Week 2

Here are a few highlights of things we have been doing during our second week of school!

We continue getting to know each other and building our classroom community each day and this week kids did a "Find a Friend Who..." scavenger hunt looking for friends who have similar interests, different numbers of siblings, certain pets, common favorite foods, etc. We have been talking a lot about rules and expectations at different times and places in our school day and we have been practicing what all of these look and sound like. Our new school-wide PBIS program is helping us to get excited about this.

This week we also started getting more into our academic routines and schedule in class. We have been introducing word study with our mystery student of the day routine which helps us review vowels, consonants, and syllables as we get to know each other. Last week we started Readers' Workshop learning to take care of our classroom library and this week we added in Writers' Workshop by creating a class book about our favorite places to read. A number of these photos also show some of our math work. We have been reviewing care of math materials, counting, and creating numbers. Kids worked all together and in partnerships this week to review counting patterns and strategies and began their new first grade math workbooks. They have also been using small whiteboards to show different ways to make the "number of the day" (using pictures, equations, tallies, drawn coins, etc) then share their strategies with a friend.

We are having a lot of fun as we get to know each other, create a supportive classroom community, review skills, and introduce new classroom routines in room 7! We also had our first birthday of the year celebrated yesterday!

PBIS starts today!

Dear UMS Families,

I am writing about an important initiative at UMS called Positive Behavior Interventions and Support or PBIS. We’ve always approached managing student behavior from a positive, skill-based, non-punitive perspective. For example, if there are arguments at the tetherball area, instead of prohibiting play, we first attempt to reteach the rules and have the student(s) watch peers as they model the expected behaviors. That’s not to say there isn’t a time when a student may lose the privilege of participating, but our initial intervention is positive.

PBIS brings a more systematic approach to this concept. It’s a national, evidence-based practice and Vermont has embraced and devoted a number of resources in an effort to see that it is implemented in each of the state’s public schools. In Colchester, we will be one of three schools implementing PBIS this year. In addition to teaching (and reteaching) desired behaviors, a big part of PBIS is recognizing students who are following the school rules. There are so many students who come to UMS every day and do exactly what is expected of them. We’ll be acknowledging that with “Champ bands.” They are essentially colorful sun bands.

You shouldn’t see any of the Champ bands at home (but given the age of our students you might), because they will be placing them in a classroom container so everyone can see how well they and their classmates are behaving. Also, when the classroom and school meet certain goals, we will celebrate the accomplishment. Here are a couple of ways you can help support your child: 1. Ask how, specifically, he or she followed one of our school rules: Be Safe, Be Kind and Do Your Best. 2. If you see a Champ band at home, have your child return it to school and explain how it’s important to place it in the class container because he or she is a member of the community and that’s one of the ways of being a good member. We’ll be sharing more about PBIS as the year progresses.

As always, if you have any questions, please reach out to your child’s teacher or me.

Respectfully,
Chris Antonicci
Principal

First Week of School!

Welcome to our new school year! We have been in first grade for 3 days now and we are having a wonderful time in room 7 so far! Everyday I have been amazed by how kind, helpful, and engaged this group of students is. As our school rules say, this class has really been kind, safe, and doing their best all week. Below you will see some photo highlights from our week. If you do not see your child pictured please make sure that I get your signed blog permission slip back as soon as possible so I can start featuring photos of everyone here each week!

Some of the things we did this week (pictured here) include using our smartboard for math activities, doing a "survey" of how students felt about starting the new school year, reading the book First Day Jitters and drinking "Jitter Juice" to get rid of our jitters then tallying how many people did or didn't like it, reading the book The Kissing Hand to talk about feelings of leaving home to start school again for a new year, learning to care for our classroom library and choose/return books each day, playing the "Mystery Name of the Day" word study game allowing us to review vowels, consonants, and syllables while learning about a new classmate each day (we started on the second day of school and have learned about Callan and Trevor so far), exploring some of our math materials, and doing some writing.

Stay tuned for more next week!