Classroom Updates for Week of October 26th

Hello Everyone! Hope you had a fabulous weekend! My husband and I attended a friend's wedding in Breckenridge and it was just beautiful. It was the first time I had been up to the mountains since by mastectomy and I forgot how much I enjoyed the fresh air and scenery:)

The kiddos and I have been talking a lot about platooning and how some things will change but a lot will stay the same. On this note, I wanted to share some information with you  that I recently shared with a parent that gave some clarity. A parent was wondering why November 9th to begin platooning? Why not after the holiday break? After the break was when we originally wanted to implement the platooning schedule, however, I have my reconstruction surgery on December 9th and will be out from December 7th-January 20th. There was NO way that I was not going to be there for the kiddos when they started platooning and if we waited for my return, it would be too late. The 1st grade team  truly believes that platooning is going to give the students SO much more academically, while still giving them the foundation of their homeroom environment by returning to their homeroom teacher (me) at the end of the day. Therefore, we decided to start as soon as we could so that my kiddos could start this transition with me and I could be there for Ms. Hernandez's students when they begin to come to my room for Math. I hope this clears up any wonderings you had about the "why November?" question. :) Again, Ms. Hernandez will be at your child's conference to meet you and get to know your kiddo and Ms. Marshall and I are putting together a "Math Night" to better help you understand what we are doing in Math and how you can help your child at home with Math. More than likely this will occur the week after Thanksgiving. I will let you know when the date is set with the office.

Here is all you need to know for the week:

Specials:

Monday: C Day (Drama)
Tuesday: D Day (Gym)
Wednesday: E Day (Music)
Thursday: A Day (Art)
Friday: B Day (Technology)

1. If you have not signed up for your child's Fall conference, please do so at the following link http://www.slyreply.com/app/sheets/md1jqmzmcrh6/

2. Halloween Party~! Will be this Friday. Before the party there will be a parade at 2:30  around the outside of the school. Kiddos will put their costumes on BEFORE the parade so please send them in a bag. The parade procession will go out the lunchroom doors and around the school on the sidewalk and back in the lunchroom doors.  After the parade the party will begin around 2:45 in the classroom. Parents are encouraged to attend and participate with their child. If you are able to volunteer, please check out the following link and sign up http://www.slyreply.com/app/sheets/qt5nbempbcjf/
We REALLY need volunteers for the stations, so sign up!! It will be a lot of fun!! Thank you:)

3. Socktober has been a HUGE success! We have 68 pairs of socks!! That's amazing! Thank you for your support! You still have 4 days to send some in:) I am going to get in touch with a shelter about dropping them off. If anyone has a suggestion, please let me know. I thought it might have an impact if kiddos met me at the shelter with their parents, if they are able to, to drop the socks off. However, I'm not sure if this might be too much for the kiddos? I will let you know:)

4. Specials Open House: The Specials Team (Gym, Art, Drama, Technology and Music) are having an open house to give you some insight into what the kiddos do when they are in Specials. I sent the flyer in an email yesterday. Let me know if you didn't receive it. The open house is Monday November 9th from 4-7 p.m. Below are the times for our classroom...

1st Grade	Bryan- Doherty	Marshall	Walker	Hernandez
5:00pm	Art #146	Music- 2nd floor West	P.E.-Gym	Technology #122
5:10pm	Technology #122	Art #146	Music- 2nd floor West	Drama- Back West Library
5:20pm	Drama- Back West Library	Technology #122	Art #146	P.E.-Gym
5:30pm	P.E.-Gym	Drama- Back West Library	Technology #122	Music- 2nd floor West
5:40pm	Music- 2nd floor West	P.E.-Gym	Drama- Back West Library	Art #146

5. Please continue to send in the sight word lists as your kiddo is able to SAY all the words. For kiddos who can get through all 22 lists and recite the words, they will begin back at list 1 and work on WRITING the words:)

6. The Math training that I attended last week supplied teachers with some amazing games that can be played directly at each kiddo's independent level . Many of these games require kiddos to use manipulatives to represent numbers and break apart numbers. I will be discussing this more at conferences. In the mean time, could you see if you have any of the following  in your home that you wouldn't mind donating to the classroom?

Here is what we need:

lids of all sorts--small and large 

old metal keys

hotel keys

mardi gras beads

bread bag clips (the little yellow and green guys)

small and large puffy balls (pom poms)

clear liter soda bottles (we will cut the tops off and use them for storage)

nuts, screws, and bolts from your tool chest

old or mismatched shoe laces

tooth picks (the flat kind)

beads--any sparkly ones will be a hit

dry beans--Lima, pinto, black, kidney, or any other kind

 

Please put the items in a plastic bag and label "math materials". Your child will be so proud to help supply our classroom with materials for Math!

I think that is all! If anything else comes up, I will let you know! Have a great week!

Mrs. Bryan-Doherty:)

Here are some photos from last week in the classroom:) Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Good Evening Everyone!

I hope your weekend is off to a good start! I'm hoping that you all had a chance to read over the letter from administration and 1st grade teaches regarding the change to platooning beginning November 9th. I want to give you some background into how this decision was made, why it was made and how it will benefit your child.

At Westerly Creek, 2nd-5th grade have been platooning for years. Platooning means that students have two teachers; one for Math/Science/Social Studies and one for Reading/Writing. The benefit to platooning is that teachers are able to focus on 1-2 subjects and share their passion for these subjects with students. Often, when teaching five subjects, as we do in 1st grade, teachers are spread "thinly" across the content areas. Often, the time in the day allows for math, reading and writing to take center stage and Science and Social Studies to take a back seat. With platooning, students are guaranteed a slot of time that is dedicated to Science and Social Studies. Subjects such as, writing, can be taught across all content areas allowing for the two teachers to compare the writing ability in different academic areas. For me, as the student's Math/Science/Social Studies teacher, I will now be able to dive more deeply into these subject areas and create even more engaging, rigorous and thoughtful lessons, projects and Science experiments:) Another benefit to platooning is that your child has two teachers who are focusing on specific academic areas and can identify a particular need faster and get students support sooner. For kiddos needing more of a challenge in specific areas, the platooning teacher can meet these needs more readily, as well.  Lastly, research shows that students respond positively to the change in environment halfway throughout their day. The change in classroom setting gives students a "new start" to their afternoon:)

We did not want to wait until next year to start platooning and not give this year's students the benefits that platooning offers. And just think, next year when they platoon, they will be pros!

I sent home an informational sheet for you to fill out about your child in yesterday's Thursday folder. I don't believe that Ms. Lowenburg had a chance to get them sent out at the beginning of the
year. I thought they would be a good idea for parents to fill out now so that I could pass them on to Ms. Hernandez so she can get a jump start on knowing your sweet kiddo:)

I'm sure you have many questions and wonderings. I'm going to do my best to give you an "overview" of how this will all happen and what the changes will be...

1. Ms. Hernandez and I will be attending each other's conferences so that we can meet our new kiddos and parents and listen to the academic successes and needs of our new students.

2. Ms. Hernandez and I have extremely similar classroom set ups, behavior systems and expectations. It was VERY important to me that my students continue their learning in a classroom that would provide them with the structure and systems that they have become accustomed to. Ms. Hernandez is a phenomenal and very knowledgeable teacher and I'm excited for the students that  they will be able to learn with her:)

3. The day will stay very similar for students...they will meet me on the playground in the morning, we will go to the classroom and embark on our Math journey for the day, they will go to specials, recess, lunch, students will come back to my classroom for Science/Social Studies, at 1 p.m. ALL 1st graders will switch to their afternoon classroom (my kiddos will go to Ms. Hernandez for Reading and Writing and her kiddos will come to me for Math), at 3:30 the students will return to me for our daily wrap up/pack up and head out to the blacktop to meet parents. As a first grade team, we requested that our homeroom kiddos come back to us at the end of the day to wrap up the day. :)

4. Ms. Hernandez and I will be working as a team for your child; another benefit to having two teachers. If you have a specific concern about your child regarding Math/Science/Social Studies you would contact me, if it's regarding Reading/Writing you would contact Ms. Hernandez. If it's something that is regarding behavior, we ask that you contact us both. Ms. Hernandez and I will be working together to meet the needs of every kiddo and will be in contact daily about any educational or other issues that arise. Please don't hesitate to contact both Ms. Hernandez and I if you feel it's something we both should be aware of.

5. Thursday Folders will continued to be sent home by the homeroom teacher and returned to the homeroom teacher.

6. As more details get worked out, I will let you know via email:)

I did talk with the students and today and explained what platooning is, how their day will change and how they will share a desk with the other class that I will teach for Math. The sharing of desks seemed to be the hardest for them to hear;)

Please know that everything we do as teachers, every choice we make and every decision we agonize over, is done with the needs of your children in mind. My own child attends Westerly Creek and I thoroughly trust that she is in good hands and that she is thriving. We appreciate your understanding and willingness to embark on this fruitful journey for the rest of the school year. I am SO excited to be able to give these kiddos the opportunity to learn through this teaching model. If you have any questions, please email me and I will do my best to ease your mind:)

Here is everything else you need to know for next week...

Specials Schedule:
Monday: NO SCHOOL
Tuesday: NO SCHOOL
Wednesday: E Day (Music)
Thursday: A Day (Art)
Friday: B Day (Technology)

1. Please remember to send your child's water bottle back on Monday and a snack every day:) Thank you!

2. Socktober is going awesome! You have all contributed 42 pairs of socks to our Socktober sock drive! That's amazing! The collection will continue until Friday October 30th!

3. Halloween party: Our fantabulous Halloween party will be Friday October 30th. The parade will begin at 2:30 and party festivities will follow immediately after in the classroom. We have some amazing volunteers who are working on getting everything set up and we will get more details out soon.

4. Fall conferences: Conferences will be held the week of November 2nd in the evenings from 4-8 p.m. I will be sending a Slyreply to sign up out this weekend once I confirm the dates.

5. Growth Mindset: Our growth mindset term for this week has been optimism . We discussed all week how students can have optimism throughout the day and outside the classroom. How does having optimism help us as students? How does it help me as a teacher;)? Next week, we will continue to discuss optimism and it's effects on our daily routines.

6. Picture retake day is Wednesday October 21st. Please visit the Westerly Creek website for more information.

7. Thank you so much to the families that bought books at the book fair for the classroom! The kiddos have really enjoyed looking at them this week. There is nothing more fun than new books:)

If anything else comes up this week, I will let you know. Have a great weekend! Thank you for entrusting me with your children during the day. It's an honor to be their teacher:)

Mrs. Bryan-Doherty :)

Here are some pictures from Book Buddies today with the 4th graders:) Students shared their Scholastic News with their buddy.

 

 


  


 

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Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and were able to enjoy this beautiful weather! I have to admit it was a little weird going to the pumpkin patch in 88 degree weather:) Here is all you need to know for the upcoming week...

Specials:
Monday: E Day (Music)
Tuesday: A Day (Art)
Wednesday: B Day (Technology)
Thursday: C Day (Drama)
Friday: D Day (P.E.)

Reminders and Updates:

October 19th and 20th NO SCHOOL for students

1. PLEASE send a water bottle with your child on Monday:)

2. We have gotten a great start on our sock collection for SOCKTOBER! Please send in a new pair of socks for us to give to those in need of warmth this winter. You can check out the Kid President video on Socktober at http://soulpancake.com/socktober/ Thank you! 

3. Tuesday: The first grade team will have a team planning day on Tuesday. I will be in the building and checking in on the kiddos:)

4. Math: Students will be learning about "fact families" this week and discussing subtraction. Fact families are a set of three numbers that can be put together to make related addition and subtraction facts (for example: 3, 5, 8 can make 3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 3 = 8, 8 -3 = 5, 8 -5 = 3) . Fact families are important because they help students to know their Math facts in a "snap". Just like knowing sight words in reading is important , math facts are important to be able to do double and triple digit addition and multiplication. We will be starting a Math fact fluency challenge next week where kiddos will get two minutes to see how many facts they can get. We will do this every Friday until the end of the school year to see how much faster they can get:). We have been doing Math stations for two weeks now and the kiddos really have the hang of it! The four stations they do on a daily basis are...   
         * iPads- Frontrow math website and Promethan board math activities
         * small group with Mrs. B.-we work at the groups individual Math level on the daily lesson
         *small group with Ms. Hannah-students do review of Math concepts that students have     struggled with
         *Math journal-students have a daily math writing prompt that they must answer using their math strategies (number bond, addition sentence and/or subtraction sentence, and a statement sentence where they put the answer in writing and explain how they got their answer i.e. I knew that John had 12 pieces of candy because I _____. This last part is still the area that is hardest for kiddos to do. 

5. Reading: Students will continue to discuss story elements (characters, setting, problem and solution) and how these elements help us to comprehend a story.

6. Writing: Students will begin to look at a piece of their writing and how they can revise it and then edit it to make it better. Last week the students learned how to use bold words and ellipses to add a dramatic affect to their pieces of writing and it was awesome! I was so proud of them for how they experimented with these writing techniques and really pushed themselves to take their writing to the next level.:)

7. OG (Orton Gillingham):  Students will be learning about the "magic e". The "magic e" is used at the end of a word to prompt the vowel to say it's "name" (the long vowel sound). For example, came, tame, fame, etc. 

8. Science: You may have heard that our goldfish have seen better days;) Unfortunately, we lost all of them; all of the 1st grade classrooms did:( Soooo, I have gotten new fish from Petsmart and we will try again. We will be looking at animal habitats this week and what animals need to survive. 

9. REMEMBER THAT EVERY FRIDAY IS SPIRIT DAY!! HAVE YOUR KIDDO WEAR THEIR WESTERLY CREEK T-SHIRT!  

10. October 21st will be picture retake day for any kiddos that missed picture day or for anyone who wants their kiddo to try the whole process again;)

I think that is all for now:) If you have any questions, please let me know. Have a great week!!

Mrs. Bryan-Doherty 

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Hello! I forgot to add an important part to the blog. We have been, as a school, discussing Growth Mindset. Growth Mindset is when people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Throughout the year we will be looking at the following qualities that support a growth mindset... optimism, curiosity, zest, self-control, gratitude, grit and social intelligence. This past week we dove into "self-control":) The ability to stay on task if someone is off-task next to you, the ability to keep your hands to yourself and use your words to explain how you are feeling, coming to class prepared, etc. This week, we will be looking at "grit":) Ask your child how they showed "grit" throughout their day when you pick them up this week!

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Hello Everyone!

Here is what is happening in our classroom and at Westerly Creek this week...

Specials: 
Monday: E Day (Music)
Tuesday: A Day (Art)
Wednesday: B Day (Technology)
Thursday: C Day (Drama)
Friday: D Day (PE)

Things to know:

1. PLEASE remember to send a water bottle with your child on Monday!

2. PLEASE remember to send a snack everyday with your child:)

3. Scholastic Book Fair starts this week! It is located under the stairwell south of the cafeteria. There is an amazing amount of wonderful books! The book fair runs from 8:30-5:30 and will end on Friday:)

4. Food Drive: The food drive will go on all week. 1st grade is responsible for bringing canned fruit. Please send these items with your kiddo to school and I will have a bin to collect them in. These food items go to support families in need at our very own school, so it's very important! These  items will be put into backpacks for kiddos to take home for their families for the weekend. Thank you so much for your help!!

5. Socktober is here! The students and I have watched some videos made by a kiddo named Kid President several times. He is a very energetic, charismatic and thoughtful young man:) He has declared October as "Socktober" and is asking people to collect new pairs of socks to be donated to homeless shelters. These socks will help people in need as they head into the cold winter months. I am bringing this idea to Westerly Creek school as a whole this week but was hoping to have our class start to be the example:) Please send in as many NEW pairs of socks that you can this week and we will start our collection. I will be presenting this idea to the staff during our Tuesday meeting. Thanks so much! I will be showing the following video the kiddos and the staff. Here is the link if you would like to look at it. http://soulpancake.com/socktober/

6.Now that I've had a full week with the kiddos, I will be sending a progress report home with your kiddo on Friday. Just to give you an idea of "where they are" and "how they are doing". Formal conferences will be in November.

7. Math this week: We will be working on fact fluency and what strategies can be used to help memorize these facts and know them in a "snap". We will start having an addition Mad Minute quiz every Friday to see how many facts kiddos can get in 2 minutes! Starting this Friday, I will send each kiddo's facts home to practice. Your child can make their own flashcards at home using index cards to practice:) At the end of the week we will begin to look at the relationship between addition and subtraction and how three numbers make up a "fact family" (3+5=8, 5+3=8, 8-5=3, 8-3=5).

8. Reader's Workshop this week: We will be working on making predictions and how this helps us as reader's to comprehend the text more deeply. We will also be practicing retelling and what makes a complete retell (beginning, middle and end).

9. Writer's Workshop this week: We will spend time looking at the writing of published authors and what their "craft moves" are. How could their style of writing influence our own writing?

10. Animal habitats: We have some new animals in the classroom:) We have fish tanks on each table group, ant farms on the counter and a pill bug farm. These are all a part of our "animals and their habitats" unit for Science. We will be studying animal habitats with these animals, as well as, others. The fish (as usual) have had a tough time making the transition;) I have gotten new fish at Petsmart. The kiddos and I talked about this before we even got them!

Have an awesome week! If you have any questions, please email me or catch me after school! Thanks so much! Thank you so much for all of the wonderfully supportive and sweet emails regarding my husband. He is much better and we enjoyed a much needed quiet weekend celebrating our Lily's 1st birthday:)

Mrs. B.

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