30 January 2012

It's official!  Our annual Catholic Schools Week is in full swing! I realized I have made several omissions in the weekly update.  Please note the following:

Tuesday: School Spirit Day - The girls may wear Visitation logo shirts/sweatshirts over their uniform and/or school colors (socks, hair bobs...) tomorrow!  Apple Dumpling Day, summer camp, Viz sports t-shirts, Viz gear... it's all good tomorrow !

At the end of the day we will gather for a Pep Rally.  The girls are super excited to share the 1st grade cheer!  Additionally, we will begin a Viz Gives... I Give discussion with the girls as a whole.  We ask that you prayerfully consider giving and allowing your daughter to give to the Annual Giving Fund. Please know that we are striving to achieve a 100% participation in this campaign.  And too, know that the amount is not as important as the choice.  We are one family.  The Annual Giving Campaign is a reflection of our cohesive commitment to each other.  Thank you in advance for your participation. 

Friday: Student Appreciation Day... PJ DAY!!!! This is sure to be a HUGE hit!  Please send your daughter to school ... in her pjs!!!  AND... we'll feed her breakfast!  The girls are asked to bring a no-spill water bottle (must have a secure closing lid), a blanket OR sleeping bag, and a pillow.  NO BACKPACKS!!!  She'll go DIRECTLY to the auditorium for a little fun, then we'll call her down for waffles!  YUM!!!  After breakfast we'll settle in to watch a movie with the entire Primary Building!  At 11:30 you'll be able to scoop your little bundle at the gate and enjoy the weekend!

Almost daily I jot down the remarkable, funny, amazing, and brilliant comments and discoveries your little angels make.  Recently, the comments have been truly astounding. For example: 

While learning about the Solar System we investigated hydrogen, helium, and methane.  We learned of their properties and abilities relative to a 1st grade need.  When we discovered that Uranus, a gas giant made mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane, actually had a rocky core, one young scientist, sat and pondered for quite a while before uttering the following:

"I know! I know! Mrs. Kurtz I know WHY Uranus has a rocky center!  I KNOW!  It's because the hydrogen and helium constantly crash into each other making a million explosions and it heats up the gas and makes it a rock!  And it HAS to be blue on the outside because the methane makes it blue!  That's it! I KNOW IT!"

I'm confident NASA's future is now secure... we just need to wait until she's old enough to vote!

And then today another genial moment I need to share...

While investigating habitats and introducing each girl to her animal, we came across 2 animals from the desert and determined it was best that they lived on separate continents; one ate living animals and the other dead animals.  Much to the great joy of Miss Sharon and me, a different little angel corrected us immediately with...

"Well, Mrs. Kurtz, that's clearly impossible.  It wouldn't matter if they lived on the same continent.  See their diet?  They don't eat each other's species."

There you have it.  

This is the Visitation difference.  I'm certain these types and levels of conversations rarely take place in other 6 year old classrooms. 

This is the difference single gender learning is the best choice!

Many Blessings, 
Mrs. Kurtz

28 January 2012

HAPPY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK!

It was wonderful to see and share with so many at the Mall to celebrate Catholic Schools Week.  Thank you for your support of Catholic Schools.  This celebration week is meant as an anniversary of sorts.  A time for all of us to come together to recognize, share, and celebrate the choice we have all made.  As a product and parent of and participant in Catholic Schools, this week is especially festive for my family.  From my family to yours, congratulations on your decision to participate in a Catholic School education, thank you for your support of Catholic School education, and GO CATHOLIC SCHOOLS!  Our children are the future of Catholic School Education in America.  Their participation today lays the foundation for others tomorrow. Thank you. 

In true anniversary style, this week is filled with sharing and celebration!  Please note the Chimes for special and specific times of events throughout the week.  Of most importance are the following:

HOLY MASS will be on MONDAY January 30th.  Please make certain your daughter arrives by 7:50am so that we can celebrate Holy Mass together.

EARLY DISMISSAL FRIDAY FEBRUARY 3rd.  PAJAMA DAY!  First grade will join others in a true celebration of Student Appreciation with a waffle followed by a movie on Friday all while IN OUR PJ'S !!!!!  This is a ONCE IN A SCHOOL YEAR OPPORTUNITY to come to school OUT OF UNIFORM and IN YOUR PJ'S!!!  Please make certain to dress your daughter in weather appropriate pj's as we will be walking in the courtyard for some of the shortened day. 

This week's Spelling Test were FANTASTIC!  The girls have begun to apply many of the decoding and phonemic awareness strategies necessary to build fluency.  This week's words required the girls to listen for the position of the sound in order to determine the correct diphthong.  WOW!  They were on FIRE!  It's a great joy to watch as they move from struggling through individual consonant sounds to building the fluidity of blends and diphthongs and moving into a greater confidence of literacy.  We can truly begin to say, they are half way to second grade!

In Math you'll note the concept of 1/4 is introduced.  This will apply to time and money as well as the girls will be introduced to the quarter hour and 25cents this week.  The introduction of fourths is a great opportunity to illustrate to parents the scaffolded and programmatic approach of the Saxon math program.  Here you'll see the concept repeated in the three forms mentioned above: parts, time, and money.  This three-fold representation introduces the concept and applies its use across applications giving the girls a broad range of opportunity to identify the concept.  You can do the same at home to reinforce the the concept.  Identifying how many chairs are at the table, cabinets in the kitchen, towels in the closet, apples in the fruit bowl or toothbrushes by the sink are great ways to help the girls see parts of a whole in their everyday world.

We've been to infinity and beyond !!! Well at least to Neptune ... and now we're moving to our third rock from the sun to investigate the types of places, habitats, and kinds of animals, species, God has given to us to share in our resources.  Habitat Habitat Have to Have a Habitat... is a jingle you'll hear repeatedly throughout the next several weeks as we delve into our animals!

On Thursday your child was assigned her animal and habitat for this project.  PLEASE SIGN AND RETURN THE BOTTOM PORTION OF THE COMPUTER RELEASE FORM FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT BY MONDAY JANUARY 30th.  We will begin using the computer lab for this assignment.  If your daughter does not have a release form, she will not be able to complete the assignment.  

The Habitat project is a much anticipated assignment in 1st grade.  It's three-fold in nature: a diorama, a written report, and a public speaking presentation.  These assignments utilize a task checklist designed to introduced you and your daughter to multifaceted assignments.  The task checklist outlines the items required within a project.  A separate rubric defines the quality scale associated with each task.  Together these work to give your daughter and you the understanding of what is expected AS the task is assigned.  Knowing the what and how of an assignment in advance is the key to greater understanding of a project. We work to help your daughter understand this and utilize it beginning in First Grade. 

We will be using the school computer lab for all research.  Should you choose to look up or revisit your daughter's animal and/or habitat at home, please use ONLY the same site http://www.mbgnet.net/  

The Habitat projects along with those Flat Sally's we have received to date will be the showcase for the Valentine's Day party.  A list of names for the classmates will be sent home this week so that the girls can share Valentine's with one another.  We will be making several different types of "love notes" as we explore St. Valentine and his life and incorporate his message with our understanding of adjectives.  The two objectives partner in a beautiful way. 

The girls will be decorating Valentine's bags to hold the Valentine's from classmates.  I ask that your daughter bring in her Valentine's the week of February 6-10.  All week we will have our bags displayed in order to allow your daughter to distribute her cards.  At the party we will "finally" open the Valentine's bags.  

Please look for the February A Look Ahead in the downloads section of this page.  And as always, please feel free to contact me at anytime .

Many Blessings, 
Mrs. Kurtz

21 January 2012

Dear Parents, 

I realized as I opened this blog that last weeks entry did not post properly.  I apologize. This post is an amalgam of both last week and this. 

Last week Miss Sharon's husband Gene had an extensive and successful back surgery. Thank you for your prayers.  Miss Sharon will be back in the classroom on Tuesday of this week.  

It has come to my attention that perhaps some families email addresses have been listed incorrectly on several mass emails.  PARENTS: PLEASE REPLY TO THIS UPDATE USING THE TOGGLE AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE.  This will allow me to re-check the email addresses you entered to receive this post. 

As we enter the new year, there are many activities to fill your calendar. Please make certain to note the Chimes weekly to keep abreast of all of the happenings around campus. 

OF SPECIAL NOTE:  PLEASE NOTE THE MASS SCHEDULE CHANGE FOR THE NEXT 2 WEEKS.  We will attend Holy Mass on Tuesday January 24th, St. Francis de Sales feast day.  This celebration will be followed by a school wide sharing of our understandings of our Salesian identity.  

The following week we will celebrate Holy Mass on Monday January 30th  to mark the beginning of Catholic Schools Week. 

As part of our Salesian identity, as a school we are taking a closer look at how we can model daily the examples of a contemplative life, exemplified by St Frances de Sales and St Jane de Chantal.  The bee's sent home on Friday are part of our Salesian celebration set for Tuesday.  The objective of this assignment  was for the girls to give an example of how the Salesian attribute they were assigned can be lived.  We'll share these with the whole school on Tuesday. 

In terms of the curriculum, a New Year has most certainly begun.   Our focus for the next several weeks moves to long vowel diphthongs: two vowels which work together to create one sound.  Each week two diphthongs will focus on the same long vowel.  Additionally, there will be a greater focus on consonant blends known as digraphs.  With increasing frequency spelling words will combine diphthongs and digraphs asking the girls to apply a host of decoding techniques.  These skills lay the foundation for greater independence in reading. 

By now you may have noticed your daughter utilizing these skills with greater frequency and ease.  Offering the opportunity to read in varied scenarios is a great way to underscore these new skills.  There are opportunities at every turn in your daily routines: the grocery, movies, in a restaurant, on the computer, and at the gym.  All offer your daughter the chance to engage her understandings of how letters and sounds work together. 

In Math a similar shift into a higher level of thinking has begun.  You'll note from this week's assessments the increase in the level of complexity and difficulty of the calculations elements.  Saxon utilizes a variety of techniques aimed at giving children the tools to see the patterns in number sense.  You may recall one of the first set of math facts developed in first grade is the doubles.  This strong foundation laid for math facts now branches to include doubles plus one and two.  Emphasizing the pattern within facts, Saxon encourages the girls to view math as a system of predictable patterns.

One such group of patterns focuses on 2 and 3 dimensional shapes.  Identifying congruent shapes and recognizing a shape's volumetric equivalent is the next in a series of patterns developed in first grade math.  Too, our concern with time and money continues.  

In Social Studies we continue to enjoy Flat Sally's arriving from friends and family around the world. This coming week we'll begin our mapping of Flat Sally.  In a few weeks we'll invite families to come view and experience our Flat Sally display. 

Space... our First Grade frontier... The girls LOVE learning about the Solar System!!  They have mastered the terrestrial planets and many amazing facts about our neighboring planetary bodies.  We'll continue this week with the gas giants and wrap up our Solar investigations this Thursday.  Next week we will lay the foundation for our upcoming project: HABITATS!  This multi-faceted First Grade rite of passage is very near and dear to me. You'll find more information in the downloads sections below.  On Wednesday of this week a computer release use form will be sent home.  PLEASE SIGN AND RETURN HE FORM BY MONDAY JANUARY 30th.  Without your permission, your daughter will not be able to use the computer lab at school. 

Reminder again, while it may be an atypical winter thus far, it is still only January!  Please make certain your daughter wears a coat, hat, gloves and a scarf daily.  We need the opportunity to make certain she's bundled appropriately. 

Please remember to pack a snack daily.  We break for a quick snack between 9:45 and 10am daily. 

Please REMOVE ALL PAPERS FROM THE GREEN FOLDER DAILY and remember to sign the tests in the purple folder and return each Monday. 

Above all, thank you for allowing me to share in this time of your daughter's growth and development.  

Many Blessings, 

Mrs. Kurtz

7 January 2012

Celebrate Epiphany!  2000 years ago, three wise astronomers looked to the stars to guide them to the Christ child, Jesus.  On Friday, 20 wise young women wandered through historic Frederick, stopping to visit local shops and sights, to find the baby Jesus at home in our beautiful chapel.  Our journey reminds us all of the in-roads and paths we must make and take to provide a space for Jesus in our life.  Our New Year celebration of Epiphany calls us to renew the place we make for Jesus in our lives.

We're back!  It was wonderful to see the bright eyes and pink noses of your daughter's this week.  They were excited to share their Christmas experience with each other and to welcome our new classmate, Chaltu Watkins.  The warm welcome and genuine sisterhood the girls humbly offered to our new sister, was/is breath taking.  Thank you for sharing your angels with me. 

Reading textbooks were sent home Friday.  This week the girls are asked to "pre-read" next week's selection.  This essential skill offers the girls a glimpse into the story prior to delving into the reading strategy skill and comprehension element.  This insider understanding of a story often opens a child to more creative explorations of strategy and critical understandings and comprehension.  The pre-read offers the girls a level of familiarity with the vocabulary, sequence of events, and characters which often deflates reader fear and increases confidence when discussing the story together in class. Her involvement with the story is amplified when confidence is boosted.

Our Saxon Math series continues its incremental pace.  The focus on time and money expands to include double digit addition, without regrouping.  Using coins to represent double digit numbers is a great vision for many.  As a manipulative, coins offer a tangible method to explain place value.  Offering your daughter the opportunity to count random loose change is a great reinforcement of our daily math lessons.  

Similarly, time occupies a large portion of the math curriculum.  Next week math introduces the concept of elapsed time.  Like the calendar exercises, the girls will be asked a host of questions surrounding a variety of time sensitive scenarios.  Asking your daughter to tell time in digital and analog forms is a great way to reinforce this skill. 

FLAT SALLY'S ARE BEGINNING TO ARRIVE!  The girls can hardly contain their excitement as Flat Sally's begin to parade through our room.  Daily we have been able to share between 3 and 4 vignettes into places near and far. The insight and understanding of culture, geography, and climate they offer are priceless.  In February we will host a Flat Sally Open House, inviting parents in to see these most honored First Grade guests. 

Science has taken us to infinity and beyond!  Our study of the Solar System is in full swing.  This science unit focuses on the 8 classified planets of our solar system.   http://kids.nineplanets.org/ is a great website for kids to discover information and fun facts about our solar system.  It includes a small disclaimer on the homepage regarding poor Pluto, who was demoted to a dwarf planet several years ago based on its size and orbit.  

A couple of reminders :

• Please remember the winter gym uniform requires sweatpants and sweatshirt.  

• We snack daily around 10:00am.  Please provide a small snack your daughter can open and enjoy independently and without utensils daily.  

• While Miss Sharon is an invaluable asset in our classroom, she is unable to supervise, monitor, or explain homework during After Care.  Thank you in advance for your understanding.  Please know homework is an extension of the curricular day.  In First Grade homework directions are reviewed several times prior to its assignment.  Should your daughter have difficulty recalling a homework assignment, simply jot a note in the planner to this end.  This will help me to identify where and to what extent the communication of the assignment needs to be improved.  

We're looking forward to getting back into the routine of First Grade this week.  

Many Blessings, 

Mrs. Kurtz 

2 January 2012

Happy New Year!!  I hope this update finds you and yours well and having enjoyed family and friends throughout the HolyDay break! 

Thank you for your kind and generous gifts to Miss Sharon and me.  We are very grateful. Know that your daughter is the primary focus in all our efforts throughout each day and that we truly love what we do for her and for you.  Miss Sharon and I feel blessed and at the same time called to our opportunity to share in this pivotal time of your daughter's life. 

Thank you for your support. 

We've turned the corner!  January marks a New Year and a new leaf to turn in First Grade. In many regards the first trimester is the introduction to what lies ahead.  While great strides have been made thus far, the New Year typically brings a new level of maturity and interest in learning for the 6 and 7 year old coupled with a healthy dose of familiarity.  This is where the fun begins!

At the bottom of this post, please note the January A Look Ahead update.  Too, you'll note a schedule change.  This change will offer the girls longer periods of Language Arts and Math and begins to prepare them for 2nd grade periods. 

Some brief reminders as we head back to school:

• While the weather outside is quite balmy for this time of the year, please remember to bundle up your bundles of joy.  Please mark your daughter's name on all articles of clothing, gym included.  This makes for a swift return of MIA articles. 

• Please make certain to pack gym clothes in a bag with your daughter's name clearly written on it.  We store gym clothes from Monday until Wednesday as a means to ease the load for the girls to haul each day.  A bag is needed to make storage more efficient.

• Please note as a school we are working to assure greater fairness in the uniform code.  A copy of the uniform policy can be found on the school website.  Your attention to the policy is greatly appreciated. 

• Please recall that we have snack each day around 10am.  A light, healthy snack, able to be accessed independently by your daughter and one which does not require utensils is needed.  Snack is a brief 5-10 minute refuel in the morning.

Looking forward to the excitement and intrigue of your daughter tomorrow!  

Many Blessings, 

Mrs. Kurtz

4 December 2011

This is the first T-2 post, which makes it official- the girls are making great strides towards 2nd grade!

This update includes information about the following:

• Christmas Pageant Costumes

• Christmas Party

As we move further into the school year, the girls will be using skills and strategies with greater sophistication to problem solve throughout the day.  Like most tasks introduced in First Grade, these techniques are scaffolded, incremental and dependent on skills introduced earlier.  In Language Arts we have recently introduced ABC order.  This skill will be expanded in January when we introduce dictionary skills.  In Math, sequencing with a rule has recently been introduced and will be expanded upon in the coming months.  As with many skills, moving forward requires a strong foundation and frequent practice. 

Test folders will be sent home on Monday. In the purple folders you'll notice a sequencing worksheet.  Last week the girls were introduced to the skill.  They were given the sheets as an assessment and we reviewed the 3 problems together.  Like the weekly calendar assessments, sequencing worksheets will be incorporated as a weekly assessed skill. 

Thank you to Lisa Marks for her help as Class Parent during Trimester I.  Your efforts greatly helped the girls. Julie and Joe Adkins will be taking over as Class Parents for Trimester II.  They will be coordinating the Christmas and Valentine's Day parties.  Please look for emails from them regarding these events. 

The Christmas Pageant is fast upon us!  The performance will take place on Thursday December 15th @ 10:30am in the auditorium.  First Grade will be Bethlehem townspeople in the production.  We need your help costuming the girls for the part.  Please send in the following items by next Monday December 12th.  

• Neutral colored flat twin sheet    

• Neutral colored pillow case    

• Roping 

The girls will need to wear sandals during the production.  Please send in a pair of white or neutral colored tights to keep the girls warm and looking the part.   

Following the Christmas Pageant, we'd like to share in a class lunch with the girls.  Look for information detailing the lunch plans soon.  After lunch, we'd like to have the girls share in a gift exchange.  Please send in one wrapped gift under $5 for your daughter to use in the exchange.  We'll place them under our class Christmas tree until the party.  Miss Sharon and I will place numbers on the gifts and have the girls draw for one at the party.  

Friday December 16th will be a fun day for the girls.  In the morning the girls will have the opportunity to shop for gifts for family members followed by a movie and nail painting in the classroom.  We look forward to sharing in the Christmas festivities with the girls!

These next two weeks are packed with preparations, rehearsals, gatherings, and fun. Please pay close attention to the Chimes for the latest updates.  And a reminder that in the event of inclement weather Visitation follows the Frederick County Public Schools decisions regarding delays and closings. 

Many Blessings, 
Mrs. Kurtz