Feasting on Books and Doughnuts, and Feeling Thankful...

Brrr! With colder temperatures and spending more time inside, it's a great time to snuggle up and "devour" a good book!

To encourage more non-fiction reading, the LMC dubbed this month Non-Fiction November and held a friendly competition among the grades to see which grade could read the most non-fiction books. 

Reading content-rich non-fiction is a great way for children to learn about the world around them and expand their academic vocabulary (words that appear in different areas such as science, social studies and history).

Talking with your children about what they are reading is a great way to help strengthen their comprehension and vocabulary. Encourage discussions that require your child to state an opinion and support it with evidence from the text. For example, you can talk about why you thought Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk was a good guy or a bad guy by giving examples from the text. It's also very enriching to talk about the similarities and differences of information found in two different sources on the same topic. For example, if you are reading about different environmentally-friendly sources of energy (e.g. wind and solar) you can talk about the pro's and con's of each source and debate which is best. 

Following are other ways to support your children in reading:

• Encourage and model reading for pleasure, insight and information.
• Engage your child in reading functional text, like directions for games or product assembly, recipes or maps.
• Provide exposure to a variety of books so that your child can develop skillfulness in choosing classic literature and books from different genres that he or she wants to read.
• When your child is reading non-fiction, point out and ask questions about the different ways non-fiction text is organized and the different features that help readers (subheadings, bold print, captions, maps, charts, tables, graphs, etc.)
• Introduce books that your child might not select on their own. 

At Dryden, feasting doesn't just happen on Thanksgiving! The PTA hosted Dads and Doughnuts so that dads, uncles, grandfathers and other male caregivers could bring their children to school and start off their day with breakfast together. What a fun morning for our students! Thank you, PTA!

 

 

November is also the time when we focus on gratitude and Thanksgiving. I am so thankful to be part of such a wonderful school community where children's positive growth and learning are always the priority. The first grade musical was a shining example! Teachers and parents worked closely together under the direction of music teacher Mr. Deptula. It was so heartwarming to see the children proudly showcasing their artwork, singing, dancing and playing the xylophones. Happy Thanksgiving!