November 21 -25, 2022

Thank you to all the families that were able to take time out of their busy schedules to connect during our student conferences. I  really enjoy being able to share your child's progress with you. I am so proud of all the students in room 3. I look forward to connecting with a few more families next week. If you did not have the opportunity to connect, please feel free to reach out and we can arrange a time to meet. These meetings will be held virtually.  

Over the past few weeks we have started creating our classroom Sound Wall. A sound wall is a way to organize and display the different sounds, phonemes, we hear in speech.  Our sound wall highlights what our mouths and tongues are doing when they produce the sound with both real and graphic photos.  During our shared learning we have explored the sounds /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/. During our shared learning students practice making the sounds while some students are using the phonetic alphabet on the AAC device to make the sounds. A sound wall matches our speech sounds to the written representation of the sound, grapheme. On individual whiteboards students are practicing or exploring printing the letter. Another activity that the students really enjoy is our item sort.  In this activity we are showing an item and then isolating the initial sound of that item and sorting it accordingly. We look forward to sharing more of this work with you in future blog posts. 

This week we had some fun during literacy with the Pixar animated short For the Birds, https://youtu.be/Q6X80IWdS6s. After viewing the video, we brainstormed the characters, the setting, and a few of the events that took place in the short. Using our generated list, students created their very own writing. Some students used predictable writing and visual picture symbols to create I see or I liked sentences.  Students then got to share their writing with their classmates in our special Authors Chair. 

This week we took advantage of the beautiful weather to go on a community walk. Before the walk, we read a social story about crosswalk safety and then watched a video about how to safely cross the road. During our walk we pointed out the different street signs and talked about their meanings. Next week some of our morning tasks will focus on the different environmental print we can see all around us. We walked to a nearby community playground and had lots of fun playing on the different play structure. 

If you are looking for a way to give during this holiday season, please think about supporting our community hamper. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to me. 

The predicted forecast for next week might have us enjoying more activities indoors. We still try to get outside whenever possible, even for short periods of time. Keeping to our routines and schedule helps some of us stay regulated throughout the day. We will continue to take outdoor breaks until the temperature drops to -20 degrees with the windchill, so please be sure to pack extra's hats, mitts and socks for the cold weather.  With all the extra's around the classroom, please take a moment to label your students belongings. This is greatly appreciated! 

Upcoming Dates

• Dec 2 - Community Walk, weather permitting
• Dec 5-8 - Scholastic Book Fair
• Dec 5 - Deadline for Gingerbread House Decorating Night
• Dec 10 - Deadline to donate to Christmas Hampers
• Dec 10 - Deadline to order for Dec 15 Healthy Hunger Lunch (Mucho Burrito)
• Dec 15 - Gingerbread House Decorating Night
• Dec 22 - Last day of classes (8:00 am to 2:30 pm)

Have a great weekend!