August 31, 2009

Aaniin. Welcome to our second grade classroom students and parents/guardians. My name is Robin Williams, Ms. Robin, and I am thrilled to be your child’s teacher this coming 2009-2010 school year. I have been teaching at the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School for 5 years, and now starting my sixth year here at FDLOS. I have been teaching for a total of 13 years.

Parents/Guardians please know that you are always welcomed in our second grade classroom!

Summer seemed (and did) fly by this year. I enjoyed having my brothers’ visit with their families in the month of July as well as many relatives from different parts of the country. Our family was able to enjoy each other as well as visit my 94 year grandmother. She is now living in Ely and recently had a fall. We are hoping that she recovers, but it has been difficult. I truly hope all of our children and families had a wonderful summer! I am so happy to see all of you again.

Our SFA, Success For All, reading program has been a REAL success for our students and we are happy to start it again this year. As you might remember, our new reading program is 90 minutes. This time allotment has greatly benefited our students this past school year, as our reading scores soared to a 64% increase in reading ability. Our teachers here, including me, are committed to begin another successful year of our SFA reading program so that all of our students will again greatly benefit to be awesome readers. First, our students will practice the “Getting Along Together” piece of SFA’s reading program. Getting along is a wonderful tool to help our students work successfully through conflicts and techniques that give ownership and responsibility to their lives. And this section really helps our students be reminded of what type of behavior we will be expecting through this 2008-2009 school year. This is a two-week learning time that we will use before our SFA reading program. We are very excited to start!

Homework for SFA will be daily, 20 minutes of reading time with parents/guardians each evening (including weekends too!)
We have invested in a new Math teaching technique and curriculum. Our new curriculum is called Investigations. Research has shown this to be successful as many of the lessons center around the use of manipulatives. Our new Math teaching technique is called CGI, Cognitive Guided Instruction. CGI allows the students to solve problems by incorporating HOT, Higher Order Thinking. In other words, students use their own individual technique to solve particular problems. Research has shown a noticeable increase of students understanding math and this also has reflected on their test scores. Homework for Math will be when necessary to reinforce particular skills.

Star of the Week

I will be incorporating two new bulletin boards in our classroom. First, we will have a board that will recognize a student’s outstanding ability of what they excel at. This will be called Star of the Week. Our second concept will be to list and display our Student’s Goals. For example, what they would like to be when they grow up, how they are helpful in their community, or any other idea that relates to a goal they set out to reach or want to reach. I will be asking our families to bring in the necessary information to complete this board for that particular student for that week. I will be sending more information home near the time that this will begin.

Students set your goals high, to the moon!!!

I have included our Student School Supply list, our Behavior Procedure Color plan, Classroom Rules, and our Homework schedule.

My hope and want is for your child to truly enjoy their experience in second grade. Please feel free to contact me if there is anything that I should know or do to make you and your child’s experience more fun, happy, enriching, and full of laughter.

Miigwech. Sincerely, Ms. Robin Williams