Newsletter January 3 - January 6

Welcome Back and Happy New Year!  It's always so hard to wake up the first day back after a break (at least it is for the teacher), but as soon as we/I get here it's like we haven't missed a beat.  Since it is the time of year for goal setting, and we still have 1/2 of the year remaining, consider making some goals to continue or resume reading with your child faithfully each night.  I say this all of the time and will say it again and again; reading with your child benefits them so much and sets in motion a lifetime of learning.

Here are this week's happenings:

• I will attempt to get a Power school printout sent home by this Friday for the second quarter.  Power School on our end has been very slow and frustrating this year (new program) and I still have a pile of assignments to put in.  I have taken them home and plan to have them done by this Friday.  I will send a remind notice when I have sent those home.  If you have any questions about those grade printouts you can send me an e-mail or send back the printout with the questions highlighted.  
• The December Reading calendar is now due.  I sent home the January calendar home today.  I will issue a certificate and a treat to those that have the December calendar returned by this Friday, January 6.
• I sent home some "take home" sheets from our CKLA reading program.  One is a Chimps story that your child can reread and the other is a list of words that can be cut up and practiced.  Those words have the /ar/, /or/, and /er/ spellings that we have been working on.  You don't have to do those things, but if you decide to do those they can count for part of your child's ten minutes of reading.  Sometimes "mixing" things up like that helps with the motivation factor :)
• Spelling words were sent home today.  The test will be next Monday, January 9.  You will notice that these words are getting more difficult--these words are all two-syllable words.  That may mean that some may have to spend a few minutes studying these words at home--again if you spend time studying spelling words you can count that towards the ten minutes of "reading" time.  
• We will take our mid-year DIBELS test next Thursday, January 12.  Reading intervention groups will be reassigned after that assessment.  If your child is not currently in a reading intervention group and after the assessment could benefit from a group I will inform you of this change via e-mail.  If your child's placement remains unchanged, I will not send you an e-mail.  I will also contact you if your child after the assessment falls in the "at risk" category--we can then decide to get together and figure out how to best meet your child's needs. 
• SEP week is coming up--it is scheduled for January 30 - February 3. 
• We are still learning about Ancient Egypt--my plan to finish before the break did not come to fruition.  Today we learned about the Great Sphinx and will in the following days learn about King Tut.  In math we started Unit 7--Comparing Numbers.  Today we learned the symbol for greater than and less than and  that we look at the tens place first when comparing two-digit numbers. 
• Take-home books resumed today.  I will send home notes tomorrow with those that have not returned their books in a long time.  

This is such a great time for growth for first graders!  I am always amazed at what happens the last half of the year.  I think that 2017 in our classroom is going to fly by and be filled with lots of learning.

Happy Reading!