*Do not feel like you have to read this whole post. This is mainly for informational purposes as needed throughout the school year. *
Back-To-School Night
Here is some general information about our classroom for the 2016-2017 school year.
About Me: My name is Mrs. Crook and I am in my third year at Kelseyville Elementary School. Prior to that, I was teaching classroom music to Kindergarten through 6th grade students. I am on the Technology Committee for the District and love working with various types of technology. My husband and I have been married for almost 10 years and we have a 4 year-old son and a 2 year-old son.
Classroom Schedule:
8:00 - 10:00 English Language Arts
10:00 - 10:20 Recess
10:20 - 11:30 Math
11:30 - 12:10 Lunch
12:10 - 12:30 Reading Groups
12:30 - 1:00 Writing
1:00 - 1:10 Recess
1:10 - 1:57 Social Studies/ Science/ P.E./ Read Aloud/ S.T.E.M./ Music
On Tuesdays through Thursdays we do centers during part of our English Language Arts time.
Classroom Behavior:
I use Class Dojo in my classroom for behavior management. This is an online app that gives students positive points for behaviors such as respect, responsibility, and participation. There are also negative points in this system for things such as, unsafe behavior, talking out of turn, and bullying. Students receive points that accumulate over 2 week periods. Every other Friday I will give them an opportunity to spend their Class Dojo points. If they don’t spend them they roll over into their “account.” Class Dojo is accessible online or through their free app which can be found in both the App Store and the Google Play store. Students can turn in their Dojo Points on classroom coupons (see wall by door).
P.E. and GoNoodle:
Every Tuesday our class will be doing a P.E. activity outside. Please send your child in tennis shoes on those days. GoNoodle is our indoor P.E. activities that we do every morning as a transition time from reading groups. These are fun videos that get the kids moving and give them a little bit of a break in the day. GoNoodle also has a home version for parents and students and you can find that at www.gonoodle.com
Homework:
We only have one thing for homework which is the Reading Comprehension Log. There is a small activity for each day that the student reads. Read with your child 20 minutes every night (Monday through Thursday) and then do the activity on the page. Please have your child bring their homework back in the folder each day. Monday is focused on the Main Idea of a story they read. Tuesday focuses on drawing the beginning, middle, and end of the book that was read. Wednesday, students need to draw a setting from the book. Thursdays they draw a picture to show what the problem was in the story and then write 1 sentence about that problem. This doesn’t have to be the same book for all four nights, but it can be. If your child is more interested in picture books, then do a different one each of the four nights. If your child is starting to show interest in smaller chapter books, then focus on a chapter a night. This is very flexible and the main idea is to have students reading at home and critically thinking about what they have read. Here is a copy of the reading comprehension log. https://goo.gl/nU2syH
Technology and Worksheet Free:
Just this last year, Kelseyville Unified School District has issued a Chromebook to every student that stays on campus. Every student has been given a district issued Email address with a password. This e-mail account will follow them throughout their educational career in Kelseyville District. In our class, we use the Chromebooks at least once a day. Technology is a wonderful tool and we now have a greater accessibility for our students. In our classroom we focus a lot on Digital Citizenship, which includes but is not limited to internet and computer safety, online etiquette, and learning through technology. Google Classroom is a tool that is also used in our class on a daily basis. We use sites in class including but certainly not limited to,: iRead, www.typing.com , and www.frontrowed.com Throughout the year students will be introduced to a variety of websites, some of which will require a username and password. Please know that I keep a record of all of their usernames and passwords and they also have a copy of all of their usernames and passwords. If at any point in the year, you would like to be able to access some of their site accounts, please let me know and I will be happy to send home a hard copy of usernames and passwords with your child. Because of our frequent use of technology in the classroom, very few papers will be sent home. We still do use paper and pencil, but most activities in class will be hands-on, manipulative, or computer-based. For more information on my worksheet free philosophy, read my blog post at http://crookclass.blogspot.com/2015/07/worksheet-free.html
Library:
Our class has a regular library time every Friday morning at 9:30. Your child will get to check out 2 books each week, providing they turn in their 2 books from the previous week.
Field Trips and Volunteers:
In Second Grade we go on two field trips during the year. One of these is a walking field trip in town and the second is a bus field trip. We walk to the Kelseyville Post Office usually in the spring. This field trip connects with our Social Studies program which has a big focus on community involvement and community workers. Our last field trip for the year is to the Ocean at Fort Bragg. We take a bus and are gone all day. This is a great trip and very exciting for the students and teachers as we close our unit on ocean and tides pools in our science curriculum. Details about each field trip will be sent home as we get closer to them. If you would like to volunteer to be a chaperone on the field trips, you will need to fill out a volunteer packet from the office and have a current TB test done, and get fingerprinted. If you would like to volunteer and help out in the classroom, you will need to fill out the same packet with a current TB test and get fingerprinted.
Communication:
The best way to get a hold of me is through Email at rcrook@kvusd.org I will get back to you within 24 hours. You can also call the school and leave a message at (707) 279-4232 x106. Most communications I send out to you will be through either the class blog at crookclass.blogspot.com or through the Class Dojo messenger. The class blog will be updated at least once a week to give you an idea of what happened in class, generally, and if there are any upcoming events for our classroom or the school. I also do have a Twitter account if you would like to reach me that way @rcrook_rcrook
Many thanks to all the families that were able to attend Back-to-School Night.
Math - Our focus on math this week has been on Addition Strategies. We started by talking about different ways to make 10 and each child made a visual using hands to represent the different addition combinations to get to 10. We also worked quite a bit with some dominoes. In discussing the commutative property in addition (or the idea that the two numbers in an addition problem can be read either way to get the same answer), the class had some dominoes and wrote it as one problem and then flipped it around to show the other problem using the same numbers. Part of our study with the commutative property dealt with talking about how we can "flip" the numbers to different positions. So the class designed their own pair of flip-flops with two different addition problems using the same set of numbers. (These will be hanging in our classroom for Back-to-School Night.)
