. In the meantime, if you have any questions or need clarification on anything, please do not hesitate to email me or approach me at dismissal.
Respectfully,
Celeste Caso
School Wide Events
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