Engaging Your Learner
Thank you everyone for your participation and commitment to meeting with me last week for conferences. I was glad to meet all of you and get a chance to talk about your child's strengths and areas of growth with you! After meeting with you and having some great conversations about things you can do at home to support your child's learning, I wanted to offer some fun and engaging ways for you to work your learner from home in both reading and math. No matter the ability level your child has in either area, extra practice in reading and math will always help them to build a foundation on those skills and help them build self-confidence!
Reading from Home:
Many of you were interested in strategies to help your child read from home. We have been working on reading books at our independent level in school during our independent time. This is a level suited for your child to read independently without needing a lot of assistance. There are many ways to help support your reader, which include some of the following:
* USE THE FIVE FINGER RULE - open the book to any page and ask your child to read. Put up a finger every time your child does not know a word. If you have to put up more than five fingers before the end of the page, the book is too hard.
*Choose books that match your child's likes and interests.
Remember, you don't have to read a lot every day, 15-20 minutes a day is plenty for a beginning reader!
If your child gets stuck on a word while reading, they can use these reading strategies to help them!
You can also support your reader by checking for "Fun-derstanding:"
* Ask questions and make comments during the reading process.
* After reading a book, have your child tell you the events from the story in the correct order.
* What was the problem in the story?
*How did the character feel when…?Encourage your child to make connections. Does this story remind you of another book you read, an event in your life, a movie?
On Wednesday, we listened to a story about the 5 Keys to health. We discussed the story and showed how we comprehended the information in different ways. Even though the class did not actually read the story themselves, they were able to listen to a story and retell the information. After the lesson, we enjoyed a healthy snack (one of the 5 keys of health was to EAT WELL)!
Making Math Connections:
There are many ways to practice math in fun and engaging ways. Again, you don't need to spend a lot of time working on and practicing these skills, however with added practice, your child's confidence and stamina will increase which will help them when learning and practicing new concepts at school.
*You probably already have at home games that encourage math development: Yahtzee (basic addition), ConnectFour (problem solving, developing strategies), Puzzles (spatial awareness), Card Games (greater than/less than or GARBAGE)!
*Talk about the calendar with your child. Make it exciting by looking forward to special events. Count the number of days that have passed and make number sentences (Today is October 18. What is 1 more than 18? What is 1 less than 18?).
*Bake with your child. Read the instructions with them and let them measure the ingredients.
*Discuss equal parts when eating your pizza on pizza night!
*Point out shapes and have your child discuss them.
Some of these skills will be worked on later in the year, however it never hurts to see these concepts multiple times and in many different settings!
Most importantly, help to show your child that learning is FUN, even when it may be challenging! Let them see you reading and doing math at home. When they see you doing these things, they will see the value in it as well and will feel more supported while growing a love for learning!
We are also becoming more and more confident in our abilities to write about the information we want to share with others. This week we spent time working with partners to tell and write about our own families, as well as our partner's. It was a great way to get to know more about our friends as well as to continue building confidence as writers.
Finally, I hope you enjoy getting to work with your child on their home portion of their pumpkin book report! This is such a fun opportunity for your child to write and tell about their FAVORITE book from home! Please make sure to send in the book tomorrow, October 19th! We will need them starting on Monday! Your child will do the 'book report' portion at school. Please make sure to work with your child to develop their pumpkin into their favorite character from the book they have chosen! Remember to send in the slip with materials you need to complete your pumpkin. I will try my best to get you the items on your list, however if I do not have those materials at school I will try to send something you can use instead, or you will need to find something else from home. I will send home the materials at the beginning of the week so that you can get your projects done and turned in by next Friday! We are looking forward to having our pumpkins on display! **You can read the full details about the project here!
If you are looking for ways to help support you child/the classroom, please sign up!
**WE STILL NEED 2 MORE VOLUNTEERS TO HELP SELL BOO GRAMS! IF YOU ARE AVAILABLE OCTOBER 25 or 26 FROM 11:15-12:45 PLEASE EMAIL, CALL OR SEND IN A NOTE TO LET ME KNOW!!!
