Greetings Fairmeadow Community,

 

Every student at Fairmeadow is building and growing a reading life, from developing productive reading habits in the younger grades, to deepening comprehension and connection to text in the upper grades. Our goal of encouraging joyful, purposeful readers guides reading instruction across our school. At our most recent Principal's Coffee we discussed elements of strong reading instruction, and participants had the opportunity to explore our reading curriculum, the Units of Study in Teaching Reading, and the guiding principals of our Reading Workshop instruction. We know that readers need uninterrupted stretches of time to read high interest books, across a variety of genres, at their appropriate instructional level. Readers also need explicit instruction in the skills and strategies of proficient reading, and they need to talk and write about their reading. Our community of readers grows stronger each day, thanks to our skillful teachers, and their intentional reading instruction that follows these principles. Thank you for supporting your young reader through providing time and space to read at home, for modeling your own reading life for your child, and for asking your child questions about his or her reading.

 

The fall Scholastic Book Fair arrives this week, transforming Fairmeadow's MP Room from a gathering hub into a bountiful barn of books! Designed for emergent readers to voracious veterans, the Fairmeadow Book Fair is sure to have many titles to pique your interest, and tap into the interests of your children. This Tuesday, November 1st marks the start the Book Fair, with browsing and purchasing available before and after school through the end of the week. The Book Fair is a great opportunity to update your home library, and to get your child excited about new titles and new topics to deepen their reading life!

 

By the distribution of this newsletter we will be only moments away from our annual Halloween parade, this Monday, October 31st from 8:35-9:10 am on the blacktop. This fun, fall tradition provides for an exciting morning of community and creativity as we celebrate the season together. Wearing a costume to school is entirely optional, though if your child does choose to wear a costume please plan to bring a change of clothes to ensure for a productive day in the classroom following the parade. In these final moments of preparation, please also ensure that your child's costume is school appropriate, leaving any weapons or fake blood at home. Thanks, in advance, for your flexibility if we end up needing to parade in the rain!

 

The end of the first trimester, now only two short weeks away, marks a wonderful opportunity to reflect with your child about his or her growth over the first third of the school year, and to check-in on goals set for the remainder of the year. What a productive trimester is has been!

 

Grant Althouse

Principal