Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a lovely weekend with your family. This week is our final full week of school, I can hardly believe it! Here's what you need to know for the upcoming week: Final Full Week of School Activities To celebrate the end of the year during our final full week of school, we'll be having a special Zoom event each day this week. As with all of our Zoom calls, this is completely optional but hopefully will add some extra fun to the end of the year! Descriptions of the specific days activities can be found on the Choice Board attached to this email. The Zoom calls will all be at 3:00, and I will send out details and a Zoom link the morning of. Activities for the week: Mystery Monday (share three things about a mystery object, have others try to guess), Joke and Riddle Tuesday, Wednesday Scavenger Hunt, Thursday This or That Game, and Friday we will have our Fairy Tale Fest Celebration (costumes encouraged!). Choice Board & Memory Book This week students will be reflecting on our year on SeeSaw with their 2nd grade memory book. For reading and math students, will be using online resources like Zearn, Lexia, RazKids, or Epic. For writing, they'll be finishing up their Fractured Fairy Tale for Friday's Fairy Tale Fest. Their Fractured Fairy Tale should be based on an original fairy tale, but should have some key elements changed. Even with the changed elements, it should still somewhat resemble the original fairy tale. Our amazing specialists have been so hard at work posting activities to the Enrichment Class page- be sure to have your student check it out before the end of the year! Picking up Materials June 16th & 17th Don't forget that picking up of student materials will take place this week! Please make sure you have read through all the information shared in the E-News for how this process will work. This will be your only time to pick up your student's materials. Any student materials left after June 19th will be thrown away. All information and details can be found here: https://www.smore.com/v1sb6-message-from-maple-hills?ref=email End of the Year Celebrations June 22nd and June 23rd are our last two days of school. On June 22nd we will be having our annual Read-In. On June 23rd we will have our all school farewell, as well as our classroom farewell. More details to come on these events next week! Fines and Fees Please make sure to check your student's account and make sure that all fees & fines have been paid before the end of the school year! Student of the Week and Featured Mathematicians Our amazing student of the week this week is Ollie! Ollie always has a positive attitude and knows how to brighten our days. He's a great example for his classmates. Keep it up Ollie! Our super sweet Featured Mathematicians of the Week are: Amani. Audrey, Carter, Christian, Dray, Evan, Ollie, Lilly, Luna, Macy, Mary, Natalie, Oliver, Rogan, and Ryan! Way to go mathematicians! Here's to a great final full week! -Miss Sonneland
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Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a chance to relax with your family this weekend. I apologize for how lengthy this post is, but now that we have more details on the end of the year process I wanted to make sure you had all the information you needed! End of the Year Wrap Up As I mentioned last week and as you might expect since we are now in the midst of wrapping up this very unique school year, assignments & activities on SeeSaw will continue slowing down. Next week (15th-19th) will look a bit different- we will have our Fractured Fairy Tales celebration and students will be reflecting on our school year, but there will be no new recorded learning videos. There will also be special events (like our End of the Year Zoom Celebration) on June 22nd & 23rd. More information on these events to come! Student of the Week and Featured Mathematicians I'm so happy to announce our very special Student of the Week: Lilly AND our amazing Featured Mathematicians of the week! In class, you can always count on Lilly to lend a helping hand with a smile! She's also an extraordinary hard worker, who always asks good questions and is thinking about her learning. Our amazing mathematicians who solved today's math challenge are Carter, Christian, Dray, Evan, Ollie, Lilly, Luna, Macy, Mary, Natalie, Oliver, Rogan, Ryan, and Zach! Way to go mathematicians! End of the Year Information from Ms. Tapper and the Maple Hills Office Staff: Picking up Student Materials Procedures Last week I was in the classroom packing up all student materials- cleaning out desks, mailboxes, book bins, etc. All of your student's belongings have been put into a bag that will be able to be picked up on Tuesday, June 16 and Wednesday, June 17. As instructed by the school, all materials (yes ALL) were put into the bags- so if there are quite a few things that go straight into the recycle bin I won't be offended 😊 Families will drive through our drop off/pick up loop in the front of the building in designated alphabetical order (see schedule below) to pick up your child’s belongings. Ms. Tapper will email families a car tag that you can put your last name and student/s names on so that the staff will recognize which car the bags go to. Unfortunately I will not be able to be at the school passing out materials to students, but there will be other staff assisting this pickup process. After letting the staff member know who you are, you will move to the next stop to return any checked out library materials or return any classroom materials that your student may have brought home (classroom books, book bags, Reading Zone books, items for your teacher, etc.). Here you will also pick up your purchased yearbook. You will then move to the last stop where a staff member will bring out your student’s bag and artwork to your car. If you are picking up medication, the nurse will bring that out to you to sign off as well. As you are driving along these checkpoints you will have the opportunity to check out the artwork created by each class that will be up for sale online for our online PTA auction starting Friday, June 19 (details coming soon). You will also be able to see our Lost and Found items if you recognize anything of your own child. Please remember for safety to stay in your car at all times and a staff member will come to you. Tuesday, June 16: Time: Last names starting with: 10:00-11:00 – A – B 11:00-12:00 - C – E Please do not come between 12:00-12:30 12:30-1:30 - F – G 1:30-2:30 - H – K Wednesday, June 17: Time: Last names starting with: 10:00-11:00 – L – N 11:00-12:00 – O – R Please do not come between 12:00-12:30 12:30 – 1:30 – S – T 1:30-2:30 - U – Z Pay Student Fees and Fines An important part of closing out a school year for your child is making sure you have paid any fees or fines on our online payment system, TouchBase. Paying your student's fees/fines ensures our ability to keep future field trips, materials etc. affordable for our students here at Maple Hills. Before you pick up your student's materials and items, please take a quick look to make sure your account is current and paid to date. Please log in to TouchBase here and check. TouchBase Returning Users: Username: Your Skyward Parent Access username Password: Password created during first visit Materials to Return
-Miss Sonneland Hi everyone,
I hope you and your family had a great weekend despite all the gloomy weather. I can't believe tomorrow is already June 1st and we will begin our last month of school this week! Here are the updates for this upcoming week: Picking Up Student Materials As Ms. Tapper mentioned in the last Maple Hills E-News, you will be able to drive through and pick up your student's materials during the week of June 15-19th. This will be your opportunity to pick up your student's personal items- materials in their desks, books from home, yearbooks, and any medicine from the health room. This will also be a chance to return any library books, classroom materials, book bags, etc. I will be in the school this week packing up students' materials, if your student knows they left a book from home in their book bin, a water bottle in our room, or something in the lost and found, please email me specifics about the item by either Tuesday or Wednesday so I can be sure to include it with their things. More specific details will be coming about picking up materials, but please mark your calendars for June 15th-19th. Transitioning to Summer As we typically would if we were in our physical classroom, our class workload will begin to lighten as we grow closer to the end of school with our core units being wrapped up, and state standards/ENLs having been met. That's not to say I want your student to start slacking off I still expect your student to stay on top of their assignments, but you will notice the Weekly Choice Boards will naturally begin to look lighter as we approach the end of the year. Survey Feedback Thank you so much to everyone who filled out the survey last week. It was hugely helpful for our 2nd grade team and gave us some great insight into how online learning has and hasn't been working. It was also wonderful to hear about all the successes students have been having in online learning! This has been a difficult transition for everyone, but I've been so proud of all their hard work. I know many of you wrote down that the current workload was "too much"- hopefully the lightened workload over the next few weeks will be beneficial to you and your student. Many people also noted they/their student have been enjoying online programs like Lexia, Zearn, Epic, and RazKids. Some great news is your student will have access to those programs throughout the summer (more information on this to come). Required Weekly Learning Checks Here are the required weekly learning checks for this week:
If your student has been struggling with any particular topics, would like me to go back over a lesson, or if you'd like them to check in with me about their work I'll be holding my Homework/SeeSaw Help drop-in session on Zoom on Wednesday from 3:00-3:40. I will send out the Zoom invite link via SeeSaw on Wednesday morning. Student of the Week and Featured Mathematicians I'm so happy to announce our very special Student of the Week: Christian AND our amazing Featured Mathematicians of the week! Christian always knows how to makes us laugh, and is also an amazing hard worker. Keep up the great work, Christian! Our amazing mathematicians who solved today's math challenge correctly are Amani, Carter, Christian, Dray, Evan, Ollie, Lilly, Luna, Macy, Mary, Natalie, Oliver, Rogan, and Ryan! Way to go mathematicians! Here's to a great week! -Miss Sonneland Hello everyone,
I hope you're enjoying this Memorial Day weekend with your family! Here's what you should know for this upcoming week: New Units Last week we wrapped up Module 5 in math, and our Opinion Writing Unit. This week we will be starting one of my favorite units of the year: Fairy Tales and Fractured Fairy Tales. Students will be reading and writing fairy tales, and learning about fairy tales around the world in Social Studies. We will also be starting our new math unit: Module 7 (we already completed Module 6 in school). Module 7 works with representing data in graphs, recognizing coins and their values, and problem solving with money. Epic! and Fairy Tales When we do this unit in school, students spend almost all of their reading time reading different fairy tales. While I'd still like students to be working on Lexia and Razkids, for this unit I'd encourage your student to spend a bit of time exploring the Fairy Tales & Fractured Fairy Tales collection I've assigned to them on Epic. This will also make their writing time easier if they are familiar with more fairytales! If your student hasn't signed in yet at home, they'll need to go here: https://www.getepic.com/sign-in/educator and enter our class code (please see my email for the class code). Wednesday Zoom Help Sessions Starting this week, I will be offering a Wednesday drop in help session for students from 3:00-3:40. Students can come with questions about reading, writing, math, social studies/science, and/or about using SeeSaw. This will not be a chance to catch up with classmates (that's what Friday's Zoom call is for!), but a chance for your student to ask questions and get support for their learning. I will send out the Zoom invite via SeeSaw on Wednesday mornings. Online Learning Family Check In I can hardly believe we are now more than a month into online learning. Thank you all for your patience (and kindness!) during this time as we try to get a handle on what online learning looks like. I know there have been many ups and downs, technical difficulties, and things that have just plain not worked so again, thank you for your patience and dedication to your student's learning through all this! Our 2nd Grade team would like to check in and see how online learning is going for you and your student, so please fill out this survey sent in the newsletter email. Required Weekly Learning Checks The required weekly learning checks for this week are:
Our amazing Student of the Week this week is Macy! Macy always has a smile on her face, works hard on every task, and perseveres when things get tough. Keep up the great work, Macy! Our amazing Featured Mathematicians who solved our Friday math challenge are: Audrey, Carter, Christian, Cole, Dray, Evan, Ollie, Josie, Lilly, Luna, Macy, Natalie, Oliver, Rogan, Ryan, and Zach. Way to go mathematicians! Here's to a great week! -Miss Sonneland Hi everyone,
I hope you had a lovely weekend with your family. Here are the updates for the upcoming week: Writing Celebration: Opinion Picnic We will be wrapping up our Opinion Unit this week, and students will have a chance to write a new letter with some more freedom about what they write about (it doesn't just have to be about books this time 😊). Since we're at the end of our unit, we will be having our writing celebration: The Opinion Picnic on Friday, May 22nd at 3:00 via Zoom (this will be our class meeting for the week). The students will take turns sharing their letters with the class, and we'll celebrate all their hard work. They can choose to share the new letter they write this week (on their favorite movie, book, or video game), or they can share the one on a book that they've been working on the past few weeks. For the Opinion Picnic students should take their letter, a blanket, a snack, and weather (and wifi) permitting head outside! Opinion Picnics are just as fun inside as well, so no pressure to actually have your student get setup outside if that isn't feasible for them. As with all our Zoom meetings, details will be sent out via SeeSaw announcements on Friday morning. Module 5 Assessment This week students will be taking their Module 5 End of Module assessment. It will be a multipage activity on SeeSaw. If you have a printer at home, there will be a link to print the test if you'd prefer- or students can work on a blank piece of paper if they'd rather not work on the template. Students should of course do this task on their own, however parents may help read questions if necessary (although students can hit play on each of the different pages to listen to the directions themselves). This could be a long task for some students, so if they need to take a break and finish it a different day, they absolutely can- they just need to make sure to save their progress as a draft. Students should try their best and make sure to show their work, and as I mentioned last week- all assessments can only improve their grade, not hurt it. Zoom Groups I will occasionally be offering drop in help for students or small group instruction for students on Zoom. This week I will have my first drop in help session on Zoom. If your student would like extra practice, or needs extra help with vertical form they can drop in to my Zoom Vertical Form Help session on Wednesday, May 20th from 3:00-3:40. This is completely optional and students can drop in at anytime to ask questions/review concepts. Details will be sent out via SeeSaw. Student of the Week and Featured Mathematicians Our Student of the Week this week is Rogan! Rogan is a rockstar, always cheerful, and does an amazing job turning in quality work every week. Keep it up, Rogan! Our Featured Mathematicians who solved our math challenge by 3:00 on Friday are: Amani, Carter, Christian, Evan, Ollie, Lilly, Luna, Mary, Natalie, Oliver, and Rogan. Way to go marvelous mathematicians! Math Tip: Vertical Form, New Groups Below, and Decomposing As I know many of you already know, our Eureka math curriculum uses pretty different language than what you probably heard growing up. This comes up quite a bit when we're working with adding and subtracting with vertical form. Vertical form is what our curriculum calls the standard algorithm, where the numbers for adding or subtracting are stacked on top of each other instead of written horizontally. For adding, when making a new 10 or 100, students write a new group below by drawing a 1 in their ten's or hundred's column on the line beneath the numbers. It's written on the line so that students can easily add their units together going down the line. For subtraction, a word we use is decompose for breaking apart a 10 or 100 to get more units to subtract. Decomposing is essentially the same concept as "borrowing". We use the word decomposing instead of borrowing so students can tie it to their understanding of place value, and so they understand exactly where they got those 10 extra ones or 10 extra tens- from breaking apart/decomposing a 10 or 100. Since students are still getting used to vertical form, decomposing goes on the top for subtraction and new groups below go on the bottom line. That way students can keep the two operations separate. Here's to a great week! -Miss Sonneland Hello everyone,
Happy Mother's Day! I hope you had a great week with your family, and had a chance to enjoy some sunshine together. Here are the updates for this week: Assessment and Feedback In case you haven't seen it, the official guidance from our district and OSPI is that for elementary students, their Trimester 3 grades will not be lower than their Trimester 2 grades. They can raise their grades, but their grades will not be lower than where we left off at Trimester 2. I have been collecting data and taking notes from SeeSaw, Lexia, Zearn, and RazKids, but from this week on I will be letting you know specifically which assignments on SeeSaw I will be assessing and giving specific feedback for. These activities will have a *Required note in the subject line and description on SeeSaw, and will also be noted on the Choice Board. That's not to say your student should only be doing these activities, as the more your student is staying up to date and completing daily activities the more prepared they'll be for third grade. Hopefully though, it will help with prioritizing activities. Required Weekly Learning Checks As mentioned above, each subject will have at least one required activity each week. I will be giving students detailed feedback for these assignments. As these will be activities I will be assessing, it's important that your student complete these activities independently. If they need assistance reading directions or need a question clarified, you can assist them- but otherwise please let them complete the task on their own so I can get a true sense of how they're understanding the content and progressing toward grade level standards. PTA Scholastic Virtual Book FairMaple Hills Elementary PTA is hosting a Virtual Scholastic Book Fair from May 11th- September 4th. The Virtual Fair is a fantastic way to get books in the hands of your students now to keep them reading at home. See the attached flyer for more information. Visit the Book Fair Homepage here to get started: https://www.scholastic.com/bf/maplehills Student of the Week & Featured Mathematicians Our Student of the Week this week is Natalie! Natalie completes her work with enthusiasm and care, is a SeeSaw Superstar, and always has a cheerful thought to share. Way to go Natalie! Our Featured Mathematicians this week are: Amani, Carter, Christian, Evan, Luna, Macy, Mary, Natalie, Oliver, Rogan, Ryan, and Zach. Keep it up mathematicians! Here's to a great week! -Miss Sonneland Hi everyone,
I hope you've had a great week with your family, and are continuing to stay happy, healthy, and safe together. Hopefully this sunshine keeps sticking around! Friday Catch-Up Day Fridays will now be our designated Catch Up Days! This is a day your student should go over and check the activity tab to make sure all their assignments have been completed and they have no missing work. They should also double check their student folder and make sure that no assignments have been sent back to them. If I've sent back an assignment it means it was either incomplete or incorrect, and gets saved as a draft in their folder (it will say draft at the top with a big orange bar). Just like with regular assignments, students will have until Sunday to fix any mistakes, resubmit work, or complete any missing work. On Sunday afternoon, I archive all of the past week's assignments and students are no longer able to submit or resubmit any work. Choice Board and Activities for the Week There are some minor changes to this week with the addition of the Friday Catch Up Day. One other minor change that will be made this week- assignments will now be posted on SeeSaw between 6-6:10AM the day of the assignment. I had heard from other teachers that some parents had requested activities to be posted earlier, so I've moved our posting time as well. It shouldn't affect much, but will potentially give families a bit more flexibility with their morning. The postings will be slightly staggered so that the activities will pop up in the same order they appear on the Choice Board. Student of the Week & Featured Mathematicians We have our very first Student of the Week this week: Evan! Evan is a rockstar student in school and at home! He always goes above and beyond on his assignments, and completes his work carefully and neatly. Way to go, Evan! Here are our Featured Mathematicians of the Week: Amani, Audrey, Carter, Christian, Cole, Evan, Ollie, Josie, Lilly, Luna, Mary, Natalie, Oliver, Rogan, Ryan and Zach. Way to go mathematicians! *All students have the opportunity to be a Student of the Week or a Featured Mathematician. I do a random drawing of students names for Student of the Week. To be a student of the week, students need to have completed at least one activity on SeeSaw. For each activity they complete, their name gets entered. So if a student completes 14 activities for the week, their name gets entered into the drawing 14 times. I will be moving the time when Student of the Week is chosen to Friday before 3, so that I can announce Student of the Week to the students on Zoom when I announce the featured mathematicians. To be a featured mathematician, students need to have solved the Friday Math Challenge (correctly) by 3:00 on Friday. Zoom and SeeSaw Reminder Reminder that details for our weekly 3:00 Friday Zoom call will be sent out on SeeSaw on Friday morning (not via email). You can find any and all assignments in the "Inbox" tab. Your student also has an inbox on SeeSaw and will receive the information as well. Here's to a great week! -Miss Sonneland Hello everyone,
Thank you all so much for all the work you did with your student to help kick off our first week of at home learning! It was such a delight to see and hear from your students each day, I’ve missed them so much. I was impressed by all their hard work, and how so many of them are already better at using SeeSaw than I am J I know we're still very much in the learning curve, and last week wasn't without its hiccups and technical difficulties, but thank you all so much for your patience, flexibility, and dedication through this transition time. Choice Board This week's Choice Board is attached to this email, and will be uploaded to my website and SeeSaw as well. One minor change you might notice on the Choice Board this week is there's a section called "Enrichment". This is where all Science, Social Studies, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), and STEM/STEAM activities for the week can be found. Announcements From now, I'll be using the Student/Family Announcements feature on SeeSaw for many whole class announcements. I will still be sending out my weekly newsletter via email, but other announcements (such as details for our weekly Zoom call) will now be sent out using the SeeSaw announcements feature. If you are not yet connected to your student’s SeeSaw account and would like to be, send me an email to connect as a parent. Class Rewards/Incentives: Featured Mathematicians and Student of the Week This week we're diving into our class rewards/incentives. This week we will have our first Student of the Week! For each activity a student completes on SeeSaw, their name will get submitted into a random drawing. So if your student completes all 15 activities on SeeSaw this week by next Sunday (5/3) their name will get entered 15 times into our drawing. The student whose name is drawn will be our Student of the Week! Students of the Week will get a special certificate and whole class shoutout on SeeSaw. Student of the Week will be announced on Sunday's via Student/Families Announcements on SeeSaw. I will also continue doing Featured Mathematicians which started last week. Students who complete our math challenge accurately before 3 PM on Friday will get to be one of our Featured Mathematicians for the week. SeeSaw Nuts and Bolts Hopefully your student has gotten comfortable with SeeSaw this week as it will be our central platform for online learning. If your student doesn't complete an assignment all the way (misses a page, question, etc.), I will send it back for them to correct. One change on SeeSaw this week is now activities from Specialists will be in a separate SeeSaw class. Students can toggle between classes by clicking on the light gray box with their name on it in the top left corner of the SeeSaw main screen. If your student isn’t sure if they’ve completed all their assignments/if their missing any, they can double check the activities tab. If all activities have been completed the tab should be empty. If you’re having any issues with SeeSaw, this is a great resource: https://wakelet.com/wake/ce6b8252-a745-4c3e-beac-aa6f99be3900 Office Hours My office hours this week will again be Monday and Wednesday from 4-5PM. You can of course email me outside of those hours, but those are dedicated times where you can reach out with questions, consultations about learning, and other concerns. On other days, I will be responding to emails within our regular teacher work hours of 8:30-4. Here's to another great week! Miss Sonneland E Hi everyone,
I hope you and your families were able to get some rest of this past week and hopefully had a chance to enjoy the sunshine! Tomorrow we will be our first day of our Essential New Learnings. I’ve been working very hard to create something that will work in this completely new territory of online learning, while still holding your students to high expectations to make sure they are ready and prepared to be 3rd graders! Thank you for your patience and understanding as we enter into this new “normal” together. At Home Learning Curriculum Night Presentation We of course had a Curriculum Night at the beginning of the year, but that was for in school learning not at home learning! Since At Home Learning will be quite different, I’ve prepared this presentation that explains the ins and outs of how this will work. Please read through it here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NbacVGpCqwczLFNIZi-fC_2v4MvA0X-aMGwA4OYRpnc/edit?usp=sharing In the presentation I explain the weekly Choice Board, how to login to Clever, how to access, post, and complete activities in SeeSaw, other educational websites we’ll be using (or waiting to use till a bit later), as well as my office hours. I’m happy to answer questions, but please make sure to read through the PowerPoint first as I might answer your question in it J SeeSaw As I mentioned previously, all new instruction will be happening through SeeSaw. Your student should be logging into Clever (instructions in linked PowerPoint) to access SeeSaw every day to watch learning videos and complete activities. I will be uploading and posting videos explaining how we will be using SeeSaw with each subject, how to post, how to login, etc. for your student tomorrow. As shown on the Choice Board, this will be their main assignments for tomorrow as this will be very new for each student! I will also post the Choice Board to SeeSaw each week with recorded instructions for students. Any activity assigned on SeeSaw will also have playable instructions for your student. All learning activities will be posted to SeeSaw at 9AM on the day they are assigned. SeeSaw is an incredible learning platform, but is lacking a sorting system for activities so activities will not be loaded earlier than the day they are assigned. SeeSaw activities should take around 20 minutes for each subject. Lexia As you will notice on the Choice Board, there is a new learning platform we will start using this week called Lexia. Lexia is a great program that will help students with their reading fluency and comprehension, as well as strengthening phonemic awareness (infinitely helpful for working on spelling!). As I explain in the PowerPoint, students will be able to access the Lexia website through Clever. When they login for the first time they’ll need to enter my email and then it will be fine after that! Their login for Lexia is the exact same as their Clever login. I will explain all of this for students in my Monday video. Choice Board I tried to balance feedback I received from parents in creating our weekly choice board as best I could. The order I listed the subjects in is the order we would complete them in our regular classroom- however, if your student would rather start their day with math or social studies/science that’s completely fine (and encouraged)! All activities for each subject are uploaded at the same time no matter what. Activities will stay up until the Sunday of the next week- your student can complete/work on any activity till then. I tried to make the choice board with enough flexibility as well as specificity for each day to fit the needs families. I know this is going to all seem overwhelming at the beginning (I’m with you), but I hope that once we get through this first part it will start to feel easier. Soaring Eagles Our school will be launching Virtual Soaring Eagles soon, recognizing students submitting great work and staying active and engaged with their learning. I will also be giving shout outs on SeeSaw to students submitting work and logging in regularly. There are many ways the Choice Board could be tied into at home incentives as well- students could receive stars, stickers, etc. for each SeeSaw activity the complete, for leveling up on RazKids, completing a lesson on Zearn, etc. Zoom We will be having our weekly Zoom call on Friday’s at 3PM. I will send out information for the call on Friday. What students will be asked to share can be found on the choice board. Laptops If your student does not have a device to work on to complete their work each day, one can be checked out from the district here: https://www.issaquah.wednet.edu/family/supports/learning/laptops. If you have submitted a form to check out a laptop and are waiting to pick it up, let me know! Here’s to a great week! Stay healthy, happy, and safe. Warmly, Miss Sonneland Hi everyone,
I am writing to you today to give you an update on the upcoming weeks and the changes that will be happening. I know this is quite a long post (there are just so many updates!), but as things will be changing as of April 20th, please make sure to read all the way through. Thank you! New Learning Content and 2nd Grade Choice Board We have received our key Learning Targets from the school district that have clearly laid out the expectations of work for the remainder of the year. We will be working hard to make sure your students are progressing towards grade level standards, and ready to move onto 3rd grade in the fall. I will share more specifics about these learning targets for each week after we get started on the new Remote Learning Plan on April 20th, but in the meantime, here is a quick overview: Starting on April 20th we will be introducing new learning content in Reading, Writing, and Math. Social Studies and Science will also be covered but more as opportunities for enrichment. I am working together with the 2nd Grade Team, and we are planning and collaborating together, just as we would if we were at school. Each week we will be sending out a Choice Board with daily plans for students with activities and assignments aligned to meet grade level standards. The structure of the board will be similar to our regular school work day, but still has plenty of flexibility to meet the needs of your family. To help facilitate our new learning, we will continue to use SeeSaw. Here is an example of how things might look: I will put a video on SeeSaw explaining a new Math concept. Watching the video will be the first "assignment/activity" then, the Choice Board might say, complete one of the 3 Math Activities on SeeSaw. Completed assignments will either be uploading photos/videos/completion of activities using provided templates- students will get to choose which one they’d like to complete. We will do a similar set up for both Reading and Writing. I know many of you expressed a desire for non-digital learning in the form of packets or other printed materials, but at this time we have been told by the district not to send home/create packets for students. Our Choice Board will make sure to include options for “unplugged activities”, but ultimately we will be having to rely on digital learning as our primary form of instruction. If your student needs a device or an internet hotspot, those can still be checked out through the district. More information can be found here: https://www.issaquah.wednet.edu/family/supports/learning/laptops Communication As per the survey I sent out earlier this week and in coordination with the 2nd grade team, I will be sending out my weekly emails on Sunday afternoon as this was what as indicated as the majority preference for our class. Each Sunday I will send out an email explaining our main learning targets for the week (2nd Grade Choice Board), touch base, etc. so you will have an opportunity to see what the upcoming week will entail. The Choice Board will look fairly similar week to week, so hopefully once your student adjusts to the new routine this routine will stay the same through the end of the year. I will also be having “office hours” a few times a week where I will be available to video conference with you and/or your student to check-in or discuss any issues/needed supports/accommodations via Zoom. We will be keeping our weekly Zoom call (official time/day to be announced), so that students will have a chance to see their friends and classmates (and me 😊). SeeSaw If your student hasn’t had a chance to log into SeeSaw yet, I highly recommend they log in at least once before April 20th. This is where students will be able to access new learning and resources, as well as complete and submit activities. These activities and assignments will allow me to assess how students are progressing towards meeting grade level standards. SeeSaw is the learning platform our district is currently recommending for elementary students, and especially primary grades. I'm excited to use it more and more in the upcoming weeks! When we first began all of this, I had students logging to SeeSaw from home using a QR code in order to post to SeeSaw as this is what we had done in class and what they were familiar with. While this is a still a method that works for posting, as we shift to our new Remote Learning Plan, I now recommend that students log into SeeSaw through Clever. This will most likely be easier for most students anyway, as all of them have logged into Clever many times before. Instructions for logging into Clever can be found on my website as well as here. The reason for this change in logging in is that the QR code login method is largely used for shared devices (like the iPads we use in the classroom), so students can post but are unable to access and see their own portfolio. By logging in through SeeSaw, students will now be able to access their own portfolio, as well as be able to see comments from me and encouragement on their own. I will also be uploading the Choice Board and instructions for each day to SeeSaw, so your student will be able to independently look at the tasks for the day and know which assignments/activities they need to complete. SeeSaw has a great feature where I will be able to read aloud instructions for students, so I hope this will help students who might have difficulties reading directions so that they are able to complete tasks on SeeSaw independently. Instructional Time and Assessments Additionally, the district has given us a recommended 60 min block/per day for instruction...which equates to 20 min/subject (this can be in the form of videos or assigned activities). We recognize that your child is 7 and 8 years old so we want to ensure that they still get a chance to go outside and play, check out the Specialist pages (PE/Music/Library), have some time to just read stories, do some art, and continue to learn all of the amazing things that they have been learning. As I mentioned before, this is going to be a flexible learning environment. We also recognize that some of you have more children at home that are not in 2nd Grade so, again, we wanted to come up with a flexible way to deliver content that is still clear and direct. The last piece in all of this is assessments and report cards. We haven't received direction on this yet, so please do not worry about it...I will make sure to let you know about it as soon as I can! Right now, we will primarily be using SeeSaw to see how students are progressing towards standards (but not currently as a means to assign them a grade such as a 1, 2, 3, or 4). --- We 2nd Grade teachers have a pretty good idea in our heads about how we think this will/can work. However, because we have never taught this way before, we are anticipating we may have to alter some things along the way. All we ask is for grace and patience as we try our best to make things work and accommodate as many students and families as we can. Thank you so much for your continued patience as we continue to work things through. Next week is Spring Break. It seems a little silly that we are having a break when we have been at home for a month, but I hope you all get some time to unplug and recharge. I too will be taking this time to relax, enjoy the sunshine, work on some puzzles, tour all of the flowering trees in my neighborhood, and spend time with my family and friends (remotely of course). I will not be checking emails next week, you will hear from me again on April 19th with our Choice Board and learning plan for the week! 😊 As always, please let me know if you have questions about any of this, I am trying my best to accommodate and help as many people as I can. I understand that this is incredibly hard for everyone and I know that all of you are facing many challenges right now, but I know that we can find ways to work through this together. I am really looking forward to continuing to work with you as we get your child ready for the next chapter in their lives. Finally, please give your student a BIG hug from me. I was devastated to find out the news on Monday that we will not be returning to school at all. One of my first thoughts was "But I didn't get to give my students a hug goodbye!" So please, give them a hug from me. I'm so sad I won't get to see their smiling faces every day in class, but I'm grateful I'll still get to hear from them, see the incredible work their doing, and hear their amazing jokes. One of my favorites from our class Zoom call this week was Natalie's "Why should you knock first before opening the refrigerator?" "Because the salad might be dressing!" Thank you for all that you have been doing! Take care, stay healthy, and keep in touch! -Miss Sonneland |
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June 2020
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