Monday Update # 2

Welcome to our 2nd week of school! The kids have been busy adjusting to our new schedule. Hopefully they had a chance to rest over the weekend. I know they were all exhausted by Friday (and so was I)!

Today we started our first "multi-age" group sessions. Each SJCA teacher will spend about 30 minutes each Monday with their group. It will function like our own version of a homeroom. We'll start off with lots of teach building activities and throughout the year will do various activities designed for multi-age groups. This will also be a time for us to focus and discuss the monthly Lancer Values. Our focus for September is Spirituality.

We're continuing to focus and a lot of our classroom procedures and routines this week. I am slowly adding more and more academic material to our routine. Here are some specifics for this week:

Reading/Language:

We're beginning to launch Daily 5. This will be the building block for our reading and writing instruction. Please see the Daily 5 tab on the right for a brief introduction.

Math:

We're starting this week with a review of sorting. We will cover sorting by similar uses, size, color, shape, etc.

Each day we also practice counting to 100 by 1's. Later in the year we'll add 10's, 5's, & 2's. These are some simple skills to practice at home with your children.

Religion:

We're going to start our first few religions lessons this week. To start with we'll have a general introduction on religion and God. Following that our focus will be on creation.

Starting next week, the kids will begin science and social studies. This year Miss Scuglik and I are going to switch classes for these subjects. Twice a week the students will see her for science and I will focus on teaching social studies for the two classes. This will be a great opportunity for all of us.

We've had a chance to participate in the majority of our specials. Here's a list of our current "special" schedule.

Kenesie	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8:00	Prayer Service
8:15
8:30	Multi-Age		Italian T2
8:45	Groups		8:30-8:55
9:00	9-9:50
9:15	Art
9:30			Music 2	PE 2
9:45
10:00
10:15
10:30
10:45		MASS
11:00
11:15
11:30	K,1,5 Lunch	2,3,4 Recess
11:45
12:00	2,3,4 Lunch	K,1,5 Recess
12:15
12:30	Music 1
12:45		Chinese T3	Spanish T1
1:00				TECH 2
1:15
1:30					TECH 1
1:45
2:00
2:15	French T3	PE 1
2:30	2:20-2:45
2:45
3:00

Look for a few items to be added to the student folders this week. These papers should be kept in sheet protectors and can be used for extra practice (homework) activites. I will be adding an alphabet that can be used for practice or review of letter names. If this is mastered students could practice naming the sounds each letter makes. This will work to build phonemic awareness. There will also be a 100 chart for counting reference. A GIANT word list will also be in there. We will be using the Fry's word list a reference for sight words. I will put the first 100 words in the folder. Please DO NOT stress about having your child memorize all 100 words! A reasonable goal would be that each child would master around 25-30 of the words this year.

Enjoy your week and remember that we have another 1/2 day on Thursday this week for our monthly staff development.