Hello families,

We hope you are doing well and that you are finding creative ways to keep busy. Ms. Mah and I just finished a “virtual” staff meeting with our new administrator, Ms. Aujla. We want to share the following pieces of information that we learned today:

1. Our top priority is to ensure that all of our students and families are doing well. So, at this time, we want to connect with families. Please expect a call from myself or Ms. Mah tomorrow (Thursday, April 2). The call will appear from “caller unknown”  (according to district policy) so please answer the call as we would love to hear our students’ voices!
2. Over the next week, we will be working on how we will be able to provide learning opportunities for your child. We will be exploring a combination of online and offline learning activities. Thank you for your patience as this is an entirely new situation for all of us!
3. Teachers will be allowed to enter the school for short amounts of time over the next week to collect our resources and other things that we will require for future planning and teaching.

Mr. Gurney sent out a survey asking families to let us know what level of technology you have access to at home and what supplies are available for your child. We do not have the results of the survey yet, so we will be asking you similar questions during our phone calls tomorrow in order to guide our planning for upcoming lessons.

As you know, both of us have children at home, so we can relate to what your families are going through! We have found that making a lose schedule including outside time, meal time, creative activities like lego and art, a bit of math and literacy activities has been helpful for our families.

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As we wait for further lessons, I want to share a few ideas that I am using with my son who is also in grade 1. These may be some ideas that will work well for your family:

–Daily 5 at home: explain to your child that you are going to start “Read to Self” from daily 5 at home. Create a graph like the photo below.  This graph is to document the number of minutes that your child reads independently each day. I suggest starting with a short amount of time (10 minutes). Ask your child to collect a few books, review the rules (Start right away, Read the whole time, and stay in one spot), start a timer for the specific amount of time. You will be amazed at how your child can read independently. When the timer sounds, stop and record the time on the graph. The goal is to keep it short so they can feel successful. You can add a minute or two to the timer each day.

Your child will be able to tell you that there are three ways to read a book: read the words, read the pictures, and re-tell the story. Your child is not expected to be able to read all of the words in the books. The goal is for them to read and look at books independently for a sustained period of time.  Ultimately, they should be able to read daily for 20-25 minutes.

-“Listen to reading” is another option my son enjoys. We use “tumblebooks” which can be accessed from our school library website or from the following link:

https://www.tumblebooklibrary.com/Home.aspx?categoryID=77

Look for books that have a “read online” option so your child can listen to the story being read.

 

Please take the time to make the most out of having your family around you during this unique time. When we reflect on this period of history, your child will not remember the schoolwork they completed, they will remember the special times spent with you! 

As always, thank you for your support and patience!

Looking forward to speaking to you tomorrow!

Ms. Mah and Ms. Capitanio