April 12 Update

Hello!

A few fun things to note!

The Teacher Time Raffle and Donuts with Grown Ups are 2 FUN events coming up this next week! Please see below for the flyers for the important details of these 2 events!

Call for Volunteers for Teacher Time Raffle Ticket Selling and for Donuts with Grown Ups: We need volunteers to sell tickets during lunch periods the week of April 15th - 19th and also help out with our Donuts with Grown Ups event on April 17th & 18th. Sign up here

Teacher Time Raffle: Prize Options can be found at this link.

Phonics: We are on our 4th of 4 workbooks in the Phonics 95 district wide program! The 3rd book is coming home today with your students. A "quick check" of phonograms (ing, ank, ong, etc.) that we have been working on is coming home as well. We will continue to look at these patterns in the next few weeks as we review them and add new ones. 

Independence Readiness for 2nd grade: Your student may tell you about some new "independence" changes that we are doing in our room! In an effort to get these fabulous kids ready for 2nd grade, I like to transition some routines near the end of the year to foster more independence and responsibility at the individual instead of group level. You may hear them mention individual supply boxes with individual supplies that they are to take care of. You also may hear them talk about the "cubes" that we are using (starting Monday) to encourage independence and following the group plan. Each student starts each day with 5 cubes and those "cash in" for 10 minutes (2 minutes per cube) of extra free choice time at the end of each day! Every student starts with all 5 and the ability to have 10 minutes of free choice time at the end of the day. 

Throughout the day, the students who have challenges following the group plan will get a cube quietly taken away and be redirected to fix the issue. During the 10 minute choice time, I'll then work with those students who lost cubes/minutes to practice expectations. These are expectations that we have been working on all year such as hanging up their backpacks, putting their lunch in bins, etc. With this set up, the students that are "doing the right thing" get their extra choice time and the students who need extra help/reminders will be incented to work on their challenges and get extra time working on them with me. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.

Hopewell's New Facebook Page: We will be shifting all information, pictures, posts, events, and all things Hopewell to the new Facebook page. Our current Facebook group will close soon, so be sure to start following the new page to get the best information! 

How to find us: 

Search "Hopewell Elementary School" 

Look for the Hopewell logo and picture of our school (like the phone below!)

Click "Follow"! 

Did you know we also have an Instagram? Be sure to head there and give us a follow - @hopewell_elementary_dcs

There is a picture explaining this information below as well!

That was a lot! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

Thanks,
Wendy

We got mail! We got another note from a parent and got to revisit how "mail" works! This package had smelly bookmarks in it! SO FUN!

This week in math, we focused on story problems. This includes reading the problem, understanding what we know, and figuring out what we need to know! Pictures such as the one above are great ways to create story problems and used as a jumping off point. Feel free to "make up" story problems at home and ask what strategies your kids know to solve the problem! 

Problems might include: I have 3 apples and 3 peaches, how many fruits do I have in all (part, part, whole unknown)

or

There were 6 penguins on ice and 2 jumped in the water. How many are left are on the ice (part, part unknown and whole) 

We had guidance this week with Mrs. Cooper. She talked to us about cooperation, and we learned that the tree pose was way easier to do if we cooperated and worked together!