Dear Parents:
Grandparents/Special Friends Day was a huge success! It was so nice to meet and chat with them and extra nice to see some again from years past. The children were so proud to show them our classroom, their work, and to tell them about their school day. Being a grandparent now, I look forward to one day visiting my grandchild's classroom! Be sure to go to our class Shutterfly site (link on the right) to see pictures from Friday. I will be posting pictures from our writing celebration in the next day or two. I will also add to the existing albums as the year goes. As always, Susannah and I would love for others to post pictures to share. At the end of the year, you will have a treasure of pictures that you can use to create an album of your child's year in first grade!
I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend. I spent a lot of time just sitting outside with my little dog, Cody. He loves being outside and, with his health issues, he seems to have an easier time outside. In fact, I am writing this blog as I sit on my front porch with him. What a great way to work while enjoying the weather and chatting with the neighbors as they walk and ride their bikes. I love living in Florida!
It's going to be another busy week in first grade beginning with our writing celebration Monday morning! Please take a look at what we will be doing in 1-4:
Language Arts: Our phonics focus this week is on long vowel /a/ with silent e, spelled a-e as in make. The phonograms this week are -ake, -ame, and -ate. We will continue to work on describing words (adjectives). Each Monday night's homework now requires your child to compose and write sentences using the new high frequency words from their word card ring. Please encourage your child to begin each sentence with a capital letter and end it with the correct punctuation mark. I have also challenged the children to create stronger sentences by using describing words and including more information. Ask your child if they answer these questions in their sentences... "who, what, where, when, why, and how". Our rule of thumb is if you are 6 years old, you should try to have at least 6 words in your sentence and if you are 7, you should try to write a sentence with at least 7 words.
There are links for some sites on the right side of this blog for spelling and reading practice. Try them out with your child if you haven't yet!
Reading Workshop: We continue to work on fluency by concentrating on phrasing and voice inflection as we read. We want to sound as if we are talking when we read. We will also begin working with the genre of nonfiction. We'll learn about the features of nonfiction books and that good readers use nonfiction books to pursue an interest and learn all they can about a topic.
Writing Workshop: We have completed our unit on writing for readers and published our stories! The children have worked hard to make their writing easy to read and are so excited about our writing celebration! We hope you can join us as a reader at 10:45 Monday. Our hope is that our stories will be easy for our readers to read and understand. There will be a comment sheet at the back of each story for each reader of the story to make comments and compliments to the writer. Prepare to be amazed at your child's progress! If you are unable to join us, I will share your child's story with you at our upcoming conference. Our next unit focuses on the craft of revision.
Math: We will be completing unit 5 this week. The children will be working with the "What's My Rule?" routine - finding and applying rules, finding the output and input numbers for given rules, and using the function machine. We'll take the unit 5 assessment. Watch for it to come home later this week. We will also celebrate the 100th day of school on Friday! Can you believe we will have been in school for 100 days? Wow! Time flies! The children will be involved in several activities that revolve around the number 100. Please note on the homework calendar that your child has been assigned to bring in 100 pieces of a particular ingredient for our 100th Day Snack Mix. Please be sure to have these in by Wednesday.
Science: The children have been paired with partners and are working hard on a research project on a particular planet. They have worked both in the computer lab and in the classroom. They will soon be deciding how they would like to present their research. Then, they'll become the teachers when they present their projects and "teach" a class of older lower school students about the planets!
Special Note:
Sam's mother, Julia Wenniger, would love to be a fill-in for volunteers if you can't make it. She would need a little advance notice. Please contact me if you need her number or email address.
Volunteers this week:
- Tuesday - Art - 12:05 - Debbie Boensch
- Wednesday - Math Game - 1:15 (note time change) - Natalie Ames
- Thursday - Library Check-out - 12:00 - Kimberly Burke
- Friday - Parent Reader - 2:15 - Kelli Cross
"Aesop's Fables" will be performed in the Recreation Gym on Tuesday, February 7th at 1:00 p.m. You are welcome to join your child in watching the performance.
Conference Day - Thursday, February 9th - no school for students
No school on Friday, February 17th - Professional Development Day for teachers
No school on Monday, February 20th - President's Day
Class Picture Day - Wednesday, February 29th
Field Trip to the Science Center Planetarium - Wednesday, February 29th
Science Week - February 27th - March 8th
Oldie Goldie Book Fair - Friday, February 24th - Begin gathering books to donate now!
Field Day - Friday, March 9th
Ident-a-Kid - Wednesday, March 21st
Whew! That's all for now! Have a wonderful week and enjoy the beautiful Florida weather!
Susan
No comments:
Post a Comment