January 5 - 9

Happy 2015!! To tell you the truth, I always struggle waking up and coming back after a long break, but it only takes one smiling face, or hug from one of my darling students and it's like I've never left.  I hope that you all had a lovely holiday season.  Today, it was so much fun to watch my students build snowmen at break--we had perfect snowball building weather and snow.  I love my job and I love first graders!

I sent home January's reading record today.  The December reading record is now due!  It needs to be handed in by Friday, January 9.  That date is the end of the 2nd quarter.  I will get grades together and send a printout next week, probably next Thursday.

Next week on Thursday, January 15 our class will be taking the second installment of the DIBELS reading test.  I sent home a double-sided paper today filled with "nonsense words".  Please help your child with these words as they will be tested on similar types of nonsense words on the test.  The goal is to have the students read the "whole word".  The words are all in CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) form and all of the vowels will be short sounds.  Some students will say "fail" for "fal" for example.  You can use this as part of your 20 minutes of reading time.

We finally started chapter 5 in math today.  Today we worked on story problems where there was a missing part.  I taught my students that they could use several strategies to figure out the missing part.  They could "add" or "subtract" to find the answer.  It depends on the individual child which strategy they prefer and makes sense to them--sometimes they use one strategy for one problem and then the next time use a different strategy.  Thanks for helping keep up with your child's math homework.

I'm giving you a heads up about our school's Multicultural Night/Curriculum Night on January 29 at 6:00.  Our class will "perform" a little reader's theater on the water cycle that night.  Watch for a part to come home next week.  We will practice that in class too.  Mark your calendars for that night.  If any if you know now that you will not be able to make it that night let me know so that I can adjust "parts" if necessary.

I left my camera at home so I will try and load the Christmas pictures (gingerbread house building) onto my computer and add them to this blog later in the week.  (I can't make any promises, but I will try :)

Happy Reading!