Newsletter September 8 - 11

I hope that you all had a nice three day weekend.  I heard many stories of visits to the Iron County Fair this weekend.

Today I sent home several papers from the reading practice book.  Many of these papers are short stories that would be perfect to use for reading at home with your child.  Remember that you were given a pink reading calendar on September 1st and I now expect that you read with your child each night for about 15 minutes. If you choose to read these stories have your child reread them until they become fluent.  That means that they shouldn't be sounding out every word.  It is beneficial to reread the same text.  You will also find a worksheet labeled 11.3.  Please complete this with your child, it does not have to be returned, but you can count it as part of all of the nightly reading. I sent home also a paper marked 7b-1.  This is a note about what we will be discussing and learning about in the "Listening and Learning" section of the reading program.  We have already listened to "The Little Half-Chick" and the "Noisy Crowded House" and discussed the lessons learned through these folktales.  Last week we took a quiz on the fables we have learned about and most of my students got every fable correct.  That quiz is in your child's folder today.

Speaking of folders, please send your homework folder back with your child everyday.  Most of you are doing that.  I appreciate it.  Some days there won't be anything in them, but like today there are several papers, that need to go home.  Using the folder as you know keeps those important papers together.

Today please look for the Scholastic Reading fliers.  I sent the September book orders home along with a note.  Those orders will be due, on Tuesday, September 15.  The easiest way to order books is to use our class code that I provided on the note, but you can also send back the order with a check made out to Scholastic.  You do not need to send more than one check even if you place an order from the two different catalogs.  You can also find the code on the right sidebar of this blog (it will be permanently posted there).  Of course, ordering books through Scholastic is an optional thing, but it's a great way to get wonderful titles in your home.  Most of the time there are books for just $1.00.  Ordering books too gets us more titles for our classroom.

We finished our beginning of the year reading assessments today.  I am hoping that we can start differentiated reading groups next Monday, September 14. That will depend on if the reading specialist and her wonderful aides, are able to meet with us (the first grade teachers) and we can place all students in an appropriate group.  If your child will benefit from a reading intervention group, I will inform you of that action. I had several volunteers sign up for reading help.  If the reading groups are set up next week, which I think they will be, then I would like you to start next week. I will e-mail you privately and remind you of the day and the time that you signed up to help.  This will help me greatly!  If you didn't sign up at Back-to-School night and would like to now help please let me know.  I will need help everyday from 9:45-10:30.

We are  a lesson behind schedule in math.  On the schedule stapled to your child's folder, it states that homework for tonight will be 1.7.  We completed 1.6 today in class. You can just back up one day on that schedule.  The packets will still be due, on Monday, September 14.  We will test on Wednesday, September 16.

If you haven't returned the Take-home library permission slip please do that ASAP.  If you need another one let me know and I will send it with your child (it is on bright orange paper).  I want to start that this next Monday, September 14.  I will include more detailed instructions on how that works in next week's newsletter.

We are happy that Kollen will return to our class tomorrow.  He attended the first day, but then after a short "move" has returned to East Elementary. We now have 23 students in our class.  Thanks again for sending morning snacks and for helping your child succeed in school.