Welcome to 2025

Thank you all for your patience as I was getting over an illness in December; it was hard to miss so much school, but I was pleased to have such great substitutes step in to cover for me and for the help of Mrs. Crouser to supplement the class activities as needed. 

Thank you again for all the snack donations.  We are doing fine for now and I'll reach out if we start to get low.  Remember that all students at Grout have access to free breakfast (starts at 7:45) and lunch.  Our first bell is at 7:53, but if students are not done eating their breakfast they can finish up in the classroom.

 Almost every morning we start our day with "work tubs", each one offering different activities to build fine motor skills, phonics or math practice, and just have a little low pressure fun exploring to start the day.  At 8:10 we put these away and get started on our daily lessons, so aim for arriving on time to not miss out.

Foundational Skills in Phonological Awareness and Literacy:  Now that all the letters of the alphabet have been introduced and letter formations have been taught, we'll continue to practice these throughout the rest of the year, but these are also great things to work on at home too.  Students should be able to hear and name the sounds they hear at the beginning and endings of words, unless it is a digraph (th, ch, wh, sh, ck) which we'll learn soon).  We're still practicing our lowercase handwriting and we'll add some uppercase letter practice in the coming weeks.

"Tapping": we are working on tapping out the sounds in CVC words either with our fingers (thumb touching individual fingers for each sound), along our arms (starting at the shoulder and moving to elbow and then hand), and with "choppers" (palms together pointing forward and chopping the air from the left to right with each sound of the word).  In addition to decodable words (words you can use phonics knowledge to figure out) we are also reading some high-frequency sight words like: I, a, is, and, the.

We're continuing our work in Module 2: Once Upon a Farm (elements of a story) with our newest book, The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice & Martin Provensen.  This book is full of small details and facts that we're collecting in our study of "Main Idea" and "Key Details" along with exposure to the seasons and months of the year.  This book is a bit too long to read all at once, but if your child would like to hear it in it's entirety, I linked a YouTube video of it to the image below.  Also a song we've sung in class.

    

Our latest "wordless book" is called American Gothic, about the famous painting of the same name.  Students watched the this short informative video and we will continue practicing a retelling of the book in class before taking home our own copies.

Math: In December students worked with 3D shapes, measuring weight with balance scales, and practiced the first step in adding numbers to five.  We have not introduced equations yet ;using the + and = symbols. Instead we are learning that 2 and 3 is 5, or 1 and 4 is 5 (that "adding" means the total will be larger).  This week we began looking at 2D shapes more closely and noticing their attributes (number of sides and corners) despite their size or orientation.  Students are also learning about how shapes can would together to make other shapes, for example two squares together make a rectangle or two triangles can make a square/rectangle.  Next week we'll start exploring subtraction.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL):  In December much of our discussions during SEL time was about positive self talk.  We talked about when we make mistakes or if we feel worried about something we can use positive self talk to help feel better.  Much of this involves having a Growth Mindset (telling ourselves that we might not be able to do something YET, but we will get there with practice and help).  This week we started talking about being Helpers to those around us.  How we can be helpful in little ways by noticing others and thinking about how our actions and words are important. 

On Friday we heard a book called Shelter by Celine Claire and Qin Leng, about animals helping each other out during a storm.  This book prompted a discussion about strangers and Stranger Danger.  Many students believed that the word "stranger" actually meant "a bad guy" so we talked more about how it is just someone we don't know yet and our families and trusted adults can help us get to know people if it's safe.  This is a conversation you may want to continue at home.  Here is a link to the story.

Content (Social Studies/Science/Health): Throughout the year the School District designates some time to be spent on teaching various content areas.  In December I used this time (or our guest teachers) to talk about some winter holidays celebrated around the world: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Years Eve.  

This week we started a Health Unit on Food, Nutrition and Physical Activity. We're learning about how food gives our bodies energy just like a battery might give power to a toy robot.  This unit touches on foods and how our tastes can change over time, about recognizing hunger in our bodies, mindful eating, the importance of water, and setting personal goals.