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Valley Crossing
Community School
Grades K-1
2014-2015 Neighborhood B K-1 Team Contact information
Dani Billmeyer (651) 702-5790
Michelle Caldwell (651) 702 5743
Shannon Casey (651) 703-5739
Schedule 2014/2015
Kind Koalas B/K-1
9:15 VNN / Morning Meeting
9:45 Reading
10:30 Snack and Choice
10:55 Math
11:40 Recess
12:00 Lunch
12:20 Read Aloud
12:35 Writing
1:10 Calendar
1:20 Specialist
2:10 Quiet Time
2:30 Science/Social Studies/Handwriting
3:00 Snack and Choice
3:25 Songs
3:40 Car line
Buses
Kids Club
Morning Meeting
At the start of each day the students will be involved in a
morning meeting. It is a way for the students to feel welcomed,
to interact with each other and teach social skills. Below are
the parts of a meeting.
1. Greeting – The students will greet each other. Naming
everyone (including the teacher) establishes a friendly
and inclusive tone.
2. Sharing – Children have the opportunity to share events
and feelings that are important to them. Students should
not bring in objects to share.
3. Group Activity – Activities are short, enjoyable and
varied to allow everyone a chance to contribute and build
a sense of community within the classroom.
4. News and Announcements – Students read and interact
with the daily chart. This helps prepare them to begin
the day.
Social Curriculum
Tools our team uses to facilitate the learning of social skills I Statements: Students are encouraged to solve problems they have with the
use of “I statements.” For example, if a student is being bothered he or she
may say, “I don’t like when you say that to me and I want you to stop.” It is
then the expectation that the person stops the behavior. If that does not
occur then the student needs to get an adult involved.
Language with bullies: At Valley Crossing we do not tolerate bullying behavior.
In most bullying situations there are 3 roles: bully, victim, bystander. If
students feel like they are the victim then they are encouraged to say the
following, “I don’t like when you do that and I want you to stop.” Students
should use a voice that is at a “medium” level and look the person directly in the
eyes. If the behavior continues then they must get an adult. Students who
are bystanders are also encouraged to get involved by telling the bully to stop
or getting an adult. Additional resources about this topic can be found at the
Climb Theater website: http://www.climb.org/
Role Play situations: This tool allows students to demonstrate a problem and
then brainstorm and try out different solutions. For instance, students role
played inviting others to join their group as well as asking to join a group. It is
a team expectation that whoever asks to join is accepted and the activity
adjusted to allow that person to play. Students are always encourage to use
respectful language with each other.
Team rules: We connect everything we do to our team rules. They are:
We take care of ourselves
We take care of each other
We take care of our school
We are also using the Second Step Curriculum to promote school success, school
connectedness, and to create a safe and respectful school climate. The program
directly teaches students the skills that strengthen their ability to learn, have
empathy, manage emotions and solve problems.
Social Curriculum Some of the tools we use to teach social skills include:
Morning Meeting – Students learn the skills of talking and listening to others.
Students also learn to make connections with others through a daily greeting,
sharing time, chart and activity.
Hopes and Goals – We encourage kids to dream big! Even in kindergarten we want
students to begin thinking about all of the things they are hoping to learn in school.
Each child and staff in the building choose a Hope and Goal for their school year
reflecting throughout the year on the progress being made towards the goal.
Creating team rules – Students work together to generate rules we need to take
care of ourselves, each other and our school. Our rules help our Hopes and Goals
come true!
Modeling and practicing appropriate behaviors – Expectations of student behavior
is modeled and practiced so we all know how to be successful.
Logical Consequenes – We all make mistakes. This is a lesson we stress early at
Valley Crossing. Our goal is to help students learn from their mistakes or regain
their self-control quickly so they can rejoin the group and continue learning. The
logical consequences at Valley Crossing include: If you break it you fix it (this
includes feelings, relationships and physical items), Loss of privilege (this may be
materials or activities), and Take a break (an opportunity to fix small mistakes by
remembering the right thing to do or regaining our self-control).
Problem Solving – Sometimes students require more than a reminder or a break to
regain self-control. In these cases Valley Crossing has a problem solving process
that students and teachers use to resolve conflicts and ensure the safety of every
child.
Reading Workshop
Children learn from direct and explicit-strategy instruction (mini-lesson),
from the opportunity to read independently and in partnerships, from small
group-guided reading and strategy instruction, and from individual
conferences. The structure created will be a consistent format throughout
their elementary years.
The Reading Workshop Schedule would include:
Mini-lesson: At this time the teacher will meet with the whole
group and demonstrate a skill for readers to practice.
Independent Time: During independent time the students are
practicing the skill from the mini-lesson and using their collection
of reading skills in a “just right/good fit” book. A just
right/good fit book is one that a child can read with at least 95%
accuracy, fluency and general comprehension. For an emergent
reader this may be a familiar poem, song or repetitive book. The
teacher is leading a guided reading group, reinforcing a strategy
with a small group in a strategy lesson or conferencing with an
individual student at this time. Students will practice reading
independently to build their reading stamina.
Partner Reading: Students work with a partner to share
stories together. They spend time reading and sharing ideas
about books, retelling stories and helping to decode words.
Teaching Share: Students meet before the end of class to
reinforce the teaching point and the teacher and/or students
give examples of how the strategy was used during class.
A balanced reading class also includes:
Read alouds with accountable talk: During a read aloud the
teacher will model a reading skill or strategy or include places for
students to turn and talk to their partner.
Shared Reading: During shared reading the teacher will use a
text that all students can see. Generally we use a big book or
poster sized copies of poems, stories or songs. Shared reading
focuses on fluency, print strategies, building a community of
learners who enjoy reading, and comprehension.
Strategy lessons: Teachers pull a group of students to
support a skill or strategy. They may be a combination of readers
from different levels. Guided reading: The teacher will pull a small group of students
who are at the same or similar reading level to further support
reading strategies and skills.
Conferencing/Assessment: Teachers will individually
conference and assess. Individual conferences with students will
include noticing one of the reader’s strengths, demonstrating a
skill to work on and practicing with the child.
Additional Literacy Resources:
Letterland-
Letterland is a unique, phonics-based approach to teaching
reading, writing and spelling to elementary students. The
Letterland characters transform plain black letter shapes into
child-friendly pictograms and they all live in an imaginary place
called Letterland.
Simple stories about the Letterland characters, explain the full
range of dry phonics facts so that children are motivated to
listen, to think and to learn. These stories explain letter sounds &
shapes, allowing children to progress quickly to word building,
reading and writing.
Daily 5/Café developed by Gail Boushey & Joan
Moser
Daily 5 is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits
of reading, writing, and working independently that will lead to a
lifetime of literacy independence.
CAFE is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and
Expanding Vocabulary, and the system includes goal-setting with
students in individual conferences, developing small group
instruction based on clusters of students with similar goals, and
targeting whole-class instruction based on emerging student
needs and fine tuning one on one conferring.
Questions to ask your child when you
notice they are “stuck”
When your child is working on schoolwork at home you will notice they may struggle
with a word when reading or ask you how to spell a word when writing. We feel that it is
important for children to develop strategies to learn how to become more independent
and become risk takers in their learning. Below is a list of questions to ask your child
when you notice they are in need of help.
When they are having difficulty with
reading:
*Do the pictures help?
*What sound does the ____
make?
*Are there words on the page
you know?
*Point to the words you know.
*What sound/letter does it start
with?
*Can you find _________?
*What do you think it might be?
*Take a closer look
at_________.
*How do you know that word
is___________?
*Try that again.
When they are having difficulty with
writing:
*Say the word slowly.
*Stretch it out.
*What letter makes that sound?
*What sound/letter does it start with?
*Can you re-read that?
*Did that sound right?
*What do you think the word might be?
Questions to ask when your child is
working on math:
*How did you get that answer?
*What do you do first?
*Are you right?
*Is there another way to do it?
*Try that again.
*Take a closer look at __________.
The spelling program at Valley Crossing in K1 is a
developmental program. Children begin by writing
the phonetic sound/sounds they hear as they write
stories. Each child is assessed using a formal
inventory called the Developmental Spelling
Assessment (DSA). This assessment occurs
several times throughout the year. Students will
spend class time working with words chosen from a
developmentally appropriate spelling pattern list.
•Read together every day for at least 10 minutes.
•Guided Reading books will go home. Please read them at least two
times over the weekend.
•Return Guided Reading books and bags on Mondays.
•Practice reading and writing sight words from the recommended
list.
•Each child has an IXL log-in. This is an excellent resource to
practice math skills on the computer at home.
The goal is to reinforce learned skills and develop
organizational and regular habits.
Homework Policy K-1: 0-15 minutes per night
Homework Guidelines:
Writing Components
Writing Mini-Lesson – A writing mini-lesson is a time when specific
writing/spelling strategies are addressed. A mini-lesson will focus on a
particular aspect of the writing process, a writing genre, or the writer’s
voice.
Status of the Class – After the writing mini-lesson the teacher will do
a quick check on what each child is writing about.
Writer’s Workshop – During independent writing time students will
make writing choices that include but are not limited to: sketching or
drawing, telling stories about their lives, continuing writing work
already in progress, publishing a piece or conferencing with a teacher.
Writing Conferences – A writing conference is a time when a student
meets with a teacher to share his/her writing. During a writing
conference, the teacher can give individualized instruction to students
and provide added guidance. A teacher also edits with students on a
piece that is ready to be published.
Daily Sharing – Sharing occurs on a daily basis during Writer’s
Workshop. Students may choose to share finished pieces of writing or
works that are in progress to get input, comments and suggestions.
***Editing and conferencing look differently depending on a child’s
developmental level.
Resources include: Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong
Curriculum by Lucy Calkins.
We use EnvisionMath. EnVisionMath is a researched based curriculum based
on the National Council Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards. With
enVisionMath, students have daily opportunities for Problem-Based learning
to help deepen their mathematical thinking and conceptual understanding.
Resources: enVisionMath Investigations Website: http://investigations.terc.edu/ Connected Mathematics Website: http://connectedmath.msu.edu/ Everyday Counts Calendar Math NCTM materials Mathland Math Their Way Marilyn Burns Materials CGI Curriculum
Units of Study
Number and Operations
Algebra
Geometry
Measurement
Data Analysis and Probability
Problem Solving
Assessment and Student Placement
We are assessing students and placing them into groups based on their
understandings and performance on the assessment, and prior teacher knowledge.
Calendar Math Your child receives between 45-55 minutes of math per day, depending upon the age group. Calendar math teaches number sense and number operation through an extra 10-15 minute session every day of the week. The students are actively learning critical math concepts, including:
place value
measurement
time
money
mental math
geometry
estimation
patterns and functions
graphing, statistics, and probability
algebra
What’s new? Some new elements that we will be incorporating into our math program include: problem
solving, reasoning, and communicating the information that is learned. The State of Minnesota has determined that students need to have algebra by eighth grade
therefore we need to start teaching algebra starting in kindergarten. Manipulatives – We are very fortunate to have a great variety of math manipulatives here at Valley Crossing.
The team has a set of tubs that allow the students hands-on opportunities. Some examples of the manipulatives
include: linker cubes, pattern blocks, rainbow tiles, geoblocks, and base 10 blocks.
Math Strategies- Students use a variety of strategies to solve math problems, but most follow a gradual
progression. Some of the strategies you might notice your child using include:
Direct modeling- Students use fingers, cubes, or counters to directly model the quantities in a problem
and then count them one at a time to find the solution. For 4+7 they might lay out 4 cubes, then lay out 7
cubes, then push them together and count by ones to get 11.
Counting up or down- Students can hold one number in their mind and count up or down from it to find
the answer. Often students will use their fingers to keep track of their count. For 4+7 they might say “7.
8, 9, 10, 11. The answer is 11.”
Derived Facts- Students use their knowledge of other math facts to solve an unknown fact. For example
a child faced with the problem 4+7, might say “ 7+3=10 so one more is 11.”
Technology
Opportunities in the classroom: Classrooms are equipped with SMART boards to facilitate
student learning.
2 computer labs
Educational websites such as www.starfall.com (see Media
page for more websites)
Class sets of iPads for each neighborhood
Team set of about 15 Think Pads
Website subscriptions (some can be accessed from the
Valley Crossing Website—“Teacher Pages,” “Media,” “K-1
Websites”):
o IXL (math)—can be worked on from home
o OneMoreStory
o Bookflix
o BrainPop Jr.
o PebbleGo
o TypeToLearn4
Opportunities for your home computer: Schoology:
Make sure you are signed up in Schoology to receive
notifications of what is happening on the team! IF YOU NEED
YOUR LOGIN INFORMATION, LET US KNOW!
Handwriting
Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) is
a simple, developmentally based
curriculum for printing. The program
uses fun, multi-sensory techniques
to teach letter formation and
eliminate reversals of letters.
The practice work book helps
student to print letter, words and
simple sentences. Our goal is to
make handwriting a natural and
automatic skill. For further
information on this program visit
www.hwtears.com.
Our social studies and science curriculum follows a two year plan. Students will learn about social
studies throughout the school year. The curriculum materials that we primarily use for social
studies are from TCi and for science are from FOSS.
The TCi approach recognizes that
every student is unique and that all
students benefit from learning in
multiple ways. Student readings and
maps will be shown on the SMART
boards. Social studies topics
include: Family, Community, Needs
and Wants, and Change Over Time.
Students learn science by doing science.
FOSS engages students in inquiry. Students construct an understanding of science
concepts through their own investigations and analyses, using laboratory equipment
and interactive technology. Students exercise logical thinking and decision-making
skills appropriate to their age level.
K-1 units are in a 2 year cycle. Below are the topics that will be taught. They
include Life Science, Physical Science and Earth Science.
Social Studies and Science
