Social/ Emotional Zones

May 26, 2017

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I am sending home two letters today! One about the field trip so you know what to pack and what to expect. This letter is just meant to let you know what we have been up to and how you can connect to the learning at home. We will not have spelling homework next week because it is a short week with a field trip on Friday.

Social/ Emotional Learning: Zones of Regulation and Triggers

Over the past month, we have been learning about “zones of regulation” to help students understand their moods and feelings better. The idea is that there are different colors associated with different moods: red, yellow, green, and blue. Green is relaxed, calm, and ready to learn. Yellow and red are higher energy states, including excitement, frustration, anger, and even elation. Blue is sad, tired, or sick. Have your child tell you more about these zones and when it might be expected to be in different zones.

This week, students graphed which zone they were in over the course of 2 school days. The idea was to see that you can be in various zones over the course of the day -- some will be expected and some are not expected. Yesterday, students thought about what might trigger them to be in the yellow or red zones and made a caution sign about these triggers. Today we will talk about how to notice the triggers and how to help yourself calm down and get yourself back in the green zone at school or other times when it is expected to be in the green zone. I hope that you can continue these conversations/ ideas with your child so that they can practice noticing how they are feeling, what their triggers are, and how to calm themselves down. They should bring their graph, triggers, and toolbox home today.

Reading

This week, students learned about different animals and plants and thought about what was most important in what they read. You can practice this at home by asking your child what was most important from their nightly reading or reading to them and asking the same question.

Next week, I am hoping to finish each student’s reading assessment for the end of third grade. These are “instructional” levels -- meaning the level that is best for students to read with support of a teacher, but not independently. Reading on grade level for the end of third grade is a P instructional level. If you are curious about levels for books that your child enjoys reading, scholastic has a leveling website: https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/bookwizard/#. You just type the title in the top and find out the guided reading level.

Math

Ask your child about their robot that they created this week! We have been reviewing perimeter, area, and polygons. Students will work on their geometry test again to see if they can fix their mistakes.

Yours truly,

Jessica Harwood