Hello Room 19 Families,

Thanks for all that you do each day to support your child in our zoom classes and beyond! 

I have started my one-on-one virtual reading assessments, DIBELS. This first round, I will meet with each student individually for about 15 minutes. I do not know if we will need more time, since this is the first time I have done reading assessments virtually. I anticipate needing some more time to finish the running records (TRC), which I will use to place your child in a guided reading level.

You can learn more about the assessments by clicking here. I will send home a report after I have finished. These are low-stakes assessments to see what each student has learned so far and what I still need to teach. Earbuds or headphones are helpful, but not required. It is extremely important for students to complete the assessment without help from caregivers, so while it may be tempting, please don't help. Thank you for your support!

These assessments will take place after lunch, so I will not be meeting with groups in the afternoon. Instead, I will meet with four or five children individually. It is important that your child be available and ready when it is his/her turn, so students with times scheduled after lunch will be placed in the waiting room until it is their turn. I will post a tentative schedule in Schoology, but please understand that it may change if needed to adjust the length of the testing session. 

I will provide asynchronous (independent) work for the rest of the class.

Remember that I am available to help and meet with students and parents during my office hours (Tuesday - Friday between 1:40 - 2:15). 

Thank you so much,
Christina Polay

Hello Room 19 Families,

I hope you had a nice weekend. It was so nice to be able to see the blue sky again! 

We will begin our new science unit tomorrow, Animal and Plant Defenses. We will use the science investigation notebook sent home last week, but many of the sheets had to be altered. There may be times that I will email you something that should be printed. I will try to limit this by putting the sheets in Seesaw instead. This Friday, there will be an observation assignment that your child will need assistance with. I will assign it Friday, as it goes along with the lesson I am teaching that day, but it is okay if you are unable to complete it Friday. As long as the kids do it by Tuesday, September 29th, they will be fine.

We will also be starting Word Study this week. We will get settled in with the routines while we all work on the same sort; The sorts will be differentiated in coming weeks. The small lined notebook that was in last week's materials is for word study. Please help your child label the notebook, "Word Study." They will need a small envelope or ziplock baggie to house their sort for the week. It would be helpful if the word study notebook, the 4 word sorts (they were stapled together in the materials), and the Word Sort menu were kept together in a folder or even a large ziplock bag (see images below). That way, your child will be able to easily access these materials. We will use them almost everyday. They do not need anything for Word Study tomorrow, but they will need the baggie or envelope and Sort 40 on Tuesday for class (please do not have them cut the sort - we will do it together).

The other items in the materials bag should be grouped by subject. It would help if your child had a folder or large ziplock bag for each subject. It should be kept somewhere your child can access.

• Math: There were three math sheets sent Thursday (Mini Hundred Charts, a Book Fair task sheet, and the Bright Idea task sheet). These should be kept with the other math items and not written on until assigned.
• Language Arts: There were a number of reading materials sent home, including articles, a lined Venn Diagram, and reading response sheets. These items should not be read or written on before they are assigned. This is important. Please help me with this - thank you! The small black and white decodable books are easily lost. Please keep them together with the other reading items.
• Social Studies: There were 4 more CA Studies Weekly sent home. Children can pre-read these, but please make sure they are kept together with the other social studies materials.
• Art: There were 8 pieces of art paper and watercolors/brush sent home. Please ensure that the materials are kept in a safe place and are used only when assigned.
• There was also a baggie with letters, one with mini Rekenrek cards, and a blank grid. We will use the letters and the blank grid in both math and language arts. The mini Rekenrek cards are for math.
• I sent 3 more writing workshop booklets. These should be added to the green writing folder, and like the other items, only used as instructed, when assigned.
• The red pen is for writing workshop. Your child should now have a black, blue, and red pen for use in writing workshop.
• The Scholastic Book Order form is for you - they seem to still be shipping to homes. My class code H6MBX in case you would like to order books online. https://orders.scholastic.com/H6MBX

My apologies for such a long email! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Remember, your child should log into Schoology to access zoom ay 9:15 tomorrow morning. The email with the weekly assembly should go out at 9.

Have a great evening,
Christina Polay