Hello Room 19 Families,

I hope you had a relaxing weekend! We have 4 days until our Spring Break. 😀

This week starts a change in our daily activities, since we have almost finished the materials sent home. From now on, you will get a weekly schedule sent to you on Sunday with links to my website, which will be the main hub for information and assignments for the entire first grade. Attached to this email are this week’s assignments and the remote learning schedule sent last week.

As promised, I have posted files for reading and math that you can either print or have your child read from my website. Since screen time should be limited, I have tried to veer away from relying on online materials, and instead have posted the files. After Spring Break, however, your child will need to log on to Benchmark Advance to access one book a week. You should continue using Epic, Lexia, ST Math, Flipgrid, and California Studies Weekly.

The math sheets are nothing fancy. You can have your child use a notebook to show his/her work. There will be one day a week for Counting Collections. My daughter made a How-To Video for you. There are parent instructions and information sheets. You do not need to read the information sheets or even watch the video, but please read the parent instructions. There will be word problems three days a week. Again, you do not need to print the sheets, but please read the parent instructions. The fifth day in math will be a game day. I will post a math game that you can either print or use what you have to play the game - not much is needed. 

The weekly grid that is emailed to you on Sunday will be posted on the "Main Assignment Page" of my website, with links to pages for Reading & Writing, and Math. All updates to the schedule will be posted there. Not everything will be active on Sunday because students should continue to limit the amount of school work they are doing in one day. In most cases, I will make the assignments active the night before they are due. We don't want them to do everything in one day, but rather, we want them to have a schedule - just like in school.

We will have zoom video conferences Monday - Thursday at 11:30. The zoom invitations will be emailed the night before. There will be a password for each day going forward. 

I'm sure there will be questions as we transition to this new style. Please let me know how I can help. 

Thank you for your continued support!

Have a great day,
Mrs. Polay

Hello Room 19 Families,

I hope you are all well. Attached is a schedule for our time going forward. I tried to put all of the links that you will need so that you have them in one place. You can of course structure your day as you wish, and you know your family best; The times and assignments are flexible. Please let me know if you are having trouble with the workload. 

The entire first grade has the same basic schedule, but to accommodate our families with twins, I have scheduled my zoom calls 30 minutes later than the other classes. Mine will be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 11:30. I will try to limit them to about 20 minutes each.

The attached schedule gives you the rough blocks of time needed to complete the daily assignments that will be posted on my website. Tomorrow marks the end of the two-week lesson plans that were sent home, so beginning Monday, I will be posting the lesson plans on my website. Click "Main Assignment Page" to access the daily and weekly assignments. You might want to bookmark that for your child, so he/she can access the information. Since the district has recommended no more than 2 hours of screen time for first graders, I have tried to include items that can either be printed, or if you don't have a printer, you can complete using pencil and paper. 

​Here is the second music class sent from Mr. Lawton: https://vimeo.com/401139195

I am usually available by email between 9 - 3. Please reach out if you are having any difficulty, and don't feel bad emailing if you can't find your passwords! 😍

All the best,
​Mrs. Polay

Hello Room 19 Families,

As you probably heard this morning, the school is closed until at least May 1. Teachers find things out at the same time as parents, so keep that in mind as you email questions; I don't have much more information than you. That being said, we did anticipate this would happen, and like I mentioned last week, teachers have been working hard to put together a plan to continue the learning beyond the two-week plan that we already sent home. This week, you should continue to work on what we already sent home. As I already mentioned, at the end of the week, I will email the first grade long-term plan that includes information about curriculum in all subject areas going forward. Enrichment teachers are in the process of preparing lessons for your child to do at home. Here is the first link from Mr. Lawton: https://vimeo.com/399788951. He will be emailing a second lesson later this week.

The district is providing more information at 11:00 today: https://achieve.lausd.net/domain/4. 

We will have a zoom video conference tomorrow at 11:00. You will receive a separate email invitation. From my own experience watching my children's zoom calls, it takes a little while for kids to be able to focus while on the call. It is exciting to see everyone! To limit distractions, if possible, try to have your child sit somewhere where there are few distractions in the room. I will have the microphones muted when your child first logs on, and I will unmute the kids as the lesson progresses.

I know everyone is nervous. I hear your concerns, but I strongly believe that our  kids are going to learn. The learning is different, but everyone will learn and will advance. I hope we can all be kind to each other, and to ourselves. Each family (mine included) is dealing with a different set of circumstances. As we navigate this new reality, things may be bumpy at first - but I ask you to be patient with me, with each other, with your children. I hope we can focus on the positives and make this experience as happy and productive as we can.

All the best,
Mrs. Polay