PTO Meeting

Tonight's PTO meeting will begin at 6:45 instead of 7pm.

Lexia

A letter went home today explaining how to use Lexia at home.  As I said at Curriculum Night, it is totally up to you and your child how much you use this at home.  Some kids love it and want to work more at home.  Others don't like it as much, so unless they aren't successful on it at school, I wouldn't push it much at home.  Students should do this independently.  As time goes by, I'll let you know if they aren't going through the program at an appropriate rate.
One thing to note, students should finish each activity instead of clicking the stop sign in the bottom right hand corner.  For example, if there are ten problems in an activity, but they only do six and then click stop, they do not get "credit" for those six and will have to repeat them another time, which can be frustrating for students.  Once they finish an activity, the computer will bring them back to the main menu and they can choose a different activity if they wish.

Welcome Back Picnic

The picnic has been canceled for today due to weather.  It has been rescheduled for September 21.

Assessments

In your child's backpack today, you'll find two notes:

• A letter from Longfellow about the Kindergarten Readiness Test (KRT):  This was the test your child took during the summer.  We used these scores to balance our five homerooms.  The letter also mentions DIBELS, which was administered this past week and helps determine the first Passport to Reading groups.  We regroup every four weeks after that, using new information.
• A note from me:  This is the information I use to drive my instruction.  Over the past week, I've assessed children on some basic information so I know what to teach them and what they already know.  I'm impressed!  Please work on the highlighted items at home.  Most will be graded on the 1st trimester report card, though we really hope all kindergarteners know their upper- and lowercase letters by mid-October.  Flashcards or a game for just a few minutes at night can be a big help at school.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Library Books and Gym Shoes

Just a friendly reminder to bring your library book back to school on Tuesday.  Kindergarteners checked out books for the first time this past week.  They are not overdue until after two weeks, but students are only allowed to have one book out at a time.
Also, please remember to bring gym shoes on Monday for P.E.
Thanks!

I'm Proud of You!

Your child may have mentioned that we spent yesterday in Ms. Mulsoff's room next door.  Most of the school is not air-conditioned like our part of the building is.  The third floor can get very hot and stuffy, which is an extremely uncomfortable learning environment.  Two fifth grade classes used our classroom yesterday and we spent the day with Ms. Mulsoff's class.  Our kindergarteners did so well!  We are still getting used to kindergarten routines, but students did exceptionally well with this out-of-the-ordinary situation.  Way to go!
Mrs. Parr also visited our classroom for an hour this morning and we assessed students using DIBELS to start to determine groupings for Passport to Reading, which starts in 2 weeks.  Our class did a GREAT job working quietly while Mrs. Parr and I worked with students individually.  I am so proud of my students!

PBIS Raffle

You may have heard about our Bear Necessity slips, or bear claw slips.  Students can earn these slips from any teacher when they are "caught" following the Bear Necessities: be respectful, be responsible, be safe.  Our class has earned a LOT among our 17 students in these first 10 days of school.  Every Friday, beginning this Friday, Longfellow holds a raffle using these slips and 10 winners are selected.  The raffle box is emptied out after the raffle and it starts again for the next week.
P.S. If you have access to inexpensive prizes, especially for the Bears Den for 4th and 5th grade students, please contact Ms. Helm at vhelm@op97.org.  We would really appreciate it!