A little bit of the crazies

 Whew! Spring has sprung in many ways!  Not only have we had crazy up and down spring weather, but the kiddos have had a bit of the crazies as well! lol!  I don't think this is just in our classroom, but an overall theme at BEU this week.  I know I've seen some uncharacteristic behaviors from many and hope together we can nip that in the bud.  While the end of school is near, it's not THAT near to be able to continue like we did this week.  While we are going to have lots of fun these last two months of school, we also have lots of learning left to do and we can't have fun if we can't do our learning.  The biggest issues in our classroom have been noise, passive learners (sitting, staring into space and not participating) and following directions the first time.  While there are times to be loud and silly, there are also times to be serious and learn.  We have a noise meter in our classroom that we use daily and they know the expectations.  I will always give reminders, but I should not have to give an excessive amount of reminders for simple things.  These are things we've chatted about and I thought it would be helpful if you knew the conversations. I have been coming down pretty hard with consequences to try and alleviate this, so many of you will notice walking slips in your child's take home folder. Sometimes we have to have a consequence to help us see that we need to fix a behavior issue. Thank you, in advance for your help with this. I'm hopeful next week will be better.

A look at our learning...

Fundations: this week we focused on the diagraph ck. We learned that when you hear the /c/ or /k/ sound at the end of a word, it will most likely be ck together.  We practiced reading and writing words with this diagraph.  Check the Friday Folder for the weekly parent packet to help extend your child's learning at home. 

Writing Workshop: we have learned many skills this year in writing and now it is time to refine those skills.  This week we have talked about how we are always learning and perfecting skills, even as adults, and it is always good to set goals.  Each child now has an individual writing goal to focus on.  I chatted one on one with each child this week and we discussed things they are great at in writing and things they could focus and work on.  We talked about how it takes a lot of practice to become an expert at something and in order to move their name to a new goal, I have to consistently see them doing their current goal for quite some time.  If I see them improving then after a couple of weeks we will choose a new goal.

Check the chart to see your child's writing goal.  You will notice that MANY need work on writing their letters correctly the Fundations way.  We learned how to form all of our letters correctly during the first half of the year in Fundations, so this is definitely a skill to work on if their name is there.  We are going to start doing some lowercase letter handwriting sheets (like earlier) in the year as morning work again to hopefully help fix this as well. 

Spelling words: they did a great job with our tough spelling words this week!  I appreciate you helping them practice!  Next week are tricky words too!  They are almost first graders after all!

Next week's spelling words:

they

had

Math: we continued to focus on addition, subtraction and story problems this week.  There are not any parent packets this week for math as we got a bit ahead with sending them home.  

School wide awards: we continue to try and bring a bit of normalcy back to BEU.  Things that we did pre-pandemic.  Two of those things we brought back this week were the "Golden Broom" award and the "Fast Pass" award.  There are two winners for each awards.  A K-2 winner and a 3-5 winner.  To earn the Golden Broom you must keep your classroom and bathroom clean.  The custodians choose the winner and that class earns a reward of their teachers choosing.  This week we were chosen as the K-2 Golden Broom winners!  We earned an extra recess! 

The "Fast Pass" award is chosen by principals and lunchroom/recess supervisors.  They are looking for the class that does the best job of following expectations at lunch.  Their reward is being the first to go outside for lunch recess for an entire week.