Off and Running into a New School Year!

Good Afternoon,

It was such a fun week back to kick off the new school year. It's always exciting to see the hallways and classrooms energized with that back to school energy, and another year of growth and success on the horizon. I look forward to making this year the best year yet, and it was a great week of learning and connecting to set us off on a tremendous school year. I'm excited for all the good that this school year will bring and teaching a great group of kids, and partnering with all of the families along the way! 

Week in Review:

Leader in Me: As a Leader in Me School, one of our 5 Core Paradigms (our view), is that caregivers, family members, and teachers partner to support the whole student. View the Welcome to Leader in Me resource on Leader in Me Online to learn more!

Writing: Writers began their writing unit learning how to find idea for true stories, and we discussed different strategies of listing moments we will never forget as well as thinking of a person who matters to us, and lastly mapping one of our favorite places listing favorite things that happened there. When writing powerful true stories we discussed how we want to list those ideas, think about how to start it, make a movie in our mind, and then write the story fast and furious on paper!

Math:  We started by setting our course for the year opening with a discussion about how the classroom should look and sound during math period to ensure that everyone has a chance to be successful. We made a poster about their Community of Learners to refer to for the rest of the year. We had our first problem string of the year. Students set up their student journals and worked through the string to review using an open number line to represent multiplication problems. Students examined a Number Line Puzzle and applied the strategies they are practicing. Lastly, students solved several multiplication story problems and we modeled their strategies using open number lines, ratio tables, and rectangular arrays. In the back of their math journals, students began a handbook involving a collection of mathematics vocabulary and strategies to use throughout the year.

Reading: Readers showed what they know in a pre assessment for reading that we will use to set our reading goals for our first fiction unit of interpreting characters. We discussed some strategies on how to build a foundation to grow substantial ideas as well as taking responsibility for reading lots of within-reach books to grow our volume of pages read and stamina for reading long.

Content: This week we used content time to establish and review some classroom routines as well as get some things up and running that we will use throughout the year. The students got setup in their new Google Classroom where links to various things are posted. They did an amazing job of learning and applying a new way to do their agenda on Google Calendar, and seeing all the communication back and forth has been great! We reinforced school wide expectations in all areas: recess, lunch, hallway, bathroom. Students applied for class jobs that they were interested in that will be up and running next week. Lastly, we co-created our classroom expectations and class mission statement that will help guide us this school year to have the best environment and culture for success we can have!


A Look Ahead:

  • September 9th-13th - KASD School Safety Week
  • September 26th - Badger Sports Park Family Night 
  • September 27th - No School
  • October 1st - Family Night 5:00-6:30 P.M.
  • October 2nd - Homecoming Parade 6:00 P.M.
  • October 8th - Picture Re-Take Day
  • October 24th & 25th - No School


That's all for this week!

Have a great weekend!


Mr. VW






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