Mrs. Armstrong's Awesome First Grade: Newsletter September 17- 21

Today I sent home two math booklets with your child. One is our "Classroom Number Book" (bright green). Most of my students completed this booklet in class, but some were absent for a few days and did not finish all of the pages in class. If you child did not complete the pages in class I put a post-it note on the booklets asking you to help them complete it at home. These Classroom Number books are worth 25 points. Send those back with your child when you have completed the pages and I will update their scores.

The other booklet is the "Family Number Book" (bright orange). This is a homework assignment and will be due October 1st, but it can be turned in anytime before that date. Your child will complete it using the same format as our Classroom Number Book, but find objects from their individual homes. I have included a best work example from McKenlee's "Classroom Number Book" as an example. When your child brings this booklet back I will have them share one page with our class. This assignment will be worth 25 points.

We received our new math program. It is called enVision math, and it closely correlates with the new Common Core. It is a bright, colorful, interactive, and technology- based program that I think my students will greatly learn from and enjoy. I will start implementing that program in my classroom this Wednesday. Right now I do not anticipate homework with that program, but may in the future start sending home nightly math homework. So, please watch this blog for information about possible math homework.

Today we started practicing our Reading group schedule. We still need practice on quiet voices during our Daily Five Centers, but I know it will improve as we continue to work on it. For your information, our "Daily Five" centers are five reading activities that your child participates in while I am working with students. They are "Read to Self", "Listen to Reading", "Word Work", "Work on
Writing", and "Read to Someone". Our DIBELS test has been moved to this Thursday, September 20. Please have your child here at school that day because that testing helps us to correctly place your child in a reading group.

I was told that some of you who use mobile devices to read this blog cannot see the sidebar. I was informed that if you scroll down to the bottom and click "view web version" you will be able to see the desktop version. If that doesn't work for you, I will play around with my settings and see what I can do.

Please continue to help your child with the sight word lists and have them read to you for 20 minutes each school night. So many of you are using the Take-home library as a resource. Reading the Take-Home books counts as part of your child's 20 minutes of reading. Remember to have your child read these books more than once. The Take-Home library is a Monday through Thursday service. Still send the books back with your child on Thursday, but your child will not receive a Take-home book on Friday.

Look for new spelling words in your child's homework folder today. The sentence for this week is "I can hop." Also, look for an East Elementary t-shirt order form, and information about the PTA sponsored reflections contest.

We welcomed another student today. Taylor Linton is now joining us. I was so grateful for my cute first graders as they welcomed her in with kindness and helped show her the ropes.

I am going to post some pictures of our classroom happenings. Enjoy and Happy Reading!