Week of October 4th

Dear Families,

It’s starting to feel a little like fall! Let’s hope the cool, crisp air that we feel in the early morning decides to hang around! The season of fall brings many exciting events – not only football games, but also the Fall Festival and Halloween are right around the corner. The Leo Club of Shorecrest’s upper division is collecting gently used or new Halloween costumes for the YWCA for children that otherwise would not have them. Look through your closets and stashes and bring any that you would like to donate to this worthy cause.

We have a busy and exciting week ahead! Let’s take a look at it!

Language Arts: This week we are working on words with short vowel /e/, words with “l” blends such as clap, and reviewing short vowel /o/. This week’s wall words are: day, eat, first, said, time, and was. This week’s robust vocabulary words are chorus, odor, shoved, assemble, consume, and enthusiastic. We are also learning about word endings ed and ing. In the past couple of weeks, we have worked on constructing telling sentences and questions and using the correct punctuation for each. This week we will practice constructing exclamations. When reading, we will be working on the comprehension strategies of comparing and contrasting and answering questions to help us understand what we read. We have been learning about different genres of literature and this week’s focus is on the genre of fantasy. We will be reading several versions of “The Little Red Hen” and the children will enjoy retelling the story in a variety of ways, including creating their own version!

Don’t forget that our red reading folders will begin this week. They will be coming home on Wednesday.

Writing Workshop: We have begun our new unit of study - Small Moments: Personal Narrative Writing. The children are learning to take moments from their own lives and use details to stretch them across several pages to write stories.

Math: In Math, we will be working on patterns… number patterns, visual patterns, and even and odd number patterns. The children will practice creating and continuing repeating patterns.

Social Studies/Science: We continue working on map skills. In science, our human body unit continues. We will be learning about our magnificent brain. Today, UD teacher Lisa Peck, came to first grade to dissect sheep brains with us! So exciting! On Tuesday, Vinh’s parents will be coming in to help us learn about the human heart. We are so lucky to have so many resources to draw from! Thank you to all of our volunteering parents!

Things to remember:

• The red reading folder is coming home Wednesday and should be returned completed next Monday. This will be the routine each week.
  
• The word card ring needs to be returned on Thursday. Please be sure to practice reading AND spelling the words with your child. Have your child write sentences using the words!
• Please remember to complete the online parent opinion survey. Here is the link. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZBYF22R
• There will be no school for students on Friday, October 15, due to a Professional Development Day for teachers.
• Spirit Day will be Friday, October 22.
• Picture Retake Day will be Tuesday, October 28.
• Fall Festival will be Friday, October 29.

Volunteers this week:

• Tuesday – Art - Mai Nguyen (12:05)
• Thursday – Library Check-out - Julie Piper and Molly Camp (2:05)
• Friday – Math Game – Molly Camp (9:00)
• Friday – Parent Reader – Jennifer Lewis (2:15)

Happy Fall!

Susan