Conferences are finished!  I know that as soon as I get home, I will collapse and sleep, so I wanted to get this updated before I left Channing Hall.  Thanks to all of you who cam in to meet with me.  It's great to e able to talk about the lids one at a time, and really focus on their strengths and needs.  For those of you who were not ale to make it, please send me an email and we can get together sometime soon for a quick visit about your child.  As always, feel free to email me at any time with questions.

OK, to next week...
"we be me" sight words homework will be due on Monday.
"he she so" sight words homework will be sent home to work on for the week.
Leveled Library book will go home for the first time on Monday.
We will start wearing "inside shoes" on Monday.
We will start spelling assessments on Monday in preparation for weekly spelling coming 2nd term.

Please remember to READ READ READ!!!

More later...have a great weekend!

Back to normal...?

Hello!  Well, things have calmed down a bit here at home.  Mom and baby are home and settled in, and I will be back to school tomorrow morning!

Unfortunately, this next week is not a "normal" week (with picture day and conferences), so we won't be back into the full swing of things yet, but we will try for a degree of normalcy!

Tomorrow (Monday), we will have the AM and the PM classes combined from 8:15-11:20 (regular schedule for the AM kids).  Because of this, things like centers and math stations will need to start ion Tuesday this week.  We will be doing language arts, math, etc., like always, but not in small (3-4 people) groups.  Tuesday will be a normal Tuesday.  Wednesday and Thursday will be on a half-day schedule because of conferences.  This means AM comes from 8:15 to 10:30, PM comes from 11:10 to 1:20.  We will be doing all of our regular class study on those days.

There will be a sight words homework sheet going out tomorrow.  Please remember that the reason those are sent out weekly is to allow for daily exposure.  Please work with your children on these sight words, it really makes a difference when it comes to reading the books that Kindergarteners are often exposed to.  Thanks for your support on this!

How is daily reading coming?  I ask the students daily if they read and I ask a couple of kids to share what they read.  This is essential for your child to become a solid reader.  Each child needs to read or be read to for a minimum of 20 minutes each day.  Please also remember to record your child's reading minutes (raz-kids, reading alone, being read to, listening as siblings read, all of this counts) on the reading log daily and send those back each Tuesday morning.  The reward that you and I will see is that your child will become a good reader.  The students will enjoy rewards from the library like pizza parties or gift certificates.  I really can't state enough times that this is ESSENTIAL for your child's reading development.

We will start sending home leveled library book the first week of October.  More details on that as the time approaches.

We have a field trip coming up!  We will go to the Hee-Haw Pumpkin Farm!  Watch for details this week!!!

For those who have not yet signed up for a conference, please do so ASAP!  The link is here:

https://www.appointmentquest.com/scheduler/2160059636/login

There is a book fair at Channing Hall Sep. 24-27.  All proceeds go to our awesome library.


A quick general announcement from Karen in the office...if you are going on a field trip with the class OR working one-on-one with students, you need a background check.  If you are just helping out in the classroom, then you do NOT need to get a background check.

A lot of announcements!  I guess that's what happens when you miss a week!

I'm so excited too see the kids again!!!!!!!!!!! 

Love,
Mr. Matt

What a weekend!

It all started Friday afternoon...

My van broke down, stranding my (very pregnant) wife and small son.  I left here at about 2:00 to get them, taking stuff to do over the weekend (sight word homework check, math sheet check, etc.).  Well...

I checked a bunch of things on Saturday amid the usual housework, weekly grocery shopping, helping my own kids with homework, etc.  Then, about 10:00 PM Saturday night...

Labor!  The kind that REALLY HURTS (according to my poor wife)!  By 3:00 AM Sunday, we were headed for the hospital to get our baby - two weeks earlier than planned!  The baby was born at 5:31 AM, and then the day really got crazy!  Back and forth to the hospital with siblings, and a birthday party for my now four-year-old (yes, he got a baby sister for his birthday).  Needless to say, I still have a HUGE stack of stuff to go through!

Your child's papers, etc., will be gone through and checked throughout this week as we are moving mom and baby home from the hospital and working to stabilize life.  I have a daughter who attends Channing Hall, and I will be sending papers to Ms. Jennifer through her to go home in your child's file.  Thank you for your patience!

I will be at home helping out for the remainder of the week, and Ms. Jennifer will be subbing for the class.  Ms. Jennifer and I have discussed the centers, the math stations, and other things that the children need to do this week, and she has all the supplies ready to go.  We will be in touch throughout the week.  If any of you have a little time to come in and help her out, even if it is not a regular volunteer things but just a one-time deal, please feel free to do so.

Thanks for your patience!  Things should be back to normal in a few days.  I spoke with the kids today and let them know what was going on.

Another week come and gone...it all goes by in a fast blur!  Welcome to Aayan, Chesney, and Ellie, who joined our classes this week.  Also welcome to Gage and Gavin, who will be joining us starting on Monday!

We had several students who did not turn in their sight words homework.  Those are important to do so that children have lots of exposure to the sights words all around them.  There is a new assignment in the folder for the weekend.  Starting next week, I will send home the assignment on Monday and have them due on Friday so that I can remind the children daily to work on them.

Thanks to all of you who are reading to and encouraging your children to read daily!  It makes a BIG difference when this is done with consistency.

Book orders were just submitted, thanks to all of you who ordered.  Your children will bring home books when they arrive, in a week or so.

We have the baby pictures up in the room along with current photos.  It's fun to see how different (and how unchanged) your children are since babyhood!  We also have a web up in the hall depicting how we are the same and how we are different.  This is in conjunction with our IB unit about Who We Are, entitled Me-Ology.  We are learning about our physical differences and similarities, our emotional differences and similarities, as well as a bit about our senses.

Have a great weekend!!!